Nobody wants to end up work­ing in a com­pa­ny with a cul­ture that sucks the life out of you. It does­n’t mat­ter how much it pays – a bad job cul­ture and mis­aligned val­ues will take its toll on your phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

And a bad com­pa­ny cul­ture can look dif­fer­ent each time. Maybe the com­pa­ny has a tox­ic com­pet­i­tive cul­ture, and it feels like every­one is out for them­selves. Or per­haps it’s the kind of place where boss­es breathe down your neck. What­ev­er it is, you don’t want to work with a com­pa­ny whose val­ues don’t align with your own.

So before sign­ing that job offer, I rec­om­mend doing your home­work by ensur­ing that the prospec­tive com­pa­ny has val­ues that align with your own. Here are three ways to ensure a good cul­ture fit with a com­pa­ny you’re inter­view­ing with before tak­ing the job.

Do Your Research

There’s always more to a com­pa­ny than its online pres­ence, but you need to cov­er your bases first. Do a basic Google search and see what comes up. While you should­n’t take it all at face val­ue, com­pa­ny web­sites give you a glimpse of an orga­ni­za­tion’s val­ues, mis­sion, and over­all image – at least the one that they’re try­ing to project.

How­ev­er, if you want to get the real deal, you will want to go a lit­tle deep­er. Red­dit threads are a good place to check, espe­cial­ly if the com­pa­ny you’re inter­view­ing for has been around for a while and/or is well-known. With that said, beyond basic mod­er­a­tion from vol­un­teers, Red­dit does­n’t ver­i­fy the reviews, nor do they ensure that the posts were made by actu­al employ­ees, so take them with a grain of salt.

In my opin­ion, Glass­door is one of the best resources for research­ing com­pa­nies. Its busi­ness mod­el revolves around employ­ees shar­ing inside details about their com­pa­ny, includ­ing the good, the bad, and the ugly. Pro­vid­ed that the review com­plies with US free speech laws, Glass­door promis­es to keep the review­er’s iden­ti­ty anony­mous.

The plat­form also allows the com­pa­ny to respond to reviews, giv­ing you a more bal­anced per­spec­tive. Use both types of infor­ma­tion to gauge if the com­pa­ny’s val­ues align with your own.

Ask The Interviewer About Their Values During The Interview

One of the best places to learn about a com­pa­ny is dur­ing your job inter­view. After the recruiter or hir­ing man­ag­er has asked their ques­tions, it’s cus­tom­ary for them to ask if you have any. Use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask about their com­pa­ny val­ues and gauge whether they align with your own prin­ci­ples and pro­fes­sion­al goals.

For exam­ple, you could say, “Hey, I noticed that one of your com­pa­ny val­ues is grit. Can you tell me about a time when an employ­ee or team mem­ber dis­played grit? What was the result?”

This allows you to deter­mine whether their val­ues are mere talk­ing points that fill web­site space or are real aspi­ra­tions that they strive to achieve in their work.

While you’re there, don’t for­get to ask about the day-to-day work envi­ron­ment and oppor­tu­ni­ties for pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and growth with­in the com­pa­ny. Ask­ing these ques­tions will not only give you a clear­er pic­ture of their com­pa­ny cul­ture but also make you a more mem­o­rable can­di­date with great com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills and a proac­tive atti­tude. Now that’s a win-win.

Talk To Real People

After you’ve done the research and asked good ques­tions dur­ing the inter­view, the next best step is to reach out to past and cur­rent employ­ees to get first­hand infor­ma­tion. If you can reach them in per­son, then all the bet­ter. But you can also do this via LinkedIn, where you can search for the name of the com­pa­ny and browse the search results.

When reach­ing out, intro­duce your­self as some­one apply­ing for a role at the com­pa­ny and ask them about their expe­ri­ence. Clear­ly state your pur­pose and express gen­uine inter­est in learn­ing more about the com­pa­ny from the per­spec­tive of some­one who has been or is cur­rent­ly employed there. Your mes­sage might look some­thing like this:

“Hey NAME! I am NAME, and I am cur­rent­ly in the process of explor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties with COMPANY. See­ing that you’ve worked with them, I would love it if you could share your expe­ri­ence and thoughts about work­ing there. It would be a big help before I make my deci­sion. Thank you in advance!”

Conclusion

No work­place will ever be per­fect but know­ing that you share the com­pa­ny’s val­ues can be a big step for­ward towards the right direc­tion. It’s impor­tant that you feel con­fi­dent about the new work­place you choose. While it’s true that today’s job mar­ket is high­ly com­pet­i­tive, no job is ever worth your phys­i­cal and men­tal health. You should be selec­tive to ensure that you’re spend­ing time and effort for the right com­pa­ny. Root­ing for you!