How to Determine if a Potential Employer’s Values Match Yours?
A recent question from an executive in transition: How do I determine if a potential employer’s values match mine?
Determining a values match is critical to finding the right fit for you in your career. If you are in an organization whose values are not aligned with yours, you will find it to be an extremely stressful environment. So how do you determine if you have a good match before you get in too deep?
First, remember that values are expressed through behavior. You must look for signs that go beyond stated values to demonstrated behavior. Frequently, I’ll see a company’s values statement with words like “customer-focus” or “superior service” or “integrity” — yet what do those actually mean in practice?
For example, if one of your most important values is integrity, and you ask me “Do you have integrity?” — you can see that it is an absurd and potentially insulting question. What am I supposed to say? No? Yet, even when I say yes, what have you really learned? What you really want to know is how I behave.
Employers have shifted to behavioral interviewing for exactly this reason. They ask questions like “tell me about a time when…” They are looking for demonstrated behavior under specific circumstances. You need to ask similar questions.
At the appropriate point in the interview process, you can ask series of questions like these:
- What are the most important values that guide how you lead this organization? Why?
- How do you make sure those values get consistently operationalized?
- When and where do you face pressure to compromise those values?
- How do you deal with that pressure when it arises?
The true test of values comes when you are under pressure. If you value quality, what do you do when you face competitive pressure on pricing or customer pressure on lead times?
If you value work-life balance, how do you determine exactly what that means and whether or not a particular organization not only shares your values but puts them into operation?
Here’s an example — suppose you are an experienced attorney interviewing with the general counsel (GC) of a major corporation for a leadership position within the legal department. You are not interested in the hours and demands of private practice, having pursued this track for the past fifteen years.
Here’s how your reverse interview might play out….
You: What are the most important values that guide how you lead this organization?
GC: Our most important values are to be connected to the business and to have work-life balance. We are here to support the business, not to build a law practice. We also really value our personal and family time – if we wanted to work 80 hours a week, we’d be in law firms.
So far, so good…
You: How do you make sure those values get consistently operationalized?
GC: We make sure that all of our attorneys build close relationships with the business unit leaders & managers – they are our internal clients, essentially. We have to understand the business and help them understand the legal issues – yet we recognize that legal considerations are only one aspect of a business decision. We have to be entrepreneurial, not merely compliance focused. We also make sure that we have anticipated and calendared the major legal needs of our internal clients – we manage the department so we are not in a fire-drill mode. We set expectations with our internal clients on turnaround and responsiveness – so we provide really good service to our clients without burning people out. We make sure that people are scheduling their personal and family priorities – since we are not a law firm with a competitive partnership structure, we have no need to hoard billable hours – we can really work as a team and support each other.
Sounds pretty good — it seems like the values have been supported by procedures and an operating model.
You: When and where do you face pressure to compromise those values? How do you deal with that pressure when it arises?
GC: Sometimes the pace of business can create pressure to overwork. We all acknowledge that there are periods of peak demand, when a particular transaction is in the works. We anticipate these and schedule these, and also make sure that people take the time to recharge when the surge is done.
Through this example, you can see how the questions go deeper than stated values to actual behavior. You then need to apply your own judgement and assessment.
