Questions to ask in a job interview that reveal company culture
fastcompany.com
fastcompany.com
There is absolutely no benefit to a potential employee or the employer not to be up front about these things to good hires. A good hire can easily find another job in a matter of weeks and given the cost to the company to train new hires and get them familiar with the project, it would be a colossal waste to hide these things until after they are hired only to have them leave and have to repeat the entire hiring process all over again.
Companies generally have tech sourcers use software like Gem to spam thousands of candidates, link press releases about their funding rounds, then expect candidates to be excited about the company right away. Very rarely is much invested in selling the company, I think it’s actually gotten worse over the years due to platforms that automate candidate experience like Gem.
I got “bait-and-switched” on some key details of my current job, but it’s not so simple at all to just leave. Hiring managers don’t like job hoppers, they will wonder if you got fired, whatever.
The idea that candidates are swamped with multiple offers is also just a oft repeated false narrative . I’ve 10+ years experience, was SWE at Google, CS degree from good school, can do most Leetcode medium and hard with ease, but still have about a 20% on-site to offer ratio. Companies say they are desperate to hire but can still be very picky. And to extent I understand why I got so many rejections I think it ties into me struggling with the “topgrading” grillings about why I left previous jobs, which would only get worse if I stormed out of a new job over anything that wasn’t a massive issue.
There’s a few reasons why the narrative employees have so much power persists in tech - excuse to push for more government funded training and visas, awful hiring practices that emphasize “false negative > false positive”, companies that pay way below market surprised candidates dont accept, outlier stories from rare candidates who played the job search game and negotiation game extremely well. But on average employers still have way, way more power in hiring and this idea that an engineer can just quit a new job and waltz into another one is absurd and false.
You aimed to resolve that uncomfortable tension by exaggerating the power of the candidate. In fantasy, a "good hire" is a rockstar; an amazing, fantastic individual who exists on the same plane as their paymaster. Of course, this one person and this group of people see eye-to-eye; they're equals!
In reality, particularly in the job realities outside of software engineering, candidates and employers are not equals. The applicant is the supplicant; they compete to do one job for a low price and at low risk to the company. Rejection for that candidate is hardship: a month without a paycheck, a month of uncertainty. Whereas rejection for the average company is just another process, a few more days filling a recruitment pipeline.
Such disparity sets the stage for the interview and beyond: the candidate refrains from poking into the gray areas of company for fear of losing the offer, and the company rigorously dissects the candidate for their own enjoyment. Maybe, once the candidate starts the job and sees the company's ugliness, they'll question their decision. But in most cases I've seen, the employee bows to the simple truth that they need their employers more than their employers need them.
or the company fails because they can't hire a key employee.
Companies that are competent in their business operation (not their domain, but the operation of running their business) will not suffer this hardship because they planned for it, and have put in redundancies or backups for business continuity.
It is indeed harder for a human candidate to do the same - but not impossible. That's why the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) principle has the idea that you need to have at least 6-12 months of emergency funding. If you get rejected, this funding can keep you going and you're not shit out of luck (and be forced to accept a subpar offer).
The only problem is that most humans don't run their life like a business. But they should!
The practicality of this advise also depends on the situation of the job seeker: if you are looking for a job to pay your bills, then you will probably not try ask too many questions, for fear of giving the appearance of being 'difficult to work with'.
however the questions in the article are very thoughtful ones, i think that this article teaches how to ask good questions, that's also important.
I think you are making a questionable statement, specifically because you fail to describe what you mean by "these things" when talking about "these things or those things" can leak sensitive company information. For example, you would not want to describe what technology is used for secrets management or laptop security. What you mean may be very different, but that's the problem with the discussion: a lack of specifics. Everyone chooses to take the safest route.
> use the information they gain about company culture to determine where they want to work.
Yeah, culture, that you will inevitably talk about during your following interviews. This is a liability issue and game theory (again, because modern capitalism) dictates that you want to give the potential as little as possible when securing an agreement. Yes you can over-correct and probably do as a company for some situations, but it's better than the alternative.
Depending on your confidence level going in about how many offers you expect to get and how many offers you actually end up getting, your qualification and disqualification steps should be more or less rigorous. If you're confident of getting many good offers, then ask the tough questions in the phone screen to avoid wasting your time.
This isn't really an accurate statement, the asymmetry of the entire process ensures you will never really have the answers you need. Interviews grill you on everything you've done. When you ask about culture, they will invariably say "it's awesome" or some other vague response because they are the ones with the power in the relationship. They are not really under any onus or responsibility to answer any direct question or field specifics. "It's a good company, you want to work here" and that's about it. 5 min at the end is all you get and it's not even guaranteed to be anything other than a sales pitch.
r/CSCareerQuestions would readily contest you on that assertion.
I interview a LOT of candidates, and I make sure that there is always time at the end of the interview for the candidate to ask questions (even if that means running over on my time). Regardless of how well/poorly the interview went, I try to answer honestly and openly, to the best of my abilities. It's not in my best interest (or the company I work for) to hire someone who won't be happy working at the company - they won't be performing their best, and they won't last long.
Some (not all) hiring managers even treat this as an additional way to assess you, to see if you're the type of person who has done their research on the company and asks intelligent questions.
Much better to set expectations upfront and ask for half hour chat with the hiring manager (or even other team members such a tech leads) separate to the interview.
This is not true in my experience. Questions are expected and insightful questions have been considered major marks in favor of candidates. A lack of questions is seen unfavorably.
At this point in my career, as I'm looking for senior roles in internal development, I'm interviewing the company as much as they're interviewing me. If I have to take over major development projects and architecting, I need to know what I'm walking into. If they aren't comfortable answering questions, I don't need to work there.
Recently I interviewed for a senior position at a development company, and their CTO seemed miffed by fairly straight forward questions about their history and practices. I didn't get a third interview, but I also see they've now made a posting for that same job a 3rd time, so it doesn't seem like that strategy is working out for them. If you want senior developers to lead, you have to be honest with them about what they're leading.
Man! I can feel you. However, after these years, I've learned how to be a polite dick: You don't have to wait until they allow you to, job interview is a negotiation, not an interrogation. If you feel abused during an interview, give them an one star on Glass Door and try another company.
My strategy go like this: Whenever there is a chance to insert, I will start by asking which version control (or other quality management tool) they are using, followed by the detail of their CI/TDD/release/deploy system and code-reviewing tool, and then the code-reviewing and QA process, and then how they distribute responsibility and reward and so on.
In the real world, it sound like: "Oh, You guys using Git? Nice. So, do the team also use CI, such as Jenkins? ..... How you test your code? ..... So what's the code review tool the team is using?". Always sound positive, casual, cute and all while professional, like you just met the child of your middle school crush taking by his dad to your clinic for a flu shot. Control your emotion like an airplane lieutenant telling others "everything will be fine" while the airplane is crashing into the ground at supersonic speed.
If they can't produce an appropriate answer, maybe there isn't one[0]. I personally take it as a red flag, and will raise my caution when answering their question from the point and on.
Of course, you have to ask the question to the right person. Negotiation itself is a skill.
[0] You know, even if they don't have one, the correct and professional answer should be like "Oh, we don't have that right now. We would like to build one if it is necessary for us. [Do you like to share more information about it?|Do you like to build one with us?]"
But the article is about what you call the 5 minutes at the end, and how to make it work in your favour. If you ignore that opportunity, your experience will only be worse.
Once you're done with the interviews and they come back with an offer, ask for 30min with your future manager and 30min with someone from the team.
Then you can ask them as much as you want. It also shows the company you are seriously considering them.
Maybe it's not the most fail-safe way to get a good answer, but the article make it sound like the recruiters/interviewers are adverserial and have rehearsed talking points about shilling culture. If you can't get an honest answer from a recruiter to genuine questions, that's a red flag.
Last time I was looking for a job I asked what the culture was like of one place and they said, ‘Like Lord of the Flies’. I politely declined the second interview.
You're asking a self-selecting population. You're mostly talking to people who are exactly where they want to be.
"If you could change one thing about this company, what would it be?"
I always find the answers telling--not just for what it reveals about the company, but the person. I've heard responses ranging from thoughtful to downright hostile.
Managers are good sales people, and can be quite convincing in order for you to accept the offer. Trying to pierce that veil of salesmanship and personal charm to get to hard truths is really difficult.
Questions I would like to get answers to, but unsure how to ask:
- how much do engineers trust the manager and their colleagues?
- how much support will I get for growing my career? especially around navigating internal politics.
- do engineering leadership have the clout/backbone to ensure roadmap stability, or do they just let engineers work overtime to deal with bad planning?
I don't know why attempts at persuasion are so common when trying to hiring people for engineering roles. Maybe it's habit? Maybe they don't realize that people can sometimes tell, and that it has a counter-persuasive effect with some of those people? Maybe it wins more than it loses?
In any case, I think too much emphasis on persuasion generally erodes trust, and sets a suboptimal precedent and dynamic. I'd want my engineering people to be conscientious and focused on shared goals -- not to tell me what I want to hear, nor to try to manipulate me -- so why would I set an example otherwise.
I mean I think these questions are the kind that irritate me, so I think somehow they would irritate the person interviewing me if I asked them. I guess I might still ask them if I had already decided I didn't want to work there, but it also seems a bit rude.
1. Individualism (IDV)
2. Masculinity (MAS)
3. Power Distance (PDI)
4. Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)
5. Long-Term Orientation (LTO)
Furthermore, there is a distinction made between values and practices. Practices are comprised of symbols, heroes, and rituals. Whereas values refer to the meaning to people of their practices. People can thus have the same practices (watching same TV shows, dressing similarly, leisure activities) while have drastically different values. Values and practices together define key aspects of the organization.
Values are more important as you move towards national identities whereas practices tend to dominate at the organizational level. Furthermore, values tend to be instilled earlier in life through family and community while practices are learned later in life, for instance, once one enters the workforce itself.
Some factors of practice include professionalism, distance from management, trust in colleagues, orderliness, hostility, and integration. Likewise, some factors in values include personal need for achievement, need for supportive environment, machismo, workaholism, alienation, and authoritarianism.
The main thesis of this comment is that if one understands the factors that go into culture, one can be better equipped to actually probe the organization thoughtfully and develop their own questions in order to do so.
It implies a significant degree of balance in power between employers and potential employees (ie, there's a shortage of software engineers in general, not only the wizard like ones, so there's pressure on the hiring side) which I'm not sure exists in many industries ( unless they're looking for specifically strong people who are usually in demand and not available ). In other words, for some jobs/in some other industries you probably just can't ask these questions without either meaning 'I'm going to be annoying to manage' or 'I don't understand that I should be grateful to just have a job'.
Does it make sense, or am I completely wrong?
The only power you have is the power to walk. So it's simply that you have to excersize that one power if you want any input or influence at all over what 90% of the waking hours of your life will be like.
It's simply claiming, not requesting or hoping for a scrap of, but claiming, your personhood and basic dignity that you yourself would (one would hope) accord anyone else.
There is no valid reason to be grateful for a shit job even if the shittiness is office politics instead of black lung. And there is no valid reason not to evaluate any potential job to find out if it will be shitty. If asking illuminating questions turns off the interviewer, you didn't want that job.
If you're desperate and willing to be treated like shit and say you're grateful, then go ahead, we all have to sometimes, but that is not some ideal way to operate all the time. That is something you do under duress. You should seek to get out from under that duress and live like a human being.
> 'I'm going to be annoying to manage' or 'I don't understand that I should be grateful to just have a job'.
In this market, lots of devs feel empowered to not just be grateful they have a job, but to find employers they actively want to work for. If an employer got frustrated that you were asking questions, you'd just bail on them.
If you have the skill to deliver a lot of value, then your service will be in demand, which gives you leverage.
Good construction workers and waitresses will get a lot of leeway from their employer once they've demonstrated their value.
1) What's your version control system? (if not git or hg just don't bother, they're a lost cause)
2) What's your testing strategy before releasing to the trunk and/or the client?
3) What's your continuous integration system looks like? (Again flee if you hear "huhhh")
4) What's your typical release cycle time? (lower is better)
5) What kind of Agile method do you follow? Corollary to that, ask them "at which frequency your teams meet directly with clients?" (The second question is to see if they're faking agile)
6) Can you give examples of concrete objectives your typical employee has to accomplish for career advancement?
these things depend on the business and the nature of the job, and just because they use CVS or something worse, doesn't mean that working there has to be bad.
hmm, i'd say these questions matter more in large companies than in small ones.
for question 5 i'd focus on the specifics: do you have daily standups? how frequently does the team meet? questions about meeting culture...
>these things depend on the business and the nature of the job, and just because they use CVS or something worse, doesn't mean that working there has to be bad.
A fair point.
The problem is not really in the technology or methods of development in themselves but the reason why they have them. In my own experience it's because they only focus on product delivery and extinguishing fires left and right, not too dissimilar to the Phoenix Project. For example right now I work for a company that still uses TFS with an in house build system, it's fine because I as hired for my experience in devops and to push our move to git and it's more of an opportunity than an obstacle and they have made that clear at the beginning that they wanted to move forward. But had they lied by omission to me like some other companies did I wouldn't be working there.
> or question 5 i'd focus on the specifics: do you have daily standups? how frequently does the team meet? questions about meeting culture...
Standups are a meme at this point. Most companies implement Agile as "Water Scrum Fall" as a DSM in the morning. Not that it's bad per se, since most companies I've worked for were designing their hardware, but those are superficial and doesn't really answer the important important that Agile really shines for: small releases, frequent feedback from the users, adapt the plan often.
But these days with the meeting taking place over zoom and residential networks, just going still and staring is not certain to carry the same meaning!
I precede it with the softball "what's the best thing about working here" which usually makes them feel compelled to answer the "worst thing" a little more honestly.
As you said, it can often reveal a lot.
"What is your greatest problem inside the company? What is your greatest threat outside it? Which one keeps you awake at night?"
The best I could do, and I'm the owner of the company, is give a vague and overly general answer that doesn't really help anyone.
1. "My company isn't organized around a single dimension that can be used to measure one problem in absolute terms against all others. Every team is working on a series of problems on a month to month basis and in turn every individual is working on problems of their own."
2. "The biggest threat to our company is the one we don't know about."
3. "Nothing keeps me up at night, I sleep fairly well."
Am I alone in this or are people responsible for hiring able to give an actual informative answer rather than some canned response?
> 1. "My company isn't organized around a single dimension that can be used to measure one problem in absolute terms against all others. Every team is working on a series of problems on a month to month basis and in turn every individual is working on problems of their own."
Are you saying your company internals have no shared issues? Each business unit is totally agnostic from all the others? There aren't any company-level concerns you have as a business owner?
Some common examples include: Massive refactors/re-orgs, changing of company direction, growing pains, changes in sales strategy, offshore development problems, remote work problems
> 2. "The biggest threat to our company is the one we don't know about."
This again feels intentionally vague. It seems like one could've assumed "that you know about", as your answer is inherent to all companies.
> 3. "Nothing keeps me up at night, I sleep fairly well."
"What's your biggest weakness?" "My biggest weakness is that I have no weakness."
No, I don't have any massive refactors, massive reorgs, massive anything for that matter. As I said the question presumes a degree of drama that just doesn't exist either at my company or most fairly well established companies I know about. As surprising as this may seem, there are a lot of companies out there that are not undergoing massive or dramatic change.
Should there be?
>"What's your biggest weakness?"
Exactly, I consider a question like what's your biggest weakness to be completely worthless. Do people still ask that with a straight face?
It's ok if you don't have "big" problems. Pick a little one. It's all relative anyway. If you can't speak candidly about some of the problems your company faces, you are naive, lazy, or dishonest.
I don't wish to spend time during the interview BSing people about my work culture, so either I am one of those things you mentioned, or that question isn't really a good way to get to know my company's culture, or the culture of many other companies.
My advice is to ask specific questions to a company; how much overtime have developers worked in the past year? Is it compensated? How big are the various teams at the company? How is performance measured and how can I ensure that I am progressing in my career? How much time and money can developers spend on self-improvement, training, conferences, etc... How frequently do people get to work from home?
Once details about your current compensation have been disclosed, ask about how future compensation works, are raised given out yearly? On what basis?
Those questions are tangible and are much more likely to get an actual answer instead of asking the moral equivalent of "What's your biggest flaw that keeps you up at night?"
I think jumping to the conclusion you did about me is poor form and overly judgmental off of very little information, but that said people can come to their own conclusion on the matter.
I think my broader point stands. You can argue that a question is philosophically moot because of dimensionality, or you can steer the conversation in a productive direction.
That's pretty shameful in and of itself.
By definition, every company that exists has a "biggest" problem internally. That is the point of the question. To say "Nope, no problems here", is either a bold-faced lie or a level of oblivious-ness that would signal to a candidate to steer clear.
Nobody's demanding to hear about all the skeletons. Acknowledging that every business has problems and could improve is not an admission of guilt. "Things are generally pretty good but moving to Salesforce has caused some frustrations that we're working through" is not"massive or dramatic change" and still satisfies the question.
This is absolutely false. Problems are not all measured along the same axis so that two problems can be directly compared to each other. If I have one problem related to customer acquisition, and another problem related to legal/regulatory issues, they are both problems but neither of them has to be bigger than the other.
Furthermore saying I don't have a singular biggest problem that keeps me up at night isn't the same thing as saying I have no problems whatsoever.
Every business has many problems they are working on along many dimensions: legal, sales, development, hiring, accounting, you name it... they are all important and separate problems. Usually if one area of the company has such a big problem compared to the others that it can be considered the "biggest" problem then it's a sign of a poorly managed company. Most decently sized and well managed companies do not face such single-dimensional or dramatic issues. Problems manifest themselves locally and are dealt with locally in a fairly boring/undramatic manner.
>Things are generally pretty good but moving to Salesforce has caused some frustrations that we're working through
Exactly, it's an answer that satisfies the question and says absolutely nothing to the candidate. I could give you some other menial answer "Yeah things are good but the biggest problem right now is integrating our build system with a new platform we're targetting..."
Satisfies the question and really tells you nothing of value. Instead I'd suggest asking questions that can't be satisfied superficially and that actually reveal valuable information.
Spend your time on tangible questions that can be used to make a concrete decision about whether you want to work there... clarify details about work conditions, work hours, compensation, career progression, management structure, meetings, those things matter and are reveal facets of a company's culture.
Knowing a company is moving to Salesforce or some other BS a company says about itself is not going to tell you anything worth knowing, it just wastes time for the both of us.
I have interviewed a lot of people, and been interviewed now and then, and in both cases I think the best info, especially about less definable things like culture, comes out through informal discussion rather than single questions. So actively breaking out of the Q and A style and getting a discussion going is how I would approach learning about the culture.
1. Is there a substantial technical or organizational change your company/org/team is currently executing? (Choosing scope based on who you're talking to.)
2. (If not) What was the last one you executed successfully? (Alternative: unsuccessfully)
3. What problem is/was this change aiming to solve?
4. Did the change introduce an anticipated or unanticipated tradeoff?
The goal would be to understand what the company currently or recently found challenging and what they're motivated to solve. It can also gauge the company's realism in evaluating the outcome.
Can you acknowledge real problems and tradeoffs, drive a change, and know when it's accomplished (or when it's time to rethink it)?
Add to that "How much time do you allow for knowledge work without interruptions per day?", and I might just have all I'd need to figure out if I'd actually like to work at a place.
-How many people are there in the team?
-In how many projects is a developer at once?
Small teams with resources stretched out to multiple projects mean that time off is essentially non-existent.
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Also, this doesn't work for large companies where the culture depends a lot on the team itself...in that case the tips the article gives is prob as good as you can get.
Honestly, I never much cared about company 'culture'. They'll always fib anyhow. If the work was sufficiently sexy, take the job, give them six months to see if it sucks in some other way. Usually you can clear a decent campsite for yourself. I've only had to bail on three jobs after giving them a shot for half a year.
- How are overhours compensated?
- After how many sick days do I have to provide a doctor's certificate?
Both are tough to ask - but they reveal a lot about the culture.
After glossing over the thread I must say that almost all suggested questions here are basically just revealing a high level of naivity on the part of the applicant ...
I would not ever recommend asking such questions directly.
But in a different way. I want to be rejected by a company that doesn't acknowledge overhours f.x.
Seems like you're the type of applicnt who is so obsessed with being liked that you will bend over backwards for getting an offer by a company you actually do not want to work at and then you regret it a few months later and ask on HN what you have to ask next time to avoid that situation ...