There’s no getting around it – when it comes to the web, how you look matters. The easiest way to separate a spammy site from a quality site is a quick glance at the design. Yes, there are examples like Google and Craigslist that have become wildly successful despite (or because of) their sparse designs, but they are rare exceptions. When a visitor hits a web page, there are just a few seconds to convince the visitor not to press the back button. There is almost no better way to draw in and engage a visitor than a beautiful, usable design. Judging from Viget Labs’ own site as well as those of their clients, we’re pretty sure they understand the importance of great web design. Beyond design, they also help their clients focus on creating “solid web strategies” and developing “functional applications that actually work” while leveraging “the latest online marketing tactics to grow their reach.”

Four Labs

Viget Labs works with two types of clients: web start-ups and offline companies. In either scenario Viget’s goal is to help the client build a web business. The services offered by Viget are focused in four distinct areas: Strategy, Design, Application Development, and Online Marketing. For each area of business, Viget has separate blogs which are named for what they help their clients do: Advance, Inspire, Extend, and Engage. Viget also has a general company-wide blog. These blogs are extremely useful for both researching the company and engaging with people who currently work at the company. Whether you’d like to learn more about what it’s like working at Viget or you’d like to interact directly with their CEO, leaving a comment on one of their blog is a surefire way to begin the conversation.

Since they’re such a web savvy company, there is a ton of information available about Viget on the web. Beyond the blogs there are Twitter accounts and Flickr pages. We also found this gem that answers one of the most important questions that you’ll have about Viget, especially if you’re going into an interview. How do you say Viget? Here’s a hint, it rhymes with “dig it.”

Working at Viget

It should be no big surprise that Viget’s Careers page is outstanding. It’s not only beautiful, but it’s also loaded with helpful information and extremely easy to navigate. Beyond listing their job openings right on their Careers page (seems like common sense, but it often takes 3 or 4 clicks on other companies’ sites to get to actual job listings) they also talk about their benefits and link to a photo tour of their headquarters. These additions are right in line with Viget’s recruiting message:

At Viget — aside from all-you-can-drink sodas, a casual dress environment, flex hours, informal Wii bowling tournaments, free lunch on Fridays that doubles as our weekly staff meeting, regular industry or community gigs (some local, some not, thanks to a $2,500 per person conference/training budget), and team-building events like paintball or go-karts — you can expect to work in a culture of growth; one that fiercely protects integrity and respect as core values.

We also found a Viget recruiting mini-site called Team Viget which is focused on recruiting designers specifically. The only thing that we didn’t like on Viget’s site is that they have a really obvious HTML coding error on one of their job descriptions. Viget is clearly one of the best at what they do, but having a paragragh tag inside a title tag on a site for a web development company looks really bad. Hopefully they’ll read this and fix it immediately.

Web Talent Wanted

As for entry-level jobs at Viget, there are a couple current openings that seem to be geared towards new college grads. These are Internet Marketing Specialist and Ruby on Rails Developer. In addition, there are a number of jobs that could probably be done by new college grads, although the job descriptions ask for 2+ years of post-collegiate work experience. These include Front End Developer, User Experience Specialist, and Web Designer, and Web Project Manager. We understand that Viget wants to hire people with professional experience, but it’s hard to overlook the considerable web talents that many new college grads have. Hopefully Viget will be flexible with the experience requirements.

Each job description on Viget’s site is extremely in-depth and well written. It should tell you almost everything that you need to know before you choose to apply for the job. Opportunities with Viget are available in Fall Church, VA and Durham, NC. Some positions can be filled in both locations, while others are specific to one or the other. The job descriptions will tell you which jobs are where and which e-mail address to send your resume and cover letter to. If you have more questions about working at Viget or you don’t see a position that is a good fit for you, you can use their Keep in Touch page to reach out to them for more information.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• Viget.com
• Careers at Viget
• About Viget
• Services Offered by Viget
• Viget’s Blog

Do you like our design? Did it keep you from clicking the back button? If you’re reading this, we’re going to assume that it did, but leave a comment and tell us anyway.

We've identified Viget Labs as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• all employers
• design
• marketing
• North Carolina
• project management
• software development
• Virginia

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One response to “Viget Labs”

1. Emily Bloom says:

   May 28, 2008 at 9:13 am

   Willy – Thanks for profiling Viget. It’s great to get feedback on our site and our approach to recruitment.

   I wanted to let everyone know that we are indeed flexible about post-collegiate work experience. We are flexible about the college degree, too, when it makes sense. Applicants without these things just need to have something equivalent under their belt.

   I also thought I’d mention that the “recruiting” category on our blog includes several posts that might be worth reading before applying to work with us. We try to be open about our priorities when it comes to evaluating candidates.

   We have fixed the HTML error you mention – thanks for pointing it out.

   Thanks again for the great post!

   Reply