How to Evaluate an Employers – When opportunities keep coming on your way, it becomes tough for you to decide which one to pick and which to drop. No matter what decision you make, it will directly affect your career and then life. Moreover, there’s opportunity cost of the offers you decide to let go of because of one offer you choose to accept.
If you have been working for some time you would know that the employers who chooses you is equal partner in the recruitment process. You’re not the only one who is seeking the job; rather they’re also trying to sell the companies to prospective employees like you. So, the way they evaluate you and your performance via telephonic round of interview, the pattern of resume and cover letter, face to face interview, psychometric tests and various other big, small evaluation techniques, why don’t you evaluate the employer?
You must evaluate the employers before accepting any offer because it would be a long term commitment for you and you will be giving part of life away because you choose to work for them. If it’s not the best one, won’t you have regret?
In this article, we will show you how you can evaluate your employer simply by observation. As a smart professional, you already know that you’re a good observer. We will just tell you what to look for. And you would be equipped to understand which employer will serve you the best in the achievement of your long term goal.
Parameters to Evaluate an Employers
Let’s dive in.
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Excessive selling of the company
Do you think there is a difference between looking confident and being confident? If you pay heed, you would see a lot of the recruiters who take your interviews are looking very confident, but unfortunately don’t feel very confident. How do you understand that? Just look at their behaviors closely. Notice their tone of voice, extra emphasis on few words, trying to be more stylish than normal and not being able to look into your eyes always. They do that because they inherently don’t feel confident about themselves or about the company. So, they camouflage themselves under the false shadow of confidence. But you’re so absorbed in convincing the recruiter, you always don’t notice. If you’re confident about your ability, don’t worry about convincing the employer; rather try to be convinced about the merit of the company.
The recruiters are the faces of the company and they convey the things you should look to evaluate your employers. Other than looking confident (not being confident), they show few things that you should look for if you want to evaluate your potential employer about their worth as a company.
Look for signs when they sell you excessively about the company. If they mention few lines about the company, it’s a natural protocol and every recruiter should do that. But if they take time to talk about all the achievements, awards, past successes and the founder members of the company, it’s a red flag. You should ask yourself – “Why they’re overselling the company?” Then do your part to look for more signs and symbols.
Other than interviews, look at the email they sent you. How they introduce you makes a huge difference. The recruiters who send you long emails depicting about their company in detail, you should wary of them. They talk more about the company than about the job. Most people don’t notice it, but not you. You need to evaluate the company and question about why they oversell the company and its successes! Are they not confident about the company? Or simply they’re more about the company than about themselves?
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Errors in Job description
If the company is a start-up, how would you possibly know about them or evaluate them? They don’t have any past records. If you search in Google, very few information you will get. The how would you judge them or better to say evaluate them as a company?
Here’s the simple thing you need to follow.
Once the recruiter calls you from the company, ask for the job description. First notice how the recruiter is talking over phone! Is s/he fluent in communication or gulping words in between? If ‘s/ he is good in communication, then you can go on and ask him/her for job description. Please note that evaluating doesn’t mean humiliating. Be polite in your conversation, just observe and see for yourself.
Once s/he sends the job description, read it through and through. Firstly, you don’t need to browse it for reading the key-responsibilities, rather look for typos and structure and communication style. A great company pays great attention to communication and how communication conveys their brand image, because it really does. How would you judge a company if the job description of the said position speaks like “importent” rather than “important”?
Read it through and if you feel intrigued go to the company website and then check for yourself the way the image of the company is being presented. You will get enough idea about what the company is all about and how they treat their employees.
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Look for micro-managing style of employers leadership
To every company, leadership matters. Without the guidance of able leader/s, the company would not be able to perform as it desires in the long run. And if the company doesn’t perform well, as an employee you won’t. So, you need to look for signs which will prove that what sort of leadership the company is having currently.
You may not always ask directly about what kind of leadership they’re having during the interview session because it’s too direct. Rather look for the symbols. If you’re being interviewed by a panel of interviewers, give the interview with confidence; but while giving the interview look for occasional clues about how they behave and how they look. There are few of them who can say to you that their company is not micro-managing anything. If they say that it means they’re really the micromanagers and if they’re there’re some issues.
If you’re just interviewed by HR people, you can get an opportunity to look for people who’re sitting in their private cabin and working (the CEOs). Try to have occasional glimpse. You will understand whether they’re cheerful or very reserved. You can also closely watch the employees and how they behave. Are they fearful? Are they joyous? Are the serious? Are the funny? Look for clues and you will understand how they’re treated in the working environment by their seniors. And then you can understand whether this is the suitable for you to grow or not.
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Go around, look around
The company where you got the offer from or gave interview in should be evaluated before you give your nod to the prospective employer. You need to check in whether the employer is as true in its core as the faces of the company is depicting. How would you know? Go around, look around.
First you do what’s easy. Go online and check for stats. Don’t forget when you’re hired the recruiters and the employers ask you to present stats, the proofs which can be treated as the evidence of your success or paycheck. So, if they can evaluate you and can second guess you while thinking about their own return on investment (ROI), shouldn’t you do the same with your potential employer?
Yes you must.
Go to Google and then type in their name. Search for any leads that you get. Search in Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter. Check out blogs of people who talk about them. Do research on your own before you say ‘yes’ to the prospective employer.
Once the easiest step is taken, go for another route. Find out people who used to work in the organization and then try to connect them. They may say good or bad about the company. But make sure you either call them or meet face to face. Mere chat is always not enough to judge them. Talk to few ex-employees and then make your judgment.
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Ask the employer about their performance management system
The company you’re about to join may be new or may be a start-up. But the thing is you need to know the approach of the employer about the performance of its employees. How would know that? Simply ask them about how they judge the performance of the employees and how the employees get rewarded for excellent performance.
When you’re facing a recruiter or the employer, it’s/he may tell you that the salary is negotiable and if you ask for any benefits they may tell you that the performance benefits depend on your performance. Don’t stop there. Most of the people stop there and don’t ask anything else.
Rather tell them that it’s not enough for you to know that it’s negotiable. You need to know at least the range of salary they would be offering per annum. You can use this sort of script once you’re sure that they’re positive about hiring you. Once the employer tells you the range, ask about the performance management system. They may not tell you in detail but you will have a fair idea about how the performance of the employee is being rewarded.
Anyone who looks for better opportunities looks for opportunities which have better rewarding system not only in terms of compensation and benefits but also in terms of recognition and promotion. If the performance management system is not sound for a company most probably the employer of the company may not treat you well as well.
Do a calculation of opportunity cost. If you decide to join the company and stay there for 2 years at least, how would you suffice the cost of not joining any other company? Is the opportunity cost more or the benefit? If you don’t see the benefit, don’t join the company.
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Enquire about their training and development programs
Most of the companies which are more about cutting costs than improving profits don’t perceive training and development as an investment. They put it in a cost-structure and prevent the human resource department from campaigning about T&D. Think about it how many courses, books, articles, audios, podcasts and videos you’ve gone through to be able to reach this place. How about not being encouraged at all about learning more, attending more training to hone your skills as a professional? Not good!
There’s an equation called “E versus E.” The first E stands for Education and the last one stands for Entertainment. You can join a company which is about 70% education and 30% entertainment. Most of the companies you should avoid which give more emphasis on throwing parties than building an inherent knowledge management system.
This is the age of being a learning organization. If you’ve heard about Peter Senge you would know the concept of learning organization. As employees everyone should be treated as knowledge workers. And without training and development no company can encourage the implementation of knowledge management system within the company. So how can you serve an employers without encouragement of continuous learning? You won’t.
Whenever you’ll be interviewed by the employer during the interview that where you would like to see yourself after 5 years, respond with promptness – You mean to say in your company or in general. Most of the times employers would ask you the question generally! If it’s a general question, answer that and then ask – “I have a question! What if I join your company and would like to serve the company using my highest potential, do you have any system or ongoing process in place to nurture the human capital?” Wait for the answer of the employer and you can make out from his/her answer that what sort of company it is – a training oriented company or a cutting-cost company!
When an employers tends to evaluate you on the basis of whether you’re capable or not and would be beneficial for the ROI of the company or not, they don’t think about how would you feel! Because employers know that it’s their job to do check on candidates. Then why won’t you judge or evaluate the employers on your own scorecard? Use the above 6 significant parameters to evaluate the employers about whether they’re worthy of your service for few years or not. No matter what you choose, make sure that you shouldn’t compromise on your growth by any means.
