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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."
1. Great/East job.
2. Fantastic salary.
3. Excellent benefits. (health, retirement, on-site gym, four star cafeteria)
4. Lots of time off.
5. Corner office with a window overlooking the pool or beach.
6. Secretary with big tits.
If the job offers four or more of these then, go for it.
This is really more applicable if you are jumping ship, but can still be useful in your regular searching. I think the questions regarding benefits - insurance, retirement, pension, etc.... are pretty good questions to feel out - especially if you can talk to employees who use them. Benefits are really part of your total compensation package so be sure to include that along with your salary etc...
As I have been hired and laid off far too many times over the last couple of years, I have noticed that most companies really aren't terribly flexible on what they offer in terms of compensation. There is some, but not as much as is hoped. So I have taken a different approach and made known work place expectations - something as trivial as allowing food/drink at your desk or soemthing a bit more technical like making dual monitors a condition of employment (no dualies no work).
A lot of PHB's and such can make small deals like that - it doesn't require them to get HR and Accounting and who knows what other groups involved and they are much more willing to pursue those requests as a result.
It is all part of negotiating...
First, you sit down and decide what you really want to work on. Try and vet out some of your itches you've been wanting to scratch - working on the kernel of an OS, doing I/O for cool hardware, learning the ins and outs of HIPAA, pissing of the RIAA. Whatever.
Next, make a list of employment opportunities you have a good chance of obtaining. Don't be afraid to look outside the box. There are lots of companies who want to hire you, but have poorly worded want ads. The ad "Looking for filing clerk" is just crying out for some data shuffling, web based interfacing, database sorting application that your wizardly skills are well suited for.
Now make a matrix with rows representing aspects of a job you'd like, and a column for each job. Score those that you know now, and call ahead (random disgruntled employees are great resources) for those that aren't specified on the web or in the ad. Don't forget to include things like 401K, health care, smoking area, bonuses, severance, location and relocation, etc.
Take a good look at it and either come up with a formula to calculate a company's 'coolness' factor or just eyeball it and give each a score.
Now, and this is the critical part, throw it in the trash, remind yourself what your budget is, and have a good laugh. Maybe joke with your coworker about it, "I'm such a geek, I not only thought I could get a job with another company that's better than this one, I actually created a spreadsheet! HAH!" Then nervously look around to see if the boss was listening before going back to moving the mouse whenever you hear footsteps.
Seriously, though, the best jobs I've had were based solely on the supervisor I had. The only equations I can count on are:
Any project, bad boss --> painful work.
Any project, good boss --> enjoyable work.
The difference, I've found, is that a good boss stands back and lets me create. The act of creation is what's important to me. A good boss not only knows that there's several ways of accomplishing something, they won't step into the process and become the creative entity - they allow you to create and implement.
Of course, this won't apply if you are a soulless code monkey.
The best advice I can give after making sure the job meets your basic needs (stretches you a bit, is in an area you are familair with or would like to become familiar, meets financial, health, retirement, etc needs) is to interview directly with the person who will be surpervising you and then see if you can chat with 2-4 people who you'll be working with or who work for your possible boss.
Good luck!
-Adam
...ask to see code. Actual production code, preferably. Have them show you some code they're proud of, and some code they're not too proud of. Take note of how well it's documented, if the variable names are well thought out, and if it shows signs of recent refactoring.
I remember hearing somewhere that the best indicator of how good an employer is is based on how happy their janitorial staff is. If the people who clean up shit are happy, then everybody else is bound to be happy too. I dunno how it would look at an interview if you asked to schedule an appointment with a janitor to discuss the company, though...
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
... look for a company that has a good development process. This may sound silly compared to the usual stuff like salary and benefits; however, in my experience, the development process is a good indicator of the overall health of a company.
The worst company I was at had a development process that consisted of the following steps: "code like hell", "put code into production immediately", "when code didn't work and everything blew up, stay late until things were working again". Needless to say, we didn't have things like bug tracking, source control, sane schedules. I only stayed there 8 months until I found a better job, but those 8 months seemed like an eternity. It was the most miserable experience I've ever had at work.
You may ask why I didn't try to stay and make the process better. That, of course, is easier said than done. Anyone who dared question the prevailing wisdom (or lack thereof) was branded as a "loose cannon" or "not a team player". The environment was totally dysfunctional and not receptive to change. This was a smaller company where the decision making power was in the hands a small few, and unless they bought into what you were trying to do, you had no hope of succeeding.
Once I got another job offer, I took it and ran far away. I didn't care where I was going because I figured that any place had to be better. I even took a $10,000/year pay cut to do it. Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you are really desparate. Luckily the company I ended up with was a lot more sane, so it worked out for the best. Plus within a year I had proved myself enough so that I was able to get back to my original salary level.
I should add that the company from hell is no longer in business (shocking, huh?).
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
I currently work for an international utility company. They've recently introduced a locked-down desktop company-wide.
I now have to violate company IT policy in order to get my job done, because they have a 'one size fits all' policy to IT. One example of this is that I need two NICs in my computer in order to allow me to develop a propietory ethernet packet driver to an embedded device and access the corporate LAN at the same time.
Company IT policy states that any machine with two NICs is a router, and routers that are not directly under central IT control are banned. No 'if's. No 'buts'. Our local IT support is supportive of my predicament, but their hands are tied by their bosses.
The worst thing is that policy like this is being made on-the-hoof all the time, but it is impossible to actually get a name of anyone who is actually responsible for it, so you can't even discuss or question it.
So I just use two NICs anyway, and hope I don't get found out and disciplined just for trying to do my job.