Time, Companies & Jobs. My Story on What to look for to prevent a bitter experience.

Over the last year I have noticed that I have been way more considerate of how I am spending my time and where I am putting my energy.

This realization came to me during my last job where I worked for a well known manufacturer company in the consumer appliances industry to head up their eCommerce practice in their freshly launched Digital Hub. It was a terrible experience. The role posted online along with the organization, mindset and culture described to me during the interviews was far, really far from the reality I faced just a few months after I joined.

As with everything, there is always something positive you can take from experiences like the one I had. In my case, I found a few. The most important one was definitely around my ability to choose a company and a role.

In 12 years of working experience I have worked for two companies before this one. I replayed, reassessed and critically looked at my actions during the interviews. I realized that I was relatively naive to believe everything I was told about the company and the role, yet being sensitive and well aware of relationships between stakeholders, teams and departments while being interviewed by different people.

In hindsight, I should have invested some more time digging into the company, it’s culture, goals and the role. What does this mean?

I’m going to touch on what I believe I should have covered and I hope whoever reads this, finds it helpful and gets triggered to think of additional points to address while interviewing for a new role.

The Job & The Company

When you are on the hiring side, you tend to focus on the positive aspects of the organization, you highlight the many elements that make it a great place to work, etc. In essence, hiring becomes a selling exercise: You are the Salesman and the Candidate is your client. While it is not an absolute truth, most of the hiring managers will not give you a 360 perspective of what the job will look like. And let’s be honest, there are a lot of bad organizations out there.

Now, they might be terrible for you, your ambitions, your values, your mindset and personality, and a perfect fit for someone else. It is a subjective thing, yes. Hence why it is smart to do some research on the company you are applying/being interviewed for. Ask what is their mission, purpose, their values and if that is something that you feel you identify with. Check Glassdoor for reviews from the employees and Blind for additional insights. A lot can be found and known about companies these days around elements like culture, environment, management, etc. so use these websites/apps wisely.

Now, once you’ve done your research and you apply for a job there are still things you should clarify to understand exactly what you are getting into. Here’s a few things I find important to nail down while going through the hiring process.

• Plans for the upcoming year: is the company having ambitious growth plans? How were the previous years? Steady growth or coming from a difficult year(s) and looking to recover?
• Roadmap: what is the company / department looking into to contribute and achieve those plans? Do you spot something that you don’t entirely understand? This is a good moment to ask that/those questions.
• Budgets Approved: depending on the time of the year, this might make more sense, but this can give you a good insight into how much of that roadmap is already committed and how much is still open for discussion. If the role you’re interviewing for is a decision maker which will be responsible to deliver the roadmap (or parts of it), this is can be quite a critical question to put forward.
• Org chart of the department: It’s good to understand the team and having a visual on the group you are leading or being part of.
• Company org chart: You must know (or have an interest at least) on how the company is structure and who are the different key people and decision makers of it. This becomes significantly more important if the role is for a management position.

Naturally these are things you can’t just ask on your first interview, but as you go through the process, you must tap into these topics and collect as much information as you can. The answers you get can be quite revealing and disclose details that will definitely help you make a better decision.

Last but not least, by the end of the process — before signing an offer — take a moment to reflect on how much do you know about your potential new manager. Are you able to identify any incompatibilities between both of you (be it in terms of personality or expectations)? Can you picture yourself working with this person and does he/she strike you as someone that shares the same values as you?

Don’t Waste Your Time

We spend a lot of time at work. Even more so in the current circumstances where there is no physical distinction between office and home. This makes all of the above even more critical to validate and this is what I have truly realized in the last 12 to 18 months.

I lost count on the amount of posts I have read from people being more conscious and, consequently, strict with their time since the pandemic. And while discussing this with friends, it became clear that we were all having the same considerations when it came to “time”. Undoubtedly a consequence of the pandemic and the fact that for the most part of the past 20 months, we have been deprived of our social lives and been working mostly “remote”.

Feeling empty, lacking a sense of contributing to or being part of something, often being unsure about what to do/decide and having high energy moments that are gone after minutes or seconds, have been some of the things I have noticed happening to me during these times.

So going forward, I will be sharper, will dig deeper and will ask everything I feel I need to know prior to accepting or even considering a new job, because it is my time and I will not waste it.

Edited on 1st of June 2022 to better phrase a few points.