Q. How do I know I’m taking the right job?
A. You’ll know when you’re taking the right job by asking the right questions and doing your homework.
Leverage your interview as an excellent opportunity to interview the employer just as much as they’re doing their due diligence on you. What is the corporate culture like and what are their values? Do you like your potential boss? Was he or she respectful to you during the interview or were you constantly competing for attention from their cellphone? What are the growth opportunities on the potential job? What is the starting salary and what has the average salary increase been the past three years? Your goal as a job seeker is to gather all of this information to make the most informed decision as you can. If the most important answers aren’t positive ones, then you’ll know you’d be taking the wrong job. At that point, it’s time to respectfully decline the job offer.
And in other instances, unfortunately, you may have done all of your homework, it may have sounded like a positive move for you, and yet, and you may not be able to assess whether it’s a negative work environment until after you started.
Although there aren’t any guarantees in life, if you’ve been able to answer all of these questions and connect with at least one person who currently works at your prospective employer or used to work there, you can hopefully gather enough information to make an informed decision that’s best for you.
