GM what are great questions to ask an employer to gauge culture okay first thing is
you want to make sure there's a couple of different ways to break this down the first
thing is make sure that you know the culture you want meaning what are the specific adjectives that
would collectively write the collective Behavior right I gave you the definition uh that would that
would be a great environment for you now what a lot of job Seekers do is they become highly
sensitive to the recency bias and they they over compensate on things that just occurred with them
if you had a boss who was a micromanager who was not very kind to you and was on you all the time
you go all the other way and you become more sensitive to how your prospective boss is going
to manage you and what I want you to do is is that in and of itself is important but it is no
more or less important than all the other things that you deem important like I want to to work in
a an energetic environment I want to make sure that I'm appreciated I want to make sure that I
have the right challenges and so on I want to make sure it's a meritocracy right I want it fast-paced
I want it slower paced I want it more organized I want it more mature I want it more entrepreneurial
I want to write all of these things that that and it's like your personality so you you need to get
all that in order make sure you're evaluating it all equally and when you go into okay so that's
the first thing getting yourself in order the second thing is when you go into the interviews
you want to make sure that you are asking the cultural questions in all interviews meaning
like the HR person how would you describe your culture what adjectives would you use
right there are other indirect ways of getting in it what types of skills you know are do do
your best employees have in general traits What type of traits you're asking a general question
for something specific that's applied universally or on the team or whatever now the traits that
they start to give you will be indicators of the cultural characteristics they're looking
for somebody who's just willing to figure it out somebody who's you know who will go to whatever
length somebody who is tenacious uh somebody right like you'll start to get that okay now
you're just getting the characteristics now just because I said so doesn't make it so
if you ask me well Andy you know how would you describe your environment and I said oh my walk's
fun loving I totally appreciate everybody we work well together uh we like to work hard and play
hard and this and that and blah blah buzzword this and buzzword that and it's just like white noise
okay now I may believe that I'm not trying to lie to you right I'm going to give them the benefit of
doubt I know they're not trying to lie to you right except that what that doesn't tell you
anything that tells you what I think our culture is what you need is evidence of the fact which
means what you need to ask another question oh so you work hard and play hard um what do
you mean by that that's one route you can go or you could say something somebody asked me about
collaboration here's a great example let's say you want to work in a collaborative environment
okay so you're going to come to me and you're going to say Andy um is milewalk a collaborative
environment I'm gonna say oh yeah you know what gee these you know we we love each other
we totally collaborate every day we talk every day we meet every Friday for pizza and and we have you
know we we go around the table we brainstorm ideas okay that that didn't tell you anything about
whether we're collaborative or not if every Friday we get together as a team and we throw ideas out
there but essentially everybody just always does whatever I want them to right that's not
collaborative right that's that's nothing that's a that's me just constantly directing so what do
you need what how would we describe collaborative in in your terms I think collaborative is you are
gonna show me that you're collaborative if you're truly taking ideas from your team and you're
giving things a try maybe even if you don't love it so hey Andy you know that that sounds great but
you know I think of a collaborative environment as you know you're trying new things new ideas
or you're trying variations of ideas you know when was the last time you got together with your team
they came up with with an idea that you didn't absolutely love but you you let them give it a try
and then stop now I have to come up with an example for you what is this we Andy calls it
the reverse behavioral interviewing technique right they give it to you you stick it back to
them because I didn't give you any evidence that I'm actually collaborative so all I did
was I told you I thought we were collaborative because of some symptoms that somebody could use
to misconstrue that we're collaborative right so I need to be able to come up with evidence
you want to know if your boss is a micromanager how are you going to ask that question
hey Andy you know it's really important to me that I work with some a boss who's
who's supportive but but gives me some autonomy and you know I like structure but I also like
to you know kind of run with things all right so now he doesn't know what you need you know
could you tell me you know how do you like to work with your staff right like like how
do you engage with your staff start warm them up give them a softball let them start talking
you know how would that change if it was your most experienced person what about your least
experienced person now you need that person to tell you exactly using examples of how they behave
that's how you ask questions to elicit an employer's cultural Behavior by the way if
you are in the job search coaching program there is a session on just this and how to
package your questions what questions I go through a number of examples collaborative
micromanagement work-life balance you name it those questions you want to ask but you're afraid
of incriminating yourself kind of thing right who knows who knows where where have I where
of I speak right like you're really concerned about whether that's you know whether you're
going to stick your foot in your mouth but gee that's a that's a great great question and
um you know I hope that helps remember you are looking for evidence of the fact so you
know how I say well when you're a job Seeker when you're a jam Seeker right you want to take them
into the future because you want them to see how you'll operate in their environment I'm hiring you
okay and you want them in the future all right you as a job Seeker need to do what you need
to understand where they're going in the future if they're committed to it and so on but how do
you determine that if I say to you I'm committed that doesn't mean I'm actually committed right you
haven't you you don't have proof so you say Andy this is great I'm Gia I'm going to join your team
uh I want to make sure because we're Andy I'm experienced and I know we're going to hit a lot of
challenges that you haven't hit yet but since I've built these kind of things before I know there's
a seven step process and process step three is a real real killer okay we're gonna encounter
a lot of issues especially because the way your company's set up right now okay Rick you want to
know what I'm going to do when we get to step three you gotta figure it out if I'm committed
or if you're going to be out of a jab because I'm going to cut all the funding or whatever
so Andy you know what you're gonna face this this and this when you get to step three that's
pretty big it's going to take us a while to figure out it's going to take some resources
and so on and so forth because I'm G and I'm smart and I know this I've been through this
when was the last time you faced something like that
what did you do how did that go what would you have done differently and I would go and go and
go like a dog with a bone and you all might be thinking oh my God I can't ask these questions
yes you need to be asking these questions and by the way you don't need to use the tone I'm using
right I saw somebody who said 93 of communication was non-verbal that's true if you follow Albert
moravian's personal code of communication right seven percent is what the words right 38 is the
tone and 55 percent is the body language so 38 and 55 is where he got 93. right so I could say hey
look I want to make sure I understand um you know are we committed to this well what happened last
time you know what Gia last time we went into that we got into this we had a similar issue something
on the same order magnitude so here's what we needed to do went out we got more resources we
actually elongated the time because we felt it was better to delay it a month okay fine fine I
like it I like it right like you get them talking about examples right you need evidence of the fact
and the only way you're gonna get evidence is what you got two forms of it all right you got
what does the future look like and let me see your plan and why you think that's the case and then
you you evaluate their their rationale to see if it's sound if you think that's what it's going to
take I was coaching a guy q a guy was going to run and build a new unit right hey I think it's going
to take 10 people you think it's going to take two people I can't take this job right why do
you think that can I show you that this is you're gonna have to hire eight more people right kind
of thing that's going that way and then if you go backwards and you say okay what did you do last
time you faced something like this those are your two spots where you get evidence of the fair where
you get evidence of the fact one way but the other way you can get at least they know what they're
getting into and that's equally as good equally as good all right folks I have got to get running