Policy: Joining Future Worlds Center
People may join Future Worlds Center in different ways.
Future Worlds Center Initiated
Hiring new people is an important milestone in the life of Future Worlds Center. It is usually associated with a major success in funding and launching a new project. The people who gave birth to a new project now need someone to join them in actually implementing the project. We do not search for "employees," but for people to who we can trust our funds and success. We invest in them and expect them to do the same with others who join later! It is a challenge for us to identify people who meet the criteria for the expected type of work, but also who fit with our team. The "right" candidate has the following profile:
- Is equipped, trained and capable of implementing the particular project and/or tasks better than the others, and focuses on their supervision-free implementation.
- Understands that the financial support s/he enjoys is temporary and should be understood as grace period.
- Agrees to begin on Day 1 her/his search for co-funding, finding new funds, new projects, designing new interventions having always in mind the need to "payback" the opportunity s/he enjoyed, stabilize her/his own income, and create analogous opportunities for others.
All hiring is a formal, transparent and fair process.
Job openings are advertised widely. Every applicant is expected to submit by email a CV, a letter describing the reasons why s/he wants to join and why s/he feels that s/he fits our culture, and some references. We interview all those who submit complete packages and go through the effort of “studying” our organization. In the first round of interviews, each panel member can ask any questions they want and give marks to specific criteria we are evaluating. A blind sum/average process results in a short list of a 3-5 people. In the next round we go in more depth and try to identify those who really share our philosophy, are capable hard workers, and most importantly will be fun to work with.
Self Initiated
Some of us at Future Worlds Center have never been actually “recruited.” We made it here because we wanted to! We discovered the Future Worlds Center and felt strongly that we deserve to be part of this world. And now we are here to support others who really fit and really want to join. If you feel that way, talk to us, prove your reasons and readiness to work hard and go through a phase of sacrifice to create and deserve your place here.
Investing in people
Future Worlds Center makes all its facilities available to our whole community, including visiting scientists, interns and volunteers free of charge. The general costs of facilities and resources (i.e., rent, utilities, cleaning and office supplies), however, average about 500 EUR/month per person. As a non-profit organization, this is a significant investment that we make to support the work of our Associates, and we expect all people to use our resources carefully to support and expand upon our successes.
