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How Do You 'Vet' an Employer?
Not-to-desperate asks: "There is lots of info around on interviewing when hiring but what about the other way around? What do you look for in an employer? Are the any 'minimum requirements' that should be met? Obviously if you haven't got a job at all, getting hired is the main criteria, but what if you're jumping ship so to speak? I'm thinking of stuff like better salary, work conditions, type of projects, possibility of on the job training, and so on."
Monster.com has an entire page dedicated to interview tips. They include things like illegal interview questions or talking salary. Generally it's worthwhile to establish top three priorities that you would like to see in a prospective employer.
Choose from wide array of things like good team to work with, free coffee in the office, paid vacation, general atmosphere, opportunity for advancement, trip re-imbrusement policies, overtime policies, sick leaves, vacation packages, perks like gym memberships, availability of good food nearby, company kitchen, dress code, stock options, medical insurance, dental packages, etc. Ask about your top three priorities directly during the interview, when the HR person or manager asks "Do you have any questions for us?" This will tell them that you have thought certain things through, and will also signalize that those are some things you care about, so it must be important to you.
Or just think about the three-four things that were awesome about the previous employer or other companies on the market (like Google allows you to spend one day on your own projects, and they allow pets in the building, Microsoft buys its employees gym memberships, and I think at some point they were also buy Costco cards).
Oh, also forgot to add that Fortune compiles a yearly list of best companies to work for. It looks like they require you to pay to access the articles (like anyone will pony up 5 bucks just to read a single article having no idea about its quality), but get a newsstand copy, check one out at the library, or if you're a student, visit your Careers office.
Fortune also explains why a given company is the best to work for, so writing down a list of things you'd like to see in your potential employer would be helpful for the future.
Do a Dunn & Bradstreet on the company. Any liens, lawsuits, good credit?
Ask to speak to someone who would be your peer at the company. Find out what they think.
Search Fuckedcompany
Onorus drug testing policies are a bad sign.
What do the restrooms look like?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Often in a interview you are asked for some questions.
One question that could be asked, Can I go meet the people I would be working with?
It may or may not fly, but talking to the existing employees of the company sounds to me like the best, most direct way to find out anything you really need to know.
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/index.htm has information on just about anything a job hunter would want to know.
The bulk of it boils down to getting to know people that work where you want to work, and keep your dignity intact.
It's not necessary to put the word "vet" in quotation marks. It's not slang or jargon. It means to examine carefully.
I write in my journal
I use these five questions to keep myself honest when considering to take a job or to do a business deal:
1. Do both sides gain by doing the deal?
2. Can the employer/buyer deliver and can I?
2b. Will I enjoy the job?
3. Do the people I am negotiating with have long term control of the deal I am negotiating?
4. What is the reputation of the employer/buyer (D&B, google, yahoo boards are great places to look)?
5. Do I like the people involved and do I like the organization?
If the answers are yes to all of the above, then you can start worrying about benefits, compensation and perks. Question #3 is one of the most critical as an employer in a weak financial situation has no control of your destiny, nor does a low level HR manager.
The People/Culture Who am I going to be working with? What are they like? Do they have lives outside of work, or do they exist in some company-subsidized virtual reality? (I once interviewed at Dow Jones, and they told me in glowing terms of their company-sponsored sports and all that... thanks, but, um, I have a life, and it's not about a company.) Are they knowledgeable, clueful (yes, those two are different) and friendly? The Work What am I going to be doing? After almost 15 years of this stuff, I don't want totally trained-monkey work, but at the same time, I've served my time in the tech-support and sysadmin (and other) levels of hell, and like to have some time where I'm not "on call." The Business What does the organization do, and how does it do it? Does it do things, and do them in ways, that I can believe in, or at least support? Less than a decade ago, I was the webmaster for the majority of the casinos in Atlantic City, as well as several others across the country. It was "exciting" work, to be sure, but I had a hard time knowing that my salary was largely derived from the social security checks of blue-haired slot-stuffing (oh my, that sounds Freudian) grannies. On the flip side, I once worked for free for a year to fight spam. The Commute In the early days of the ISP industry, I once had a commute of 3.5 hours, each direction, to work at a helldesk. Since then, I've done much better, thank goodness. These days it's usually 5 or 10 minutes with decent scenery and ocean views, and it's unlikely that I'd ever go for an hour-each-way 5-days-a-week run like a lot of people have. The Pay How's the compensation package, overall? Is the wage or salary enough to pay my bills, save a bit, and get the occasional shiny! new toy? How are the benefits? Medical, dental and optical? 401(k)? Employer match? Profit-sharing? I've used these five criteria to evaluate potential new jobs relative to current ones, and in cases where I have multiple offers, to compare them. Usually, to get me to change jobs, the new one has to be significantly better than my current one in at least a couple categories, and can't be worse than it in any. In retrospect, I've still made some decisions that I now question, but I don't tend to find myself in jobs that suck in every possible way.
If you are a programmer, rate your prospective employer on the Joel test.
You agree or disagree with a lot of things that Joel has to say, but IMHO this test tells you a lot about what your life as a software developer will be like. If there is no spec, no schedule, no bug database, no testers and no source control then do you really want to work there?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.