What is average employment vintage for an individual/professional? According to recent research it is less than 3 years! Yes you heard it right. For the first 6 months you like everything about your new job/role & you feel complacent with your career switch. However, you realise soon that something is not going right for you? It is about mismatch between expectations you have about the company culture & reality! In other words- there is a lack of cultural fit. The following paragraphs will discuss in detail how asking some smart questions can go a long way in helping you evaluate whether there is a cultural fit between organisation’s actual culture & your expectations before accepting the offer
A company’s culture is very difficult to capture since almost everything is implicit. The culture can include some or all of the following:
- How ideas are generated
- How employees are promoted & appreciated.
- Internal growth for employees
- Work-Life Balance.
- Feedback Mechanism
- Level of empowerment for employees to make customers happy.
Companies with smart leadership strive to take the company’s goal forward. For instance, a start-up with innovation as its core value & building blocks may translate that value into a flexible arrangement where employees are not required to do a daily reporting of their deliverables but rather can determine their own schedule. A large organisation might have a policy of encouraging employees across levels & divisions to come up with ideas & innovation that may drive further growth. It does not matter whether the implemented idea comes from a trainee or a CEO.
An organisation culture has a huge impact on your career development. For instance, you are looking to join a corporation that can help your professional development, you would look for an organisation that has a policy of employment development & training & encourages you to take advantage of them. So what steps you should take to assess a company’s culture before you take up a job/accept an offer:
- Do your background research: As a job seeker, this is in any case your first step- going through the company’s website in detail. What does the website say about their culture? About their stated values? Do they offer opportunities for professional & career development? What do they emphasise on- work-life balance?, collaborative decision making? team work? Or individual performance? Take note of it if the company does not talk about their culture on their website. However, do not assume their claims on their website to be correct. Check our websites to find more about reviews of the company that can give great insights about what current & former employees think about organisation as a whole & jobs. Look for consensus opinion.
- Build Connections: Besides websites, look for connecting with people on various professional websites such as LinkedIn who are currently working or have worked there recently( in case you do not have anyone in your network working/having worked wih the company in the past). Reach out to them & ask if they do not mind sharing a bit about the work & organisation as such. Keep it professional & remember whatever you ask may go back to the hiring manager or HR folks of the company.
- Check the news: Search company across various social media platforms & websites such as twitter & google to learn more about current happenings in the company. Has the company been on a growth spectrum or have been laying off employees or doing pay cuts? Has the company under some sort of scrutiny recently? Has the CEO been fired? Learning about what issues the organisation has been facing & how they dealt with them can give you a fair idea about how employees may be feeling about company & jobs overall. It can also give you ammunition to ask about specific things in the interview.
- Team Dynamics: In a small organisation, a team culture driven & promoted by leadership can permeates throughout the organisation. However in large organisations, usually micro team culture develops. You should pose questions to the person interviewing about what the team leader thinks about the policies you have studied/researched. If you are gone far in the hiring process & seriously considering joining, ask if you can come in & spend some hours with the prospective team for a meeting.
- Ask specific/earmarked questions: For both the team/hiring manager your interview with & current/formal employees informally, have a set of questions that can set perspective whether the organisation is for you! You should ask questions like :
- What does success look like here:
- Can you share some examples of people who grew internally
- Can you share some specific instances how this team handled a particular change.
Asking for examples/specific instances will demonstrate if what company claims sync with what it actually does
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