HOW DO I TELL IF A COMPANY IS A GOOD FIT FOR ME? - PART THREE

The third and final part of this series refers you to a few books listed on my LinkedIn Profile and cover topics such as Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and the books of Jim Collins which clearly define the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful companies.

The most contemporary of the books is How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In. To quote one of the reviews, “Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course.”

In his prior book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, only 11 companies met the criteria of great. Though these are all large public companies, I don’t think they have room for all of us!

So, if we can’t all work for a great company, how do we know if a company is a good fit?

The answer is to be clear about our top values. Once we know what they are, it is not difficult to tell if our boss and the corporate culture are a match.

For example, I spent the first 20 years of my career in demanding cultures with little regard for the impact of work on family life. When my children were young, I decided it was time to change to one where people worked 9 – 5 versus the 9 – 7 I was used to. It was great – no one stopped at my office at 5:00 pm and expected a report before I left. No meetings were scheduled before 10:00 am and none ended close to 5:00 pm. For several months of the year, versus several weeks, I was home in daylight and could play outside with my kids.

But, when I desperately needed information or a decision at the end of the day, I could not get it. When I needed to meet with someone, I had to wait a week because there was no elasticity to anyone’s schedule. It was very difficult to make progress with so many bottlenecks! There were times I could literally not do a thing to move any of my projects forward.

I then began to re-think my values and recognized I seek autonomy (a boss who delegates versus micromanages), variety, and an opportunity to work from home some of the time. With a home office and autonomy, I could put in a lot of time but make it around my children’s schedules; and with variety, if one project was stalled; I had many others to work on … I now had the best fit of my career!

So the secret is to go through an assessment process to determine YOUR values and the rest is easy. Fortunately, there are professional career management firms that can help you to assess and prioritize your values and then help you to determine their presence as you go through the interview process.

So, consult a professional. ExecuJobs has helped thousands of job seekers achieve their goals – not simply a job but a great fit. Give them an opportunity to help you. To start on the path to a successful job search, contact us @ PR@ExecuJobs.net or go to www.ExecuJobs.net today!