Culture is More Important than Salary

If you asked a career professional what is the key criteria when assessing which positions to apply for most would answer – salary.

I would disagree. What is more important then a small pay rise is the company culture. An organsiations vision, mission and values set the culture. It is the culture, the day to day running of a business, that indirectly affects employees’ motivation levels.

Let me ask you this – is a £4000 pay rise worth leaving a job you love, to go to an organization that you feel you don’t fit in with? To go from motivation to demotivation? From workplace happiness to workplace misery?

£4000 per year is less then £77 per week – £77 to lose your workplace motivation and career happiness! This article will teach you how to uncover the organisational culture during a job interview, helping you to find the right employer based on what you deem to be important in the workplace.

Happy Career Choice

Content career professionals will work in a job sector that has a natural affinity to their personality, or will for an organization that has a mission the employee believes in. This is easily achieved by taking a career test to help understand what drives you when choosing a new career.

The second factor for career bliss is company culture. Most people fall into a career due to happenstance, but for true workplace satisfaction employees need to find a business that has a culture that links to their motivational traits.

Motivational factors can, on the face of it, look simple – do you prefer wearing a smart or casual dress? Reading this question you may ask “does workplace outfit choice even matter?”

For some people yes; a casual preference employee can feel awkward wearing a suit, or someone who feels professional when wearing a suit feels like they can’t be taken seriously in casual clothes.

Recently I was explaining the motivation of company culture to a friend who works in a professional setting. He joked, saying that people can go to work wearing beach shorts and a loud shirt, but their business won’t ever be that successful if people (employees) are always messing around.

Ever heard of innocent Smoothies? Innocent smoothies are a multimillion business who has company culture at the heart of their business ……and no, you don’t wear suits and ties in their office!

Just read their mission statement: “When we’re old and grey, we want to be able to look back and be really proud of the business we helped create. We think the best way to achieve this is by living the values that are closest to our hearts. Our five values reflect what we are, how we do things, and where we want to be. They hang above every loo in the building so we get to look at them every day.”

How Can You Predict the Company Culture?

In the job interview, you can easily gain an insight into the culture of the business. Vision and mission statements are a good start but not all businesses truly believe in their statements creating a conflict between the face of the organization and the day to day business operations.

Company culture comes down to 3 key elements; the day to day working environment, conflict resolution, and employee engagement. Each of these elements can be discussed in the job interview, helping an applicant make the right choice when offered multiple job offers.

Job Interview Questions for Company Culture

The questions below can be asked throughout the job interview, at the appropriate time, or during the final section of the interviewer when candidates are given the opportunity to ask some questions of their own.

Day to day working environment

Interview Question 1 – how are staff successes celebrated by the organisation?

Interview Question 2 – how do managers keep employees supported?

Interveiw Question 3 – can employees work from home?

Interveiw Question 4 – how manay managers use to work in team poistions?

Interview Question 5 – do you support staff to taker up voluntary positions during work time?

Conflict resolution

Interveiw Question 6 – how are key company decsions that affect teams made?

Interview Question 7 – are there any conflicts of interest across any departments?

Interview Question 8 – what is the approach to resolve anyconflict?

Interview Question 9 – how do senior leaders and stakeholders engage together?

Interview Question 10 – how is employee feedback collected?

Employee engagement

Interview Question 11 – what is the average duration of an employee working for this firm?

Interveiw Question 12 – describe an normal day for you?

Interveiw Question 13 – how much staff development is on offer?

Interview Question 14 – what is your proudest achievement while working for the organization?

Interview Question 15 – how can the company improve in terms of a supportive environment?

Job Interview Advice

Job Interview Question: give me an example of teamwork

How to Answer “give me an example of teamwork”

The teamwork interview question is important as we all, in one form or another, work within a team.

This includes contractors, self-employed or outreach staff. We may complete the duties alone but we are always part of a bigger project.

It’s surprising how many job applicants struggle with this job interview question. The way to answer it is to give a teamwork example – wrong! Well, yes you are correct but to impress an interviewer you need to give more than an account of a previous teamwork experience

How to Blow Away The Interviewer

Remember the job interviewer isn’t just wanting to hear the team task, they want to know what your part within the team dynamics was; leader, creator, mentor, doer, communicator, problem-solver?

As well as identifying your role, you need to set out the scene. So many interviewees simply jump into the task without explaining the reason for doing the task – by stating this problem you can create intrigue; with intrigue, you have an engaged audience

How to Answer the Interview Question

Step 1 – explain the problem. Make this sound exciting! The opening credits to a film do this really well; the beginning is mysterious, you don’t know what will happen but you want to find out

State something like “the company was just about to go bankrupt” “customers were all complaining” “no-one knew what to do”

These opening lines are so ambiguous, that your audience – the interviewer, will want to listen to what you have to say

Step 2 – give more detail about the problem, explain in enough detail (but don’t get carried away as there is nothing more boring the listening to all the details of a problem) what the actual problem was

Step 3 – explain what you did to achieve the solution or objective; what was your role; what action did you take; how did your idea make a difference?

Step 4 – finally end with a positive outcome. Did you make a profit, create a new piece of technology, decrease overhead cost?

This storytelling technique is not only interesting but shows the employer what you can offer to their team. The key here is making it clear what you did – the skill set you are offering the new employer

Job Interview Advice

101 Job Interview Questions for FREE

How to Pass Every Job Interview

How to Persuade and Influence

Job Interview Question: Tell me about yourself?

How to Answer “Tell me about yourself” To Increase Job Offers

This is one of the most common asked interview questions, but its the easiest job interview question to answer

Personally, I love this open job interview question, as it gives you the chance to say anything you want to say. Don’t miss your chance smack the employer in the chops with a couple of unique selling points!!

Ok, so most people mess up this opportunity. But today I will teach you have to start the job interview with a big bang by smashing this first introductory job interview question

How to Blow Away The Interviewer

Employers follow a set of rules when interviewing potential employees. Rule 1 make the applicant feel at ease by asking as simple open question designed to get them talking

The interviewer isn’t expecting anything of substance here. They predict that you will stumble over your words, stutter and simple mess up until you get the confidence to start talking with confidence

So, to stand out, all you have to do is start with a killer job interview answer that will influence the rest of the job interview…resulting in more job offers…resulting in a higher salary

How to Answer the Interview Question

Don’t be an idiot and start talking about how much you love your pet dog! This has actually happened in a job interview I was leading on

The interviewer isn’t expecting fireworks, but the answer must be related to the job position you are applying for

To answer this question you need to think of 3, industry-related, unique selling points. What is you are offering that others aren’t? What can you bring to the business? What knowledge or expertise do you possess?

Think about it when you are buying a house the estate agent doesn’t start off talking about all the little irrelevant details. No, they tell you about the 3 key strengths of the property; location, price, the converted loft! You need to get your interviewer interested in you from the get-go

Once you open with a killer line then you can give some extra details. Explained what it is you can bring to the organisation, discuss those additional skills (you may be an expert in excel, project management or customer service

You may choose to talk about your work ethic or values. Once you have sold yourself you need to end with a summary “If I was offered the job it is these 3 things I would bring to the company; A, B and C”

Job Interview Advice

101 Job Interview Questions for FREE

How to Pass Every Job Interview

How to Persuade and Influence

A new approach to job interviews for 2020

The job marketing is changing

Employers are looking for a new style of employee for 2020. Ok for the basics; to pass the job interview you need to have the required qualifications and the experience for the job you are applying for – you cant be a doctor without the training, right?

To be offered a job interview, you have already gone through the application process, so your skills, qualifications and experiences have met the minimum criteria for the job position. But at the job interview, you need a new approach for 2020

How to Blow Away The Interviewer

Inspire – to get offered any job you need to inspire your interviewer

The problem with interviewing 6 applicants with similar skills and experiences, is that they all say the same thing, give similar examples and ….put the interviewers to sleep

To leave a lasting memory… inspire your audience. You need to show them a positive future. You can do this very simply by explaining how a new technology, that you have researched, can change their business saving overhead costs or creating a new product.

The psychology behind this is simple. People are more motivated by what you can offer then what you have achieved. Many interviewees focus on their previous successes, whereas if you create an image of how you, once employed, can make a profitable difference within their current business setup, you will create desire

The power of rapport

Research has proven that people are more likely to hire people who they believe are similar to themselves

The truth is, that the best teams are made up of different people, different temperaments, different personalities. But in a job interview, the employer doesn’t think about this. Instead, they think at a basic level – do I like this person? And if they like you, because they can see themselves in you, you are more likely to score higher during the job interview process.

Creating likeability is easy. Simply check social media for your interviewer’s interest and talk about how you share the same hobbies during the interview introduction. That is level 1 – basic rapport building.

Level 2 takes this a little further. Research the company mission and values, and talk passionately about what you believe in (strangely what you value will link very nicely to the company mission) But ideally you need to take rapport building to level 3

This final level requires a bit of practice. First, you need to understand that each person has a unique perspective on the world. What I mean by this is that two people can listen to the same job interview answer and create a different opinion about the interviewee….even though they heard the same words! What the hell is that all about?

Because our past experience shapes our reality each of us has a differing perspective in each situation. Someone who was bullied by the big kid at school we view a “bigger” person as more threatening than a person who, at school, hung out with the “big” kids.

Our motivations and stresses affect how we view the world. Some people see the galls half full, or half empty. There are problem solvers and firefighters, goal setters and action takers

All these small elements, and more shape people’s reality and underpin how they will view you the interviewee. So how can you understand this complexity of humanity? The answer is you don’t need to – unless you want to spend 3 years in higher education studying psychology. Instead, I share with you a quick cheat; a short cut to rapport building

All this complexity comes through in the language people use. Proactive people, for example, are likely to say “let’s go for it” whereas a reactive person would say “we need to take time to think about what has happened” Goals setters will use future achievement language “take action” “objective” “possibilities” and those who are motivated by problem-solving would say “avoid” “exclude” “get away from”

To influence somebody, in this case, the interviewer, all you need to do is copy the language – the actual words they say, in your job interview answers. This creates a short cut in their mind to their decision-making process. In short, they will want to hire you but consciously understand why

Job Interview Advice

101 Job Interview Questions for FREE

How to Pass Every Job Interview

How to Persuade and Influence