Interviewing For Cultural Fit

Army Photography Contest - 2007 - FMWRC - Arts and Crafts - Eye of the Holder, a photo by familymwr on Flickr.

I spent the weekend visiting colleges with my son. All three institutions had an excellent curriculum;  four years at any of these schools would prepare him well for a career and a life. We concluded the only way to figure out which will be the best-matched school is for him to decide where he best fits in.

Companies have gotten smarter about interviewing for more than your skill set and the ability to do the job. They try to determine if you are a cultural fit for them as well. If they aren’t, they’d better be. Companies are notorious for making costly mistakes in this area, particularly when they are replacing someone at the executive level.

No matter what your career level, are you able to discern if the company culture will be a good fit for you?

Your first step in a job search is likely to look for roles at a competitor for an obvious fit. But sometimes that’s the worst choice you can make. Look beyond the job description. Arrive at the job interview about fifteen minutes early (no earlier!) and observe how the workers dress and interact with one another.  Do you see an open environment or a row of cubicles and offices?  Do you get a hushed sense of formality or sterility, or is the floor abuzz with conversation and collaboration?

You know the end of the interview where the interviewer asks if you have any questions? This is a golden opportunity to assess for cultural fit:

Questions like “How frequent are team meetings?” or “What is the chain of command if I come upon a problem I can’t solve myself?” will yield hints if the role requires that you be a lone ranger or a collaborator. The answers will indicate if the chain of command is matrixed, where everyone from your immediate supervisor to the director is expected to sign off on a decision, if you will be able to act alone, or something in between. One environment is not better than the other; it's your personal preference that matters.

When you research the company, determine if they are well-branded in the marketplace. If you are new to your profession, a well-branded company has its advantages. It will help you develop your expertise because the path has already been forged. But if you like the challenge of carving out new initiatives from scratch in a start up organization, you may be happier in a new or smaller company.

If you telecommute, are you the only one, or is this arrangement commonplace on your team?

Or, are you a New Yorker interviewing for a job with a talented team of Cheeseheads from Wisconsin? There might be bigger issues in store for you than your coworkers not getting Seinfeld humor. Regional differences can affect the workplace--your pace might be faster than theirs. Or they might congregate together at football games on weekends, networking with each other in ways that leave you out of the loop.

If you are the anomaly, it might be hard to get promoted on a team like that. However, if you are mid-career without a care about climbing the corporate ladder, it could be a Godsend.

Don’t assume that a larger, more matrixed company is not a fit for you. Large companies might have a longer chain of command and more process to get things done. But they are also a lot more sustainable in an uncertain economy, allow for more paid time off and usually offer formal annual reviews and annual raises. If there’s a layoff, a severance plan is usually in place. I probably had you at more sustainable.

The most frequent reasons why people leave jobs are because of a bad relationship with their boss, or because they found themselves in a bad cultural fit. Don’t rely on the company to determine this for you during the interview. Interviewing to make sure you will fit in, for the long haul, is always a two-way street.