They say if you enjoy what you do, work becomes play.
Hi. I’m Lauren, and I’ve worked for Intergrowth since January 2021 (a year and a half, as of my time writing this).
Why should you apply for a job with us and work with us? I’m glad you asked.
During my time with Intergrowth, I’ve learned more about SEO and myself than I have in a long time. These people care. They want to help you grow as a person as well as a professional.
In case you want to know more about the specifics, Glassdoor posted an article on the “7 Things to Research Before Any Job Interview.” Below I will answer these questions based on my time with Intergrowth thus far (plus a bonus answer).
1. The Skills and Experience the Company Values
Intergrowth is a fully remote company. I remember in my interview, Pat told me that they look for the best of the best anywhere in the world. This company values the person interviewing and their experience.
We currently have full-time employees living in Kentucky, Texas, Washington State, and even Stockholm (you read that right – the capital of Sweden!) Our freelancers also come from various parts of the world.
Skills and experience vary. I was a recent college graduate with internships and jobs during school. I didn’t have anything crazy that stood out. However, my reference made the difference.
To me Intergrowth values much more than the skills you have. They care about the kind of person you are. Are you willing to admit a mistake? Continually learn and grow?
(However, we do need you to check off some boxes with skills and experience based on the position.)
Intergrowth also wants to know your outside of work experiences. Do you like to travel? Coach a sport? Favorite hobby? We will ask more than if you just meet job requirements.
It would be boring to just talk about work all the time. We are all unique and can bring various things to the table.
2. Key Players of the Organization
We are a small company, everyone has an important role in the company and we all work together.
Intergrowth focuses on helping the underdog. We help businesses gain more customers and overtake the industry leader as fast as possible through online marketing, specifically content marketing and SEO.
There are four internal Intergrowth teammates. Our CEO/SEO Specialist, Content Director, SEO Specialist/Account Manager, and Project Manager.
Then we have the core of Intergrowth, the freelancers. We have dozens of freelance writers, editors, and publishers. They are wonderful people that also want to continue to learn and grow together.
3. News and Recent Events About the Employer
In 2021, Intergrowth launched. We took Inter, the parent company that has been around since 2016, and broke it into three sister companies (Intergrowth, Interweb, and Interdev).
We were able to take the Intergrowth site from 3,803 sessions to 10,819 sessions in eight months.
Besides just ourselves, Intergrowth has helped other companies grow. Physicians Thrive’s leads grew by 790% in less than three years!
In collaboration with Interweb, we were able to help Streamline grow almost 300% in nine months.
In just one year, we built and implemented a full content strategy for Now that increased their organic traffic by 942.7%. We assisted in driving more leads to their site as well (950% increase).
Not to mention that one of our clients raised their Series B putting them at a billion-dollar valuation. Another client was able to acquire its largest competitor.
Oh yeah, and Intergrowth’s revenue also grew 55% in 2021 compared to 2020.
4. The Company’s Culture, Mission, and Values
We value honesty, a friendly virtual social dynamic, and teammates that aspire to personal and professional growth.
Below are a few “rules we live by”:
Reduce Friction Wherever Possible
Communication is key. Intergrowth is a comfortable place to speak to the boss about a time you messed up, or a concern you have. Instead of getting upset, they will ask how you fixed it, what you learned from it, and what you will do next time.
If you are upset, take some time then send a message to talk it out. We use various tools so it’s comfortable for everyone to confront anyone on the team about something that upset them or could potentially drive conflict.
We will also do our best and go out of our way to make life easier for other team members or clients.
Be Scouts
We defend our views while also being open and looking for the right information. We value being right in the long term over defending our views today.
Intergrowth encourages exploration and differing perspectives to challenge a theory, Google update, or a new tool. Rather than defend our views, we seek out new, conflicting, information to test new ideas and see if we should change our perspective.
Whenever we have ideas to grow or improve the company or a client, we share them with the team. If it makes sense we bring it up on a call and discuss what it will look like.
No Bullshit
This is a huge part of Intergrowth. We convey the truth. If the truth isn’t what someone wants to hear we will go further to make a negative a positive.
We make mistakes and don’t always have the answer. We own those mistakes and share our learning with the rest of the team so we can prevent them from happening again in the future.
Be Human
We value the small comments or jokes in emails that connect us with clients or coworkers.
Those emails can stack up; it can be easy to forget that we’re all human beings. We take time to get to know our team and clients, learn about their hobbies and aspirations, and build a genuine connection with them.
Processize It
(Yes, possibly a made-up word – but we like creating new things)
Innovation is exciting, but repetition is how we help clients grow every day. If we find out Google came out with another update, we document it and share it with the team, then relay it to the clients.
There may be tasks that we don’t necessarily enjoy. We can either figure out how to automate it or we will document the process and delegate it to another member of the team.
Don’t Just Check the Boxes
Go above and beyond. Think outside the box. Intergrowth is open to suggestions and feedback on how we or a client can grow. We like to share “surprise and delights” with clients when we find a way to positively impact their company.
5. Clients, Products, and Services
Intergrowth provides content marketing and white-hat link building.
Content Marketing Services
Our Content Director and SEO Specialist collaborate to identify which topics to write about and which keywords to focus on ranking for based on keyword search volume, the feasibility of ranking for a given search theme, and the value to the client’s site in ranking for the given theme.
Then our freelancers research what types of content are written about this search theme. With various tools, we have an article that will rank and bring in organic traffic in 4-6 months.
White-Hat Link Building
Our link building services focus on relationship building.
We build relationships with thousands of publishers and convince a set number of those publishers to link back to client sites every month.
Outreach Specialists and SEO Strategists work together to determine which pages we should focus on building links to every month.
6. The Inside Scoop
Here’s the scoop – we are awesome!
But seriously, if you are looking for a place that allows you to have the freedom to grow, then you should apply to be a part of the team – both freelancers and internal team members.
We tell our freelancers to break any of our writing rules before allowing them to interfere with the quality of the writing.
We also meet twice a month for “Whiteboard Thursday” to learn about the various parts of the company (both growth and development sides).
Read more about my journey as I onboarded remotely with Intergrowth.
7. The Person Interviewing You
Have you taken the time to research who is conducting the interview? Likely the first person you will talk to is Pat.
Pat Ahern is Intergrowth’s CEO/SEO Specialist. He has been in the industry for 10 years. He started Intergrowth because we believed that there was a better way to help great businesses grow than the traditional agency model.
We bring together the greatest minds across the world under a proven marketing framework that is always evolving to turn growth-minded businesses into industry leaders.
A fun fact about Pat is that he is originally from outside of Boston, moved to Denver, and is currently living in Stockholm, Sweden.
BONUS! What Do the Employees Have to Say?
As much as I love number 7 above, I think it needs to be expanded.
Why is it that they only asked us to research the person interviewing? Why not research a few people in the company and ask them why they enjoy working at the company?
I’m here to provide that to you. Below are some quotes from both internal team members and freelancers who have worked with Intergrowth (can also be seen on Glassdoor):
Pro: I’ve worked with Intergrowth for more than three years now and have had nothing but a great experience. The team is fantastic, and I enjoy my writing assignments and the opportunity to improve my writing skills. I couldn’t ask for a better company to work for as a freelancer.”
Con: No cons to working with Intergrowth!
Pro: Intergrowth, through its evolution with both Junto and Inter, is an organization that values input from all employees at all levels – including and especially our freelance team.
Con: We work on deadlines, so if a person isn’t comfortable working to a deadline they might find that to be a con.
Pro: The best thing about working for Inter is that they really care about their freelancers. They are easy to work with, are exceptionally understanding, utilize common-sense processes to make work simpler and more efficient, and also just overall treat their freelancers like real people instead of content-generating robots who don’t have lives, feelings, or emotions.
I’ve been in this industry for going on 13 years at this point, and I have to say that I’ve worked for very few companies who have displayed the kind of professionalism displayed by Inter; and even then, I’ve probably never seen such professionalism maintained at-scale. I just can’t say enough good stuff about them!”
Con: I’m not sure that I would call it a ‘con’ per se, but when working with Inter, it’s really important that you be a self-starter, a problem solver, and capable of figuring things out. They do their best to help guide freelancers, but there are quite a few processes that you’ll need to learn. And you’ll need to be capable of jumping into projects with a ‘can do’ attitude. At first, this might feel a bit overwhelming. But I found that this added effort is worth it in the long term, no doubt.
Pro: I’ve been here a little over six months now and I can truthfully say I’ve never worked for a better company or team.
It truly is a team environment. At first, I was worried about learning all of the processes, but Inter-Growth has all of it covered!
The brightest spot for me is they encourage and want you to learn more about the industry, whether that’s reading a book or attending seminars to keep up on the latest digital marketing trends. They genuinely want you to grow and succeed!
Con: Currently ZERO red flags at this company.
Conclusion
When I was in college, I never thought I was going to become a Project Manager working at a company that actually valued me and supported me. We all think we know what we want to do for a career in life until life throws us a curveball and places us in a position we never thought we would be in (in the best way).
I had gone through some hard personal things, and my Intergrowth team was right there with me. Supporting me because they valued me as a person and professional.
As cheesy as it is, to me, Intergrowth has become more than just a company, but a family.
We’d love for you to come work with us. Check out our Careers page to learn about our open positions.
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