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Workplace advice: Questions to ensure a good fit with your future employer
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Elise Eberwein
Today’s advice comes from Elise Eberwein, senior vice president of corporate communications for US Airways, who recommends how to factor in a company’s culture to determine if it is a good match.
Culture is hard to define yet most of us know a good or bad one when we experience it. How fast is the pace? How quickly do decisions get made (analysis paralysis or bias for action)? Who makes those decisions?
Although you can learn a lot about a company’s culture by asking questions, talking to regular employees can be even more enlightening. Was the agenda full of svps, evps and the like, or were you allowed to talk to other employees and assistants? Years ago, I was enroute to interview for an airline communications position and nearly every employee I met along the way, including the flight attendants, advised me to “run, not walk” away from this company as fast as I could. That told me much more than any executive could convey.
Is the atmosphere casual and fun or formal and stiff (think Starbucks vs. a 1950s parochial school library)? Another airline interview several years later showed me how rigid policies can override common sense. Because I was traveling on a complimentary fi rst class ticket, I had to change out of my pressed, clean denim shirt and pull out a stained, wrinkled cotton shirt I had worn the day before because “that’s what the rules say, no denim in first class!” The bureaucracy of a rule prevailed over common sense, and that was good enough for me to know this wasn’t the kind of culture I wanted to be part of.
Do your research right and hopefully you’ll find people working for a company that takes the mission seriously, but not so much themselves.
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