The Job Rating Game

John Sullivan argues that sizing up a company means asking "bone-chilling" questions -- and seeing whether people are willing to answer. "Be skeptical," he says. "You need an accurate job preview, and that means posing tough questions." Here are a few of his favorites: What are the worst aspects of your company's culture? What does the company plan to do over the next year to make things better? Who is your best customer? Your worst? What would those customers say about your company and its products? When top performers leave, why do they leave and where do they go? What are the biggest problems facing this department over the next two years? If you were my best friend, what would you tell me about this job that you haven't already said?

Those tough questions can lead to unexpected answers. Soren Kaplan, 29, had just completed his dissertation in organizational psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology and was looking for a job with a major consulting firm. He used his undergraduate school's alumni network to put out the word. The big firms answered the call. He visited his prospective employers armed with a list of tough questions. He asked about the nature of the job, the reporting structure, and the opportunities to learn and grow. "I asked them as many questions as they asked me, which not only got me lots of information, but also impressed them," he says. "They could see that I was confident and insightful, and that I was asking the right questions."

Ultimately, Kaplan didn't choose any of the firms for which he originally expected to work. The answers the firms had given to his questions, he concluded, were unremarkable. Instead, he joined Hewlett-Packard as a process-technology manager, after an intriguing conversation with Stu Winby, 51, HP's director of strategic change services. Kaplan told Winby that his long-term goal was to grow beyond whatever company he worked for by publishing articles in his field and establishing himself as a management thinker. "Then come work with us!" Winby urged. "You can work with the writers we have on staff to prepare articles for outside publication." That was a good answer: "Stu's offer went beyond a job. He was willing to help me realize a dream. Now, if I ever decide to leave HP, I'll have articles to my name as well as a résumé -- and that's material that I can take to my next job, or use to find clients if I start my own firm."

Nothing Beats Being There

As that management sage Yogi Berra once noted, "You can observe a lot by watching." Most people exploring a job with a company make a visit, if only to conduct a round of interviews and meet some of the people they'll be working with. That's fine, as far as it goes. But it doesn't go nearly far enough. You should treat visits to a company the way detectives treat a crime scene -- as a rich source of clues, both obvious and concealed.

"Companies design their headquarters to convey an image to the world," says Maura Belliveau. "The moment you enter a building, you begin to learn how the company conceives of itself. Is the space open? Who gets the private offices?" "Try to catch companies with their guard down," adds Jean Eisel, associate dean of admissions and career opportunities at Carnegie Mellon's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, in Pittsburgh. "Visiting a company is a lot like dating. You want to see what it looks like on Monday morning, not just Saturday night."

Annmarie Cunningham also uses a dating analogy. "You learn a lot about a company from the attitudes of people you meet," she says. "I once had a receptionist dump me in a chair and walk away. This was a person who was unhappy to be working there. Job hunting is like dating. You get a lot of information from the first impression."

Paul Berry went on plenty of dates with prospective employers, most of whom didn't look so good on Monday morning. He was able to rule out some job offers right away. He wanted to work in New York City, not Silicon Valley; and he wanted to do serious design work for serious clients, not just serve as a junior member on a big-company team. But that still left half a dozen contenders. He visited each of them -- and paid close attention to what he saw. Ultimately, he chose Know-Ware Consulting, a small Web outfit with high-powered clients such as Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.

"I went to one company with amazing offices," he says. "The place just blew me away. But while I sat there and pretended to read, I watched people interact. I was there at seven o'clock on a Friday night. I could sense that even though people wanted to go home, they were afraid to. It made me think, This is a high-stress place." And the wrong place for Berry.

Like Berry, Soren Kaplan visited every company he was serious about joining. His time at HP reinforced the lessons he learned in his conversations with Winby. "Assess the culture while you're visiting the office," he suggests. "Look at the physical evidence, people's expressions, their body language. Even the way people dress is telling. Little things mean a lot. The casual atmosphere at HP spoke volumes. I knew it was where I'd feel most comfortable."