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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."
I suggest some of the following :
...
... the company sees your position as an unnecessary overhead that it desperately wants to eliminate. If they try to explain in a happy way how much more productive you will be in the cube farm then they appreciate you or at least don't look down on those in that position.
Look the company up, if it is public (traded on NASDAQ or whatever) you can find their quarterly reports and get a feel for their cashflow. If they are burning $5M a quarter on income of $1.3M a quarter, they are going to burn out.
Is it a company you would be proud to admit working for to your friends / family / peers / random people?
Are you going to be able to keep your skills current?
Is the company actively outsourcing anything right now? If so, remember that your division may be next.
Publicly held or private company? Too many company leaders do stupid shit 'for the good of the stockholders' in order to tweak quarterly reports, destroying the company in the process. See also : HP, SCO, Kodak, Tyco, Enron
The last quarter they had layoffs, what was the sum of the executive bonuses?
Cubes or offices? The answer of course is 'cube' but watch their faces when they answer to get a feel for exactly how important your position will be within the company. If you sense distain, a certain sneering
Describe during the interview the unGodly 120 hour weeks you put in during the release cycle of your last project. If they aren't impressed, they already expect all their developers to work 80 hour weeks - and expect their devs to be thankful for the opportunity.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I am going to assume that youre not a money whore and that's not criteria #1, and that youre a techie type, not looking to become a CEO .
Some of the more subtle things, imho:
1.) Benefits/cost of benefits: Companies that offer "benefits" but have you shoulder the cost of 80% of them often reeks of a company that is just putting up appearances in all areas, and is generally cheap, or struggling.
2.) The kitchen, or perhaps lack thereof. Are there lots of pay vending machines, even for coffee, or worse, water? This again reeks of a company that doesnt really care a whole lot about their worker's happiness or isnt doing well enough to go to price club and buy a vat of coffee or chips.
3.) The office. Cube farms w/ managers in corner offices w/ the doors closed? Do the cubicles/whatever appear to be layed out in a way to encourage the flow of ideas, or just for managers to keep tabs on employees. Is it painted in flat white cost-cutting paint that has needed a fresh coat for the past 5 years? Im not saying look for wood paneled walls, but it should be easy to spot whether or not the office was designed to be a nice place where you would want to spend your time, or a factory line meant to spit out code. Check out the machines- do they have old 17 inch monitors on the fritz, or do most developers have nice 22" monitors w/ newish machines.
Are there signs posted about "procedures" and "reminders" to put waste paper in the proper receptacles and that office supplies are meant for in office use only, and that employees are not to take more than 10 minute coffee breaks, and to please be considerate and make sure your coffee mugs are cleaned and out of the sink before you leave at the end of the day... etc? Ive seen this... it reeks of low level managers and admins struggling to flex any muscle they have- any requests for favors or exceptions to policies will most likely get stonewalled by some bitter under appreciated admin. Excessive procedure reminders reeks of micro-managing types that will never let you make a decision.
4.) The general 'aura' of the office. Are there people grumbling in corner's or are people generally chipper and interested in what they're doing. Do people have "personality" items on their desk- IE pictures, nerf balls w/ the company logo on them, brain teaser puzzles (especially in a techie office) like rubik's cubes, etc, or do they appear to have a "I need to get back to work" look to them.
5.) Do they bring someone from the trenches in to speak to you alone and tell you how they like the company? This is usually a good sign. Do your coworkers and managers seem like good guys? I went from a company of very cool people, to a much better "job" where my coworkers are generally very lame and anti-social. I went from doing a close to weekly happy hour w/ my coworkers to close to zero social interaction both outside and inside the office. It sucks more than you may think, never really having more than general polite hows the kids conversations w/ your coworkers at lunch (or on the flip side, it can be a life changing experience to make good lifelong type friends w/ your coworkers).