The Job Rating Game

Professor John Sullivan, head of the Human Resource Management Program at San Francisco State University, is an expert on the new world of work. He agrees with Walsh -- and even raises the bar. "It used to be easy," he says. "You assessed companies based on how much they paid and whether they were nice places to work. Today people want to associate with great companies and have great assignments. Don't ask, Which company would I like to work for? Ask, Which company would I like to buy? Is this company going to grow? Is the budget in my area going to expand? Where will I be closest to the center of decision making?"

Great questions. Finding answers takes clear thinking, hard work, and lots of time. After all, most companies aren't out to educate you about what life inside their walls is really like. They're out to sell you on why you should turn your life over to them. If you want to get to the truth, you have to dig for it yourself.

"You can't take literally what recruiters say," warns Professor Maura Belliveau, who teaches a course on "Power and Politics" at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. "They're competing for talent. They know the buzzwords that people want to hear. Everyone talks about teamwork and collaboration, change and opportunity." Belliveau says that evaluating job offers is a lot like operating with due diligence on a business deal: "Most companies aren't looking to put forward a candid appraisal of what they're about. That's your job -- to put together as many sources of feedback as you can to derive a consistent impression."

Our job at Fast Company is to make your job easier. Here's our do-it-yourself guide to overcoming job-offer overload. We can't guarantee that you'll make the right choice. But we can help you choose more wisely -- even if it takes a little longer.

How to Interview a Company

Companies that are serious about assessing talent devise creative and rigorous ways to interview job candidates and check their references. Likewise, people who are serious about evaluating job offers should design their own techniques for interviewing companies and checking their references. If you want your job choice to turn out right, you have to turn the tables.

That's what Kelly Zaleski did. After deciding that she was ready for a new job, it took Zaleski, 37, a year before she signed on to work for SAP America, the U.S. subsidiary of the German software giant. The problem wasn't a lack of offers; it was that Zaleski had very high standards. "My old job was with a good company," she says. "I knew that leaving would change my life. So I had to be sure that my next job was going to be great."

Zaleski had spent six years in sales at ProBusiness Services Inc., a fast-growing operation that provides outsourced employee services, such as payroll and benefits administration. ProBusiness, based in Pleasanton, California, was a highly visible player in a lucrative field -- which meant that Zaleski was a hot prospect. She got offers from Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP. At first she was flattered. Then she was flabbergasted at how much work she had to do to make her decision. "I did lots of digging before I made my final choice," she says.

Zaleski was painstakingly methodical about determining what she wanted from her new job. She considered everything -- the length of the commute, how much she'd have to travel, and most important, the skills she would learn and the people she would work with. She was just as methodical about searching for information on which companies best met her criteria.

Whenever companies interviewed her, she interviewed them. She asked to speak with her would-be peers, people who would be above her in the hierarchy, and people who worked with the customers she might work with. "I talked to as many people as I could, and I asked lots of questions," Zaleski reports. "I took detailed notes at every meeting. I kept folders on each company. I asked the same questions every time: How are you treated? How does the company treat its customers? Is there anything you wished you knew before you came here?"

They weren't easy interviews to conduct. "Most people are helping their bosses recruit," she warns. "They're like salespeople. They give you the good news. You need the truth: What's it really like to work there? Getting helpful answers depends on how you ask the questions. You have to be subtle. You have to prepare. Make a list of the things that are important to you and ask questions that cover every inch of that ground."

Dan Walsh couldn't agree more. "You should interview the company as much as it interviews you," he says. "And that should make you more attractive. Companies like people who are confident enough to say, 'This job has to suit me.' It's a two-way street now. You can't think of it as selfish or unappreciative to expect honest answers to tough questions."