By the time we have a few jobs on our resumes, most of us are aware of the importance of cultural fit to our success and happiness at work. How else to explain the fact that we can have practically identical positions at different companies, with many of the same responsibilities and similar titles and pay, only to love one gig and despise the other?
Alan Henry at Lifehacker has some great advice on how to figure out if a company’s culture will make you feel right at home — or like you’re walking through your day with your shoes on the wrong feet. Here are a few tips:
1. Look at the company’s website.
Many organizations reference their corporate culture right on their site. Places like Google, Henry points out, pride themselves on having a culture that defines them. Your future gig might be at a place that tells you, right up front, whether to expect three-piece suits or video-game breaks.
2. Do your research.
Sites like PayScale make it easy to find out what it’s like to work for a given company.” Just plug in your prospective employer’s name and you can find out everything from what salary range to expect to whether or not you can negotiate for a flexible schedule.
3. Check out the company’s social media presence.
Almost every company in the world is on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or some combination of the above. Henry advises concentrating on the latter two networks:
“Their Twitter account may be useful reading too, but it’d be more interesting to see what they share on Facebook to their customers and the public, and visiting the company’s LinkedIn presence (or just doing a search for them) will reveal a number of people who work there, what their skills and backgrounds are, and often it’ll give you some insight into what the company is doing right now and what projects they’re working on,” he writes.
Tell Us What You Think
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More from PayScale
3 Ways Jobseekers Can Gauge Company Culture
3 Little Things About Corporate Culture That Make a Big Difference
3 Questions That Will Help You Figure Out What a Company’s Culture Is Really Like
(Photo Credit: Julian Stallabrass/Flickr)
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