Is it the right company for you?

Choosing the right company to sign for is like choosing the right life partner. You want to make sure you will be confortable, growing and becoming better and that it will encourage your personal and professional development as well.

As much as it is true that once we start working for a company it doesn’t mean that we will stay there forever, but it does shape our career and can have a big impact on our future development.

As employees we are an investment for our company, they trust our skills and abilities to bring their company to success. But we are also investing in a company when we agree to start working for them. Why? Well simply because we are investing a precious time trusting that we will learn and evolve, that we will be trusted more and more with bigger responsibilities and that we will be able to develop our full potential.

But sometimes that doesn’t happen and we can end up feeling trapped in a job that is not the right fit for us. Maybe our boss is not the inspirational leader we need, or we don’t believe on the projects the company carries out or we simply might not click with the company’s culture.

Then what signs tell us whether a company that we are considering applying for is good for us or not?

Here is our best advice to keep in mind before we sign the contract.

Make sure you share an interest for what the company does.

It is important to believe in what you do, even if your role is not directly linked to the actual field of the company, it is important to share a purpose with the company and what they do.

If we agree with the company’s business we will most likely share a passion and feel more inspired to do our job.

It is extremely stressful to work for a company that you don’t believe in or not agree with the impact that company has in the world.

Do some research about the leaders of the company before you meet with them.

Thanks to Internet there is so much you can find out about the professionals working in a company. Get to know who the leaders are, their background and their evolution. Maybe you can even find talks by them or articles. Do you see them as good leaders? Is that the kind of mentor you are looking for? Ask yourself that question and trust your own response. If you don’t see yourself following that person, most likely you will have a hard time following instructions from a boss you don’t respect and admire as a professional.

Learn about the reality of their culture and make sure you will fit in.

Don’t just trust what they say about how great is working with them, but get to know how they work, what the dynamic is, how the communication works in the office and check if that fits the way you work, how flexible you really want to be and how your lifestyle adapts and meets their way of working, because for sure it is going to have an impact in your personal life.

Have the right reasons to work with them, and make sure their reasons to hire you are good and real.

Now, this is a two-way thing. You should make sure you want to work with them because you feel like you will enjoy what you are going to do there and it will give you the opportunity to get as far as you want to make it in your professional life. So make sure you share your goals, requests and aspirations clearly with them, so when they make you an offer they know what to expect from you too.