8 Tips for Applying at Focus Lab

Apply­ing for a new job can be stress­ful. Thoughts about say­ing the right things in the way, putting the right things in a resume, leav­ing the right things out, etc. Cir­cum­stances for leav­ing a pre­vi­ous job may add extra pres­sure, too. For many peo­ple, it can be a lot.

I was think­ing about that as we opened up a job at Focus Lab recent­ly. I want­ed to offer some pro tips for those plan­ning to apply, so I shared them on social media. After see­ing how help­ful that was to some folks, I decid­ed to cap­ture the tips here as well.

It’s worth not­ing that while some of these tips might feel like they apply else­where, I’m specif­i­cal­ly talk­ing about the con­text of my agency, Focus Lab. There may be cer­tain points below that are neu­tral or even bad ideas with oth­er employers.

Okay, let’s dig in.

The Tips

1. Tell us about your­self as a per­son, not just your career his­to­ry. We’re often more inter­est­ed in get­ting to know about you in ways that go beyond your past achieve­ments or your cur­rent capabilities.

2. Don’t sweat overem­pha­siz­ing degrees, cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, etc. You’re wel­come to men­tion them and how they’ve been a part of your jour­ney or con­tributed to your skills, of course. But we don’t put a ton of weight on those mer­its alone.

3. Read through our website’s About and Careers pages. We believe you should be inter­view­ing us just like we’re inter­view­ing you. You can inter­view us bet­ter if you know about us. We only want you to join Focus Lab if this will be a great place for you to work. It’s very impor­tant to us to hire peo­ple who are the right fit for the role and the com­pa­ny. In most small orga­ni­za­tions, an incor­rect hire is a mis­take felt across the com­pa­ny. And accept­ing a bad job offer is often felt across a house­hold. We aim to spend enough time with appli­cants to know the fit is great in both directions.

4. No one at Focus Lab is per­fect. Don’t stress about appear­ing per­fect in your appli­ca­tion or inter­views. Just be yourself.

5. Be sure to read the entire job post­ing. You’ll prob­a­bly notice some­thing strange that we ask you to address. That’s help­ing us real­ize you’ve read the post in full.

6. Check out our Core Val­ues as a com­pa­ny (see #3 above). Do they res­onate with you? Tell us why and be spe­cif­ic. This is one way we can mutu­al­ly learn if this is a good fit.

7. Be patient. It’s not uncom­mon for us to have triple-dig­it appli­cants for a sin­gle posi­tion. We put a lot of care and inten­tion into our hir­ing process which means there can be gaps in time between com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Don’t assume the worst if you haven’t heard from us in a week+ at cer­tain points.

8. Don’t shy away from apply­ing a sec­ond time. We’ve had mul­ti­ple peo­ple join our team after not mak­ing it their first time around. The hard­est part of this process for us is when we have to say ​“no” to great people.

Go forth and apply! 🙌🏻

Open­ing Pho­to by Sur­face on Unsplash