How to Interview a Company

I’ve interviewed with my share of companies, which combined with my experience at a start-up and Apple has given me some insights to wherever I’ll go next (whenever that is). It’s important to remember when you’re going for interviews, it goes two ways. Usually, we don’t notice this aspect because as the interviewee, we are often in a situation where we need the new job more than the company needs us. 

So here are some things I do that may also help you. It takes time to make sure you are calibrated to these different bits, but after some time, you will be able to determine what the culture is like and your chances for success before you start.

Research the Company

Glassdoor: read the reviews. Reviews that are all positive with no negatives are suspect especially when the negative is something that is actually a positive. Then when you see a really bad review, read it carefully. Bad reviews aren’t always accurate, but when the pattern is super positive reviews (most likely HR writing them) and super terrible reviews, proceed with caution. 

One helpful way, at least for Glassdoor, is looking at the number of people who thought it was helpful. You're only allowed to pick one review per company, so it can be more informative especially if you compare rating and helpfulness as in these two examples below. If the bad reviews are most helpful, one should be concerned.

A good company doesn’t need HR writing reviews. Some times a startup will have some downsides, and it isn’t that you shouldn’t work there. You should just know before going into the place whether the project is on solid ground or a total shit show. Some times the drama can be fun.

LinkedIn Profiles: Look at the key people at the company. Look at these people as if you were putting together a group. Would you hire them? How long has their tenure been at that company and others? What is their background?

Would you hire them?

Turnover Rate: Can you find people who used to work there but left. You can reach out directly these days and ask what happened. You could say you’re considering working there, but you want to be aware of the situation you are about to get into. You can see from people’s profiles how long they stayed. Anything less than 2 years could be a bad sign if there are quite a few people like that.

Interview

Attitude: How do they talk to you? How do they talk about the project? How do they treat each other? How do they talk about management style? Do they talk about career path or career in general?

“Tell me about a time when morale was low? What did you do?”

Red Flags: Yelling. Any yelling, run. Defensiveness: If you ask a question, and they get very defensive or angry, there might be an issue. Open-mindedness: Are they open-minded to new ideas? How do they handle suggestions from outsiders?

“Tell me about a time when someone introduced a new solution that was not well-received.”

Job Specs: Are you able to work on what suits your skills best? This is not always the case, but if you jump fields, you will have a ramp-up time longer than others. Are they open to that or do they expect you to perform at a much higher level right away?

“Tell me about a time when an employee started at a lower skill level than desired?”

Culture

Ask about culture. Try to dive into a discussion without being direct. Asking yes or no questions doesn’t do well. You have to find questions that dig into their culture. For example:

“Tell me about a time when their was a large disagreement between engineering and the executives? How was it resolved?”

“Tell me about a time when you had to let someone go? What did you do to try to prevent turn-over?”

Big companies are more difficult to read because each department has a culture. Even small teams have their own culture. When I was in HID at Apple, they had a very specific culture, but when I moved to Video Engineering, the culture was quite different even though they are both Apple. Even my group had a different culture than the rest of Video Engineer because most people were new to Apple.

“Tell me about a time when the culture of your hardware department didn’t mesh with your software department?”

Overall

If you’re coming in higher than others with more experience, beware they may not take kindly to your experience especially when they don’t trust you. That trust may take time and be frustrating, but patience is virtue. 

The key is to understand the best you can if you’re headed into a shitstorm because then you shouldn’t be surprised when it gets real. Some times you don’t have a choice or it’s the best of some other bad scenarios, but if you do have a choice, you want to be sure. Remember too, if it sounds too good to be true, it just might be, so thoroughly check it out as your work will have a big impact on your overall well-being.