First of all, thanks for being interested in a role at Thunk. We’re really keen to bring on like-minded, enthusiastic and brave future Thunkers! We’re very deliberate about that, and so is everything else on this page.
This page explains how to give us your best application, and exactly how we review it, including the parts most companies keep quiet about. It’s a bit long, but we want you to get as much information as you can to put in a great application.
We understand that applying for roles is time consuming, and it’s tempting to apply for as many roles as you can as quickly as possible. Applying well takes effort for you, and sorting out the great applications from the poor applications takes a lot of effort on our side too. Reading this is where the effort starts.
1. Before you touch the form
1.1 Give it one sitting. The application takes 20 to 30 minutes. Don’t do it in ten scattered gaps across a day. Find one clear half-hour, put it in your calendar, make a cup of tea, and concentrate. The form works best, and so do you, in one go.
1.2 Spend the first ten minutes on us. Read the Thunk website. Look at the kind of work we do. Skim our LinkedIn. You’re about to tell us how you’d fit here, so it helps to know where “here” is.
2. Filling in the form
2.1 Your details. First name, last name, email, phone number. No mystery: it’s how we contact you if you move forward.
2.2 Your links. At least one link; up to three. Anything you choose: LinkedIn, a website, a portfolio, a case study, a short video, your CV hosted online. Under each one, 15 to 25 words on why you picked it.
Why links? Because it’s the most open way we could think of to let you show us who you are. There should be at least three things on the internet that help us understand you and your work. Pick the three that do the most talking. Applications with well-chosen links, and sharp reasons for choosing them, give us more to go on. They get more of our attention.
2.3 Why there’s no “upload CV” button. We don’t store CVs on our systems, and in this day and age we really don’t need to. If your CV is your strongest card, host it somewhere shareable (Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, wherever) and give us the link. One tip that sounds obvious right up until it isn’t: check the sharing settings before you submit. A link we can’t open is a link you didn’t send. And unfortunately we don’t have the time to chase you on it.
2.4 The three questions. Each answer needs to be between 50 and 100 words. The next question appears once your current answer is in range. Overshoot and cut back if it helps. Editing down is half the skill.
We encourage you to write your answers right here, on the form, in the moment. Not because we’re against thinking (think as long as you like, edit and re-edit) but because we want the most honest, most you version of your answers, not the most polished one. Don’t worry about losing your work on a refresh or accidental tab close, unlike other applications, your work is saved locally, you’ll never lose it. A hundred words isn’t much room. Make them count.
3. How we review applications: the honest bit
Most companies do some version of this and don’t tell you. We’d rather tell you.
3.1 What we record. While you fill in the form, we record how the form is used: time spent per question, how each answer arrives on the page, tab switches, and whether you’ve read this page at all (Good news, you have!). All that sits alongside your answers. Full details are in our privacy policy.
3.2 What the system does with it. Our system gives each application a rough score, based on your answers against the role, the links you’ve shared, and the way the form was filled in. Effort shows up in all three. So does its absence.
3.3 What the score decides, and what it doesn’t. The score decides how long a human spends reading your application. It never decides the outcome. A human reads every application, and a human makes every decision.
3.4 Why we do it this way. We get a lot of spam: applications generated end-to-end by AI in less time than it took you to read this section. We think reciprocity is fair. The effort we put into reading your application matches the effort you put into writing it. Fill it out quickly, then thirty seconds of your time gets thirty seconds of ours. Twenty minutes of your effort gets a proper read and a human evaluation of the links you provided. And since you’ve read this far, you know exactly how to be in the second group.
3.5 If your situation doesn’t fit the pattern. Maybe you use assistive technology. Maybe you drafted elsewhere because that’s just the way you like to work. That’s fine, honest workflows rarely look like lazy ones. But if you think the way you filled in the form doesn’t reflect the effort behind it, tell us. There’s a space for exactly this: “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us”, after the third question. A human will read it and take it into account. That’s a promise, not small print.
4. Your data, briefly
The activity we record is personal data, and we treat it that way: we collect it to review applications fairly, we keep it only as long as the hiring process needs it, and we don’t use it for anything else. Automated scoring at Thunk assists human decisions; it doesn’t replace them. If you want the formal version (lawful basis, retention, your rights, how to raise a concern) it’s in our privacy policy.
5. That’s it
Write like you talk. Pick links that do some work. Give it half an hour of real attention. Do that and you’ll be ahead of most of the pile, with our full attention in return.
Good luck.