This Is How to Evaluate a Future Employer in a Job Interview

Do you have an interview coming up? You are probably preparing for it all wrong! Typical job candidates spend most of their time rehearsing answers. Instead, they should be looking for ways to evaluate their potential employer. Here’s how to use your job interview to find out if a job is right for you.

Why You Should Evaluate Potential Employers

Harvard Business Review reported that, on average, workers change jobs once every three or four years. Of course, an employee might change jobs for unavoidable or unforeseeable reasons. Others unknowingly set themselves up for failure on the job interview.

A recent study by Leadership IQ found that nearly half of newly-hired employees fail within the first 18 months. For some of these new workers, the problem is that they struggle to fit into the company’s culture. Within the first few weeks of working a new job, they might find out that they don’t work well with their supervisors, but it’s too late! Eventually, their discontent is too strong, and they quit the job they worked so hard to acquire. What a waste!

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Boris Groysberg, a Harvard Business School professor, says that the ability to evaluate a job offer is an essential skill for modern professionals. “Yet,” the Harvard Business article states, “most people do it poorly.” Thankfully, you can discover a significant amount of information about your employer during the interview. Equipped with the facts, you can decide whether the job will work for you.

Ask the Right Questions

According to Dr. Thomas J. Denham, founder of Careers in Transition LLC, your boss is one of the seven most important factors of job satisfaction. “Without a boss who is committed to helping you learn and succeed, other benefits aren’t worth as much.” In Denham’s article “Evaluating Job Offers and Negotiating Salary,” he suggests gauging your chemistry with your boss just like you would with a romantic prospect. Do you get along with him or her? Would you feel comfortable with your potential boss’s management style? Is he or she interested in your growth?

To discover these factors, ask if your interviewer minds a few get-to-know-you questions, such as “Why did you decide to enter this career? What do you like best about your job? What’s the hardest part about working here?”

What the Answers Reveal

How did the employer respond when you suggested asking questions of your own?

With Dismissiveness: A flippant or incomplete response is a red flag. The supervisor may be stingy with her time—a potential disaster if you need clarification of job tasks in the future.

With Outrage: Does he seem offended that you dare to question him? If he doesn’t realize that it’s important for you to evaluate the job, he might never have your interests at heart. You want to work for someone who considers your needs, not someone who gets huffy under the slightest provocation.

With Delight: If the interviewer is pleased that you’re so interested in getting to know her, it’s a good sign! Don’t you want an employer who is open and friendly?

With Criticism: Kay Bosworth, a former editor for a business education magazine, describes a good boss: “He is honest and straightforward, which means you should not have to worry about where you stand with him. He’s willing to share responsibility when things go wrong.” If the manager blames his team for problems during the interview, you might be next under fire if you work under his direction.

With Seriousness: A reasonable manager would realize that the more you know about your working conditions, the better you can evaluate if you will fit in with the company. Your questions deserve respect. Complete answers reveal that the boss takes your concerns seriously.

If the Interviewer Isn’t the Boss

What should you do if someone other than the boss conducts the interview? You can still learn much about management from the interview. You might ask what resources will be provided to do your job. If the resources are scarce, it could reveal that the managers are out of touch with the needs of the employees or that the company might be struggling to make ends meet.

Also, take a gander around the building before and after your interview. Do the employees seem happy? How is the workspace? Contented employees usually invest time in making their offices homey because they want to stay at their job long-term. Bare personal cubicles indicate that employees have a sense of detachment from their job.

Don’t lose the opportunity to get to know your future employer. If you ask the right questions, you’ll successfully evaluate whether the job is a good fit for you. What will your next interview reveal? Much will depend on how observant you are.

Find Your Zen When Coworkers Are Getting on Your Nerves

Today is not going as planned.

A wave of unexpected assignments crashed across your desk this morning, forcing you to skip lunch. You’re feeling grouchy. Then, seeking solace in the breakroom, you discover an overloaded refrigerator shelf has chosen this very moment to collapse. After a terrible crash that surely captured everyone’s attention, you find yourself standing in a pool of broken glass, sorrow, and cold tea. Worse still, Chad, the smug programmer who always talks about his tattoos, is right there, looking on, with the nerve to act like this is all hilarious.

Choice words for Chad spring to mind. Fates involving fire and scorpions. You’re mentally verging on the kind of paroxysm the HR department might later term “disproportionate” and “alarming.” Oh dear.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, your inner professional is pleading with you not to verbalize these thoughts. There is no edit-undo shortcut for the regrettable things you’re tempted to say. In moments like this, being able to regain your chill is essential.

And opportunities to practice abound: from coworkers with a knack for rudely interrupting while you’re trying to concentrate to that one intern with the insanely loud headphones, your office is full of chances to work on finding your zen. Let’s talk about how.

Create distance

You would like to be on an island several time zones away from awful Chad and the stupid pile of work that’s waiting back at your desk. At minimum you would like to teleport to the coffee shop across the street and acquire a scone.

That impulse to flee is understandable, but for now, you’ll do well to create some mental distance, according to experts at Ohio State University. Instead of counting to ten, try zooming back and taking a more remote view of the situation, says researcher Dominik Mischkowski:

The secret is to not get immersed in your own anger and, instead, have a more detached view. . . . You have to see yourself in this stressful situation as a fly on the wall would see it.

This technique, known as “self-distancing,” helps keep you from focusing too much on your irritation and saying something you’ll later regret.

People often mistake anger for something that builds up and has to be released, much like steam in a pressure cooker, writes psychology professor Brad Bushman. But it’s better to dial back the heat altogether.

To use another analogy, venting anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire: It just feeds the flame. Venting keeps arousal levels high and keeps aggressive thoughts and angry feelings alive.

Before you react angrily, it’s a good idea to change the channel and give your elevated heart rate some time to come back down. In the meantime, you might mentally reframe the issue: maybe Chad is comically inept at knowing when to add levity. You might also distract yourself with a little self-care: take ten minutes to go grab that scone and watch a cat video.

Take care of yourself

Sometimes, when you’re feeling vexed with your coworkers, there’s no singular reason—just an amalgam of minor irritations that have weakened your psychic defenses. Maybe you got a late start, skipped breakfast, and are plain hungry. Or perhaps you got caught in a downpour on your way to work this morning and your socks have been dishearteningly damp all day.

It’s wise to prepare for such contingencies; this is why many people keep energy bars and aspirin in their desk drawer. If it’s a long haul from home, you’re not crazy for keeping a change of clothes (or at least some fresh socks) at the office as well.

In other cases, through no fault of their own, the problem really is your colleagues. Suppose Iris, in the next cubicle over, has been tasked with calling the references for several applicants for the upcoming fellowship. You’re dreading spending the afternoon listening to her ask, over and over, what each candidate’s strengths are, and what they could stand to improve on. (Then again, if overhearing all that sounds unfun, think about how Iris must feel.)

Your drawer might not include a soundproof door you can put between your desk and hers, but if you can’t scoop up your laptop and relocate to someplace quieter, then it should contain some spare headphones.

When it’s simply not cool

There are times when the issue is not that you need to take a deep breath and reclaim your office zen, but that your coworkers are acting out of line. If someone is being disrespectful or underhanded, the solution is not to find a way to smile and let it go.

Acting angrily won’t help in such situations; you need to think carefully about who you can take the problem to and how you’ll explain it, so don’t be hasty. Where the issue concerns other people who are unlikely to speak out, it’s especially worth handling thoughtfully.

Here, all that practice staying level-headed and cool will serve you well.

Wont vs. Won’t—What’s the Difference?

• Won’t is the correct way to contract will not.
• Wont is a type of behavior that is specific to a person. It’s also the wrong way to spell won’t.

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Sometimes, when you forget to use an apostrophe, you get a word that’s just a misspelling of the original. But with won’t and wont, you get a word with its own completely unrelated meaning.

What Does Won’t Mean?

When we say won’t, we are actually saying will not. The form with the apostrophe is a contraction, like “don’t” and “can’t.” We owe the “o” in won’t to a sixteenth-century form of the word: wonnot.

You won’t find a better farmers market in the city.

It looked like it was going to rain for a second, but now it looks like it won’t.

What Does Wont Mean?

Wont is usually used as a noun meaning “a type of behavior specific to a person,” or “a habit.” It can also be used as an adjective synonymous with “accustomed.”

He went for a morning jog, as was his wont.

He was wont to jog every morning.

Examples

There may be more Andromeda games on the way, too—though there won’t necessarily be a trilogy.

Gamespot

Although a new agreement between the RCMP and China aims to stop the flow of fentanyl into Canada, an expert says it won’t be easy.

CBC

The dialogue-free Past Forward, which runs almost 13 minutes, gives Russell a chance to do what is his wont: swing the camera wildly, work with as many actors as possible, and direct dance sequences.

A. V. Club

As is his wont these days, the 38-year-old kept producing witty one-liners the same way in which fours and sixes flew off his bat.

The Times of India

Offence vs. Offense—What Is the Difference?

• Offence and offense are both correct.
• Offence is the spelling more commonly used outside of the United States.
• Offense is the spelling more commonly used in the United States.

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Offense is spelled differently based on where you, or your audience, are. But neither offense nor offence are wrong.

Offence vs. Offense—Which Is Correct?

In one sense, offense means an attack. But it also means an affront or insult. Offense can also be spelled offence. The difference is that offense is the standard spelling in the United States, while offence is standard in other English-speaking countries:

The team had troubles with their offense because they key player was injured.

No offense meant.

The offence was clearly much lighter than the punishment.

The adjective derived from offense, offensive, is spelled with an s in American and British English alike. It doesn’t have a version that’s spelled with c:

I found the comedian’s remarks about Her Majesty very offensive.

They could have won the game if they were more offensive.

It’s the same with the adverb offensively—it’s never spelled with a c:

He offensively prodded the air with two fingers, making a rude gesture.

Playing the game offensively isn’t always the best strategy.

Examples

Offensive in American Publications

It didn’t seem to be in a way that meant offense, but he seemed so accustomed to alcohol being at weddings that he was perplexed.

The Huffington Post

Cal quarterback Davis Webb paced the Golden Bears’ offense by completing 32 of his 48 pass attempts to finish with 301 yards and two touchdowns.

Los Angeles Times

Offence outside the US

Henry also declined to answer further questions yesterday after issuing a statement on Saturday night saying he “meant no offence” to the two women he spoke about to Bruce.

The New Zealand Herald

Mounties say drivers are sent an email that states they’ve committed a driving offence and a fine will be mailed to them.

Global News

And speaking of words spelled differently in American and British English, did you know that omelet (or omelette) is one of them? Catalog is another one—it can also be spelled catalogue. And benefitted can also be spelled with only one t—that’s how they do it in the United States.

Do You Know the Correct Answer to Our Pop Quiz Question?

In a recent Grammarly Pop Quiz email, we asked readers how they would correct this sentence: I’m looking forward to purchasing tickets for the 2018 winter Olympics.

A: Capitalize the “W” in winter. B: Make “O” in Olympics lowercase. C: Accept the sentence as is.

44 percent of these readers gave the correct answer, A. Did you choose correctly?

Seasons are only capitalized when they’re used as proper nouns, as in the sentence above: The movie will debut in the spring of 2016. (Spring is not used as a proper noun and doesn’t need to be capitalized.) The Springfield Autumn Harvest Festival is my favorite event of the year. (Autumn is part of a proper noun in this sentence as needs to be capitalized.) This winter, I want to learn how to ski. (Winter is not used as a proper noun and doesn’t need to be capitalized.)

In poetry, the names of the seasons are capitalized when they’re personified. For example: It’s that time of year again, when Winter blankets all creatures with somniferous snow and whispers to them, “Rest, children, rest.”

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