Denise Brosseau - Building Well-Connected Leaders
Look Before You Leap: Is This Really Your Dream Job?
Over the last few days, I have been listening to a job search story unfold. A friend, who I’ll call Marie, has been looking for a new job for a few months. She had connected with what she believed was her dream company and had, by the time she called me, been through the entire interview process and had already received word from the recruiter that she was not selected for the position.
Marie was heartbroken as she explained that she had been through ten interviews, nine of which had gone wonderfully. The company’s employees had said things to her like, “I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but you are just perfect for this position.” She had known the tenth interview had not gone as well as she had hoped, and explained that she had not connected as well with the interviewer, but she was still surprised that this would have kept her from the getting the job.
My first reaction to hearing this story was, “Boy, is she lucky!” In my mind, any company that puts you through ten interviews for a Director-level position is not a company you want to work for. I’m all for collective decision making, but having to get ten interviews scheduled to add one person to the team means the company has a very slow decision making process and is a place where people don’t trust others to make key decisions.
On top of that, the fact that nine people could love you and one person doesn’t means you don’t get the job -- that is another sign that the company is dysfunctional. Those nine people have got to feel totally disempowered by this process, and I assume they are also getting overridden on other important decisions. Add that together, and, as I told Marie (after commiserating with her sufficiently), I would quickly move on and think I had been given a gift by being turned down for this ‘dream’ job.
Interestingly, my intuition was thoroughly reinforced as the story continued to unfold over the next few days. First, Marie learns from the recruiter that, indeed, her selection was overridden by the one person who reported, following the interview, that she did not know anything about the industry and had no interest in the type of clients they dealt with and many other things that were in direct contradiction to the truth.
Now, we could spend a lot of time deconstructing why this interviewer felt the necessity to keep Marie out of the company – jealousy, competitiveness, etc. – but suffice it to say, if someone can simply lie about you and be believed, even when nine other people say the opposite, you don’t want to work there.
Better news, after a day of tears, Marie had gotten three calls for additional open positions and two of them were for twice the money of the position she was turned down for. Phew! Not only were there other jobs out there, there was further reinforcement of how lucky she was to ‘escape’ her ‘dream’ company.
The final part of the story came this morning, when Marie called again to let me know that she had had a phone interview with one of the CEOs of a competitive company to the one she had originally targeted. The CEO was eager to bring her on board (after ONE interview and for twice the salary) and let her know that he had actually previously worked for the first ‘dream’ company himself, and had left because the culture was so dysfunctional. I didn’t have to say, I told you so…
It is so easy to get caught up during a job search and feel as if there is just one dream company that you are meant to work for. You prepare and prepare for the interviews, learning everything there is to know about the organization, its customers and its plans for the future. You think through your own goals and prepare your talking points and the top questions you want to ask so you can get the information you need to make a decision. The recruiter is encouraging, the stars seem aligned, and then – you don’t get the job.
It is hard to step back and see it as a blessing in disguise. There are no guideposts that say, ‘Beware, don’t go that way!’ But, I do think there are certain signs you can watch for along the way that might let you know that this is not the place for you.
- Is the number of interviews needed to get the position in correlation with the level of the position?
- How long does it take to get interviews coordinated -- days, weeks, months?
- Do your interviews start on time? Are you greeted when you walk in the door? Offered a drink?
- Do your interviewers look you in the eye and share enthusiastically about what it’s like to work at the company?
- Are they friendly and approachable and willing to share information about the company culture? Or do they back-stab other employees, over-share about the company’s missteps and create a ‘let’s get this over with’ attitude from the first time you sit down in their office?
- Are the employees secretive, cursory or frantic or proactive, inclusive and welcoming?
- Do the interview questions make sense for the position you are being hired for? Are you given time to ask your own questions?
- What are the nuances you can pick up in the hallway – do employees interact with each other when they walk down the hall, make the pass-off between one interview and the next?
I would invite all of you who are going through the interview process to step back and recognize the many clues to a company culture that are all around you. The decision to take a job is more than just getting the job. You are looking for a place where you want to be. Think of the places you ended up working in the past that were not a fit – did you have a clue before you said yes that perhaps this wasn’t the place for you? Before you go on the next interview, what clues might you want to look for to see if this is the place you will really want to be, where you will be a ‘fit’ – not just to the job, but to the corporate culture. Because that is something that is VERY difficult to change once you get there.
Posted by Denise Brosseau on 2nd February, 2012 | Comments | Permalink
Tags: career transition, job interview, career search
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