Interview questions about company culture

[isabel]

I have a call with a hiring manager next week for a company that reached out to me about a position. The only reason I am entertaining it is because the work/life balance in my current company is pretty awful and I can see now that it isn't going to get better no matter how much lip service I get from management.

What kinds of questions can I ask to get a *real* idea of the company culture, expectations of work hours, ability to feel like I can get my work done on any given day (as opposed to ending my day with an endless list of things that need to be completed), etc. without straight up asking if I'm going to be able to expect to work less than 50 hours a week on a regular basis?

[amberlyrose]

I get this question a lot in different formats when I interview. A good HM will be open to answering honestly and won't get ruffled by it. In this current climate, people are looking for work/life balance and I've been hearing more questions about it.

Here are a few I've heard this month:
-What keeps you at this company
-Do you feel the workload is manageable in a regular work week
-How do you manage task timelines and due dates for your team
-Outside of basic benefits, do you offer support for mental health/parents/childcare/career growth/elderly care
-Do you feel supported in the org. during the pandemic? how?

and I had someone straight out ask me if it's expected to work crazy hours on a regular basis.

[isabel]

Oct 15, 2021 11:35:54 GMT -5 amberlyrose said:

I get this question a lot in different formats when I interview. A good HM will be open to answering honestly and won't get ruffled by it. In this current climate, people are looking for work/life balance and I've been hearing more questions about it.

Here are a few I've heard this month:
-What keeps you at this company
-Do you feel the workload is manageable in a regular work week
-How do you manage task timelines and due dates for your team
-Outside of basic benefits, do you offer support for mental health/parents/childcare/career growth/elderly care
-Do you feel supported in the org. during the pandemic? how?

and I had someone straight out ask me if it's expected to work crazy hours on a regular basis.

These are great, thank you!

Were you offput by the person who asked about working crazy hours?

Because of DS2's covid diagnosis, I explained in my response that he may interrupt the call or that we could reschedule to the following week. I am curious to see how they respond to that, as I think it will help me understand the "support for mental health/parents/childcare" question you presented.

[seeyalater52]

This might not be popular but if this is the real sticking point in your current job and you’re currently employed and don’t HAVE to find a new position I’d be tactful but blunt.

“The position is advertised at [40 hours a week]. Of course I recognize that some periods are particularly busy, but work/life balance is important to me. How often would you say that you expect the person in this role to put in more than 40 hours in a given week?”

[amberlyrose]

Oct 15, 2021 11:42:02 GMT -5 isabel said:

Oct 15, 2021 11:35:54 GMT -5 amberlyrose said:

I get this question a lot in different formats when I interview. A good HM will be open to answering honestly and won't get ruffled by it. In this current climate, people are looking for work/life balance and I've been hearing more questions about it.

Here are a few I've heard this month:
-What keeps you at this company
-Do you feel the workload is manageable in a regular work week
-How do you manage task timelines and due dates for your team
-Outside of basic benefits, do you offer support for mental health/parents/childcare/career growth/elderly care
-Do you feel supported in the org. during the pandemic? how?

and I had someone straight out ask me if it's expected to work crazy hours on a regular basis.

These are great, thank you!

Were you offput by the person who asked about working crazy hours?

Because of DS2's covid diagnosis, I explained in my response that he may interrupt the call or that we could reschedule to the following week. I am curious to see how they respond to that, as I think it will help me understand the "support for mental health/parents/childcare" question you presented.

I wasn't, but I was also honest that while it is usually 40-50 hrs a week, there are times that hours and travel can be crazy depending on the project. At the end of the day, we want to hire the right people and being dishonest about the hours doesn't help out either party. 

[isabel]

Oct 15, 2021 11:48:50 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

This might not be popular but if this is the real sticking point in your current job and you’re currently employed and don’t HAVE to find a new position I’d be tactful but blunt.

“The position is advertised at [40 hours a week]. Of course I recognize that some periods are particularly busy, but work/life balance is important to me. How often would you say that you expect the person in this role to put in more than 40 hours in a given week?”

I like my current job and coworkers for the most part and really have no problem sticking it out here, so maybe this is the best approach. I’m very wary of jumping ship into a similar situation because if I’m going to work like this, it may as well be where I am now.

[Deleted]

I just want to say that this post was very timely, because I literally just had a call with a hiring manager and I specifically asked about work life balance because of this thread and I'm not sure if I ever would have thought that ask that pre-pandemic, but working from home has really taught me how important it is to me.

[momof2]

I would straight up just ask “so what does your work week typically look like? Do you work a lot of nights and weekends?”

And honestly, if a hiring manager is turned off by this question, then they will suck to work for.

[fumbalina]

You can also ask how often requests for PTO are approved or denied. Possibly how long it takes to replace an employee who has left. You can also directly ask of there is high employee turnover.

I would also ask what they do as team building because of it is something outside of work hours that is another indicator. Follow up to see if family is welcome, how they respond to not showing up, etc.

[laurack]

When I was last interviewing I asked this question bluntly a few times in the initial interview- depending on the company (like some companies I got a feeling the hours might be longer). I said I have a family and I’m not interested at this point in my life in a job where the hours will routinely be 50+. Some I didn’t move forward with due to the answers.

I think it’s fine to ask honestly!

Also I just interviewed a couple people for roles here and they did ask that too- and I didn’t fault them for it. I told them one thing I like a lot about this job is I don’t have to work long hours, sometimes obviously things come up, production issues (I’m in IT) but generally if nothings on fire I’m leaving at 5.

[Pilsy]

When I interviewed recently, I was very up front about my work/life balance expectations. Actually, instead of my expectations, I positioned it more as what I'm able to provide and where my time is bookended by other commitments. It was easier to bring it up since I was already gainfully employed and not scrambling to find something new (i.e., I didn't care if they eliminated me from consideration), and I leveraged conversation about the pandemic to work it into the conversation. YMMV, but it went over fine/well, and I got an offer.

At the end of the day, I don't want to work anywhere that's put off by my raising this point. I realize this is a position of privilege, and it's taken me a long time to feel so firm about it. Anyway, since it's a really important piece of the puzzle for you and you'll be no better off if you wind up somewhere else requiring you to put in crazy hours, I suggest you go ahead and be direct, too! We'll all be better off when it's the norm, not the exception!

[msmerymac]

- What does a typical week look like in this position?
- How often do you leave for the day without completing everything on your to-do list?

[goldengirlz]

As a hiring manager, I don’t mind questions about work life balance as long as they’re not the ONLY questions someone asks. But it’s not that I’m put off by the work/life questions — it’s more that I find it odd when people (especially people interviewing for more senior positions) don’t ask ANY questions about company strategy and direction.

As a job candidate, I often ask what the biggest adjustment is for people coming from other companies/industries. And I sometimes ask about how often there are fire drills, what those drop-everything emergencies tend to be, and how they’re covered. Because that gives you a sense of how the workload is divided and whether the culture is fairly chill or whether there’s usually some crisis going on (whether that’s demanding clients or demanding leadership.)

[isabel]

Oct 15, 2021 20:12:02 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

As a hiring manager, I don’t mind questions about work life balance as long as they’re not the ONLY questions someone asks. But it’s not that I’m put off by the work/life questions — it’s more that I find it odd when people (especially people interviewing for more senior positions) don’t ask ANY questions about company strategy and direction.

As a job candidate, I often ask what the biggest adjustment is for people coming from other companies/industries. And I sometimes ask about how often there are fire drills, what those drop-everything emergencies tend to be, and how they’re covered. Because that gives you a sense of how the workload is divided and whether the culture is fairly chill or whether there’s usually some crisis going on (whether that’s demanding clients or demanding leadership.)

I definitely have other questions related to strategy, but I think these will also help uncover culture and balance as well. Things like what their bid decision process looks like, how closely they stick to their expected pipeline in a given year, how much of their coordinators’ time is allocated in a given week (is it 60% to proposals with the rest available for routine tasks, checking email, contributing to process development; or are they 100% allocated in any given week to deadline-driven tasks).

So hopefully all of that together will come off well. I’ve learned a lot in my current role about what good (and bad) leadership looks like, so I think it will help me figure out whether this company has that.