CareerJournal | How Cultural Compatibility Can Enhance Your Success

CareerJournal How Cultural Compatibility Can Enhance Your Success
Rather than focusing on the pay level for a new position, how many employees you'll manage or travel requirements, ask a different set of questions,.

Start by learning what kind of behavior the company rewards. Ask questions, such as, "Who succeeds at this company?" "What accomplishments are celebrated there?" or "How do you determine what's a failure?" says Carol Kinsey Gorman, a Berkeley, Calif.-based industrial psychologist, and author of "This Isn't The Company I Joined" (John Wiley & Sons, 1997). "Those kinds of questions help you frame up the definition of the culture there," she says.

Sometimes, clues about corporate culture are evident before an interview starts. "I had my own idea of corporate culture," says Sonia Taylor, an account manager at Allison & Partners, a San Francisco-based public-relations agency about a recent job search. "I was gung-ho, aggressive, loud and, at times, blunt."

But at the new company she was eyeing, "everything from attitudes to dress was different. I noticed co-workers coming in wearing open-toed shoes, no pantyhose, and much more eye-catching outfits. Even the clients came in for meetings dressed in jeans and without a tie."

Ms. Taylor was concerned that the company was too individualistic for her - based on that first impression and her previous experiences in the executive world. These cues prompted her to ask additional questions about the company's culture before entertaining a job offer.