6 Tips for a Kickass Job Application

By Caitlin Zbikowski

Our Talent & Culture team is dedicated to our craft and wants all of our job applicants to have a great experience while applying for a staff position with The Mission Continues. If you’ve had the pleasure of speaking with one of them, you know that they genuinely care about each applicant and want to hear your story.

We have noticed trends in the challenges people face when applying for staff positions. We decided to look at the most common issues, and directly address them here. These aren’t top secret tips your recruiter is hiding from you — no, quite the opposite. These are pieces of advice they find themselves coming back to time and time again.

Answer the Questions

On all of our job descriptions, in the top right corner, you will see a blue button that says Apply For This Job. Click on that and you will see a list of application questions that are there for you to answer when ready. Here’s the deal – we want you to answer these questions in lieu of submitting a cover letter. (Though not required, you can submit one if you would like, there will be a place for you to do that.)

Be Your Best

Our application questions are there so you can tell us things about yourself and about your career path that your resume doesn’t account for or doesn’t exude in the way you wish it did. Through these application questions, it’s really important and valuable to us that you explain your “why” and purpose for applying.

Be Specific

Often times people will write something very generic and broad. Your responses should be your own. They should be real, new and authentic to the position you’re applying for. Please let us know specifically why you are interested in this position – and why you are compelled to work here. If you get into the habit for copying and pasting from job posting to job posting — try to get away from doing that when you apply for a job with us.

Be Passionate

We are truly appreciative that you are interested in our organization and that’s why we want to genuinely know what the reasoning is! Aside from your why and purpose, let us know who you are! Because I bet you are awesome, right? Who are you? What are you passionate about? What are your employment aspirations? What future do you envision for yourself as it relates to work? Let your story and your own core values (at The Mission Continues, we have five core values) shine through in your responses.

Be Polished

Last but not least, we care a lot about writing & editing skills. Please double-check your content before you submit. By proofreading your work, it shows us that you really care about your application and are disciplined in your work.

Be Patient

You might be asking yourself — what happens after I submit my application? After you submit your application to us, I know this is going to sound crazy, but we would greatly appreciate your patience! And here’s why…we have what we call a “scouting period” in place and that is when we spend time thoughtfully and thoroughly reviewing applications and resumes.