To quote the American Bard, I’ve been everywhere, man. In my professional life I’ve worked for hippies in the hills, Gordon Gekko business savants, button-down Christian conservatives: name the American archetype, I’ve made them money. I am rich in experience.
Protip: that is not the same as actually being rich.
In the spirit of “memories don’t pay the Netflix bill,” I therefore assert the following: when you’re looking for a job, for the love of Dale Carnegie, remember you actually have to talk to these people.
Business culture can be the making or breaking of a gig. For that matter, it can be the making or breaking of a business. Day-to-day workplace experience is probably the most important question in any job hunt, and definitely the hardest to track. Here are 10 ways to get a sense of workplace culture – this is the important part – before you ambush your boss with a staple remover.
RESOURCES!
1. Comparably provides an interesting service, and an excuse to dust off your junior high compare/contrast skillz. They’re a job review database set up to allow searchers to review multiple positions side by side according to employee assessments. It’s a great tool for thinning out the herd in the first days of a job hunt, or coming to a final conclusion between opportunities.
2. Glassdoor. You know these guys. If you don’t, go forth. We’ll wait. Glassdoor is still the benchmark for workplace Yelp. Reviews are written by actual employees, often with sound and fury, and records of (mis)behavior often go back years.
3. Great Place to Work goes deep. They don’t have quite the breadth or recognition of Glassdoor, but what they do have is serious rigor. GPtW (it’s tiring to type) provides an anonymous survey to current employees of a given business covering the six categories of Atmosphere, Challenges, Communication, Pride and Rewards. Unless you have super strong views regarding workplace decor, that seems to cover matters.
4. Indeed. The best job board in the business has what is manifestly not the best job review site in the business, but a darn good start. They’ll break down your workplace-to-be (or not) on a 1-5 scale according to several things I guarantee you care about, and maintain a Glassdoor-style database of employee reviews.
5. Job Crowd. Job Crowd does a neat thing. They provide the usual employee reviews, but also encourage contributors to dig into their experience in specific job titles with the companies they review. That kind of specificity is a great value-add: if you’re the janitor, you probably don’t care how great the COO’s job is, and vice versa.
6. Kununu. Kununu is Europe’s Glassdoor, with better than a million reviews for over 250,000 companies. They went live in the States last year and haven’t matched that depth on this side of the hemisphere, but they’ve got the backing and the expertise.
7. Vault. Vaut’s a different beast from the above. Rather than being crowd driven, Vault has an in-house research company that puts together the goods on employers. As you’d expect, this costs. Their free content is only passable, but if you want the serious goods, it might be worth the 9.99/month (less with longer subscriptions.
STRATS, TIPS AND DIRTY TRICKS!
8. LinkedIn. I may be committing Internet blasphemy here, but reading the rants of strangers might – might! – not be as informative as communication with an actual human. Reach out to someone you’d be working with if you took the job you’re contemplating. You’ve got 150 characters, so keep it tight: “I’m Namey McNomen. We could be working together soon. Do you have a moment to chat about [issue you’re into]?”
9. Straight up Internet. Get your occupational stalker on. A Google search is, at its heart, a trawl through the greatest trove of gossip in the history of life. Delve into terribly informative and charming news articles like this one. Bone up on blog articles and – just this once! – read the comment sections. Even Facebook is worth a browse. Seriously, who doesn’t talk about work?
10. Get real. If you work in service, make like a customer. If there’s a front-end office, drop by. Watch, listen, get a feel for what’s happening around you. To compound my digital blasphemy, what comes out of glowing rectangles like the one you’re reading this on (thanks!) is great, but nothing compares to immediate experience.
Put some of this together with plenty of the digital resources above, and with any luck you’ll find yourself a gig that might just keep you from attempted murder with office supplies.
Matt Salter is a writer and former fundraising and communications officer for nonprofit organizations, including Volunteers of America and PICO National Network. He’s excited to put his knowledge of fundraising, marketing, and all things digital to work for your reading enjoyment. When not writing about himself in the third person, Matt enjoys horror movies and tabletop gaming, and can usually be found somewhere in the DFW Metroplex with WiFi and a good all-day breakfast.
Pingback: Beyond the money: Clarifying your priorities for your next job