Remote working has opened up more opportunities than ever before; but when there’s too many jobs to choose from, how do you know you’re making the right decision?
For most of these roles, you’ll probably end up interviewing remotely, which makes it even more difficult, because there’s a good chance you won’t see the office, you won’t have the chance to test drive the commute and most importantly, you won’t get the chance to meet your new manager and the rest of the team in person.
So, without knowing all of this, how do you know it’s a good place to work?
You could check them out on Glassdoor. They’ll probably have a load of positive reviews on there, orchestrated by HR, all posted on the same day, telling you how it’s the best place you’ll ever work. Or you could believe everything the recruiter told you – because when’s that gone wrong before?
For me, there’s a couple of key areas that’d paint an accurate picture, which from experience, most people don’t ask about:
1) Their staff retention.
2) What their team think.
Staff Retention
On average, Developers tend to switch jobs every 18 months-2 years. So, if people are sticking around longer than that, they must be doing something right, if they’re not, something isn’t adding up…
But how do you find this out, because if their turnover isn’t great, they’re hardly going to shout it from the rooftops.
In my opinion, it’s quite simple – you ask them.
Yes, you might have to be careful how you ask it, because you don’t want it to come across in a negative/ offensive way, but there’s plenty of ways you can approach it. A couple of examples I’ve heard work well recently are:
“I’m not sure if you’ve hired any new Developers recently, but if you have, how’ve they settled in?”
“Given how the competitive the market is, have you had issues keeping hold of your team?”
If that fails, a quick look on LinkedIn always helps.
The Team
During the interview process, you’ll probably spend most of your time chatting with the hiring manager and HR, but you probably won’t get much access to the rest of the team – who let’s be honest, are more likely to dish out what it’s really like.
So, why don’t you ask if you can meet with some of them? At the end of the day, these are the people you’d be spending most of your week with, so you want to make sure you get along.
If it really is a great place to work, then I’m sure they wouldn’t have an issue with it.
I know this is hardly groundbreaking and more just general common sense, but after speaking with people who are looking for work every day, it’s surprising how many people don’t look into these things before starting a new role – but hopefully there’s at least one thing you can take onboard.
Any other tips are welcomed – Jack.
