Stop asking ‘What is company culture like?’ in job interviews—3 better alternatives

Brianna Doe has a lot of experience on both sides of the hiring game.

She’s worked in marketing for roughly a decade, started leading hiring interviews seven years ago, and now, as founder of her own agency, Verbatim, will soon be hiring her own full-time staff for the first time.

All of that is to say she knows that not all job-interview questions are good ones.

“When I was the one job-seeking, I didn’t always ask the right questions for myself or for the employer to get to know me and what I’m looking for,” Doe tells CNBC Make It.

One that stands out and that she hears time and again: “What is the company culture like?”

It’s an important assessment to make — company culture is a top priority for many workers — and “sometimes you will get a good answer,” Doe says.

But oftentimes, she continues, “What I found was that it was just too vague or generic. And so when I would ask that question, I would get the cookie-cutter answers of, ‘We have a great culture’ or ‘We really focus on collaboration.'”

Letting generic answers slide isn’t always a good idea.

“I had to learn that the hard way,” Doe says. She recalls once accepting an offer from a company that didn’t elaborate on its culture. After joining, she wished she was better prepared for the workplace she was walking into.

Thinking back on that experience, she realized she needed to reflect a bit more: “What is important to me in company culture? What does that mean to me? And what questions can I ask that will specifically get me those answers?”

Here, Doe shares three alternative questions to ask in a job interview to get a better idea of a company’s culture:

What are the common themes that you find among your highest performers?

This is Doe’s No. 1 question to ask in job interviews and “kills two birds with one stone,” she says.

By asking this question, you’ll get a sense from the interviewer about what it takes to thrive at the company.

Plus, Doe says, “I’m also getting an idea of what’s important to the person I’m speaking to, whether it’s the hiring manager or a member of the team, like a future co-worker.”

You’ll want to assess whether their descriptions of high performance match your own, Doe says.

For example, some people will say the highest performers “work as many hours as they need to” or “put their job above everything else,” she says.

But, a more resonant description might be that “the highest performers are the ones who really pursue professional growth and who step in regardless of their job title,” she adds.

What would the first 30 days look like for the person in this role?

Doe says she also learned the importance of asking this specific question through a bad experience.

She spent the early part of her career working for “lean start-ups” that didn’t have much of an onboarding process or onramp experience to help her get settled into her new roles.

“You were kind of expected to just jump in and start driving results,” Doe says. That means she didn’t get basic information about the company or how her job contributed to its main priorities.

Asking this question can help you understand what you’re walking into, how much support you’ll get learning the ropes of your role and the business, and the expectations of your hiring manager and team, Doe says.

What are some ways that success will be measured in the first 90 days? In the first year?

Asking this question will help you understand how prepared your team is for you to join, though the “best” answer is up for interpretation.

“Some teams will have a really clear understanding of the role, the impact of the role, how they’re measuring success,” Doe says. That, in turn, means you’ll have clearer expectations of what goals you’ll be expected to hit, and you might feel more set up for success early on.

On the other hand, Doe says the hiring manager might not have a clear picture of the markers of success in the role. That could be the case if it’s a new job, or if the business’s priorities have shifted since opening the position.

Whether that’s an exciting opportunity or a deal breaker depends on what you’re looking for.

“As a job seeker, some people like to step into roles where they have to figure it out with the company, and some don’t,” Doe says. “Some want really clear metrics of success upfront.”

Keep in mind that generally, “the more prepared the team is for this new hire, the better it is,” Doe says. “You can’t be successful if they haven’t defined success in the first place.”

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