What to ask the employer for an interview so as not to get into the swamp

    Most employers at the interview will give you the opportunity to ask any questions. This is a great chance to determine if the employer is good and whether it is worth working for him. One of the deadly diseases for the team is an imitation of violent activity (hereinafter IDB). It arises where leadership does not consist in coordinating work, but is replaced by formal control, where the team stomps on the spot, for decades without receiving new tasks, where there is no place for your desire for new technologies, where you will not learn anything new. The intrigue is enhanced by the fact that the simulator never admits that he only simulates work. On the contrary, he will pretend to be important to himself and his activity. Only when you cook in a team for a year will you realize that you didn’t have to go here, that you are simply wasting time. But there are some simple signs, by which you can easily calculate the disease. This article is about them.

    Excuse


    Of course, conclusions cannot be drawn on one or two grounds. You should only think if all the signs are present. In addition, you should not start from absolute values, it is better to use these signs to compare two works (for example, the current and the proposed).

    And one more important reservation. The very form of publication (article) assumes a compact presentation. Hence some categorical statements. Of course, on all counts there are many reservations that go beyond the scope of the genre; I believe that some of them will be thought out by the reader himself, while others will appear in the comments.

    Caution. An article can cause side effects:
    • you might want to quit
    • you may want to fire
    • you may want to minus one bit :-)

    A little bit about the nature of the phenomenon


    The simulator differs from the ordinary worker in three noticeable properties:
    • He shows in every way that he is doing important and necessary work, and he works a lot.
    • He moves away from specifics; from his lengthy stories, you will never understand what he is doing.
    • Since he actually does nothing, he doesn’t really get tired at work.
    In addition, IDD does not affect one person in a team. Since this phenomenon is not connected with the individual characteristics of a person, but with the nature of team management and company policy.

    And the last. The simulator may not even suspect that he is a simulator. He just works in a team, according to traditions and customs. He simply does the work that he has; and prepares the reports that are required of him. With illiterate leadership, people become imitators, not wanting to. If you feel that you are becoming an imitator, know that your growth has stopped, your value in the labor market has gone down, and it would be nice for you to do something. Get busy. Change jobs, or work for yourself.

    So, the questions that are useful to ask the employer to understand if the team has real work


    Do you swear in your team? (jokes do not count; we mean working moments) It’s

    impossible to betray a thought like: “It is better to use a red-black tree to store channels, then the price of access to the channel will be O (ln (N))”. Even less mat is needed to program this idea. (On the contrary, if you program without a clear understanding of what you are doing, then the mat can be oozing in tons.)

    If the employee wants to show how he is rooting for the job, how he is doing his best, but he has nothing to say, then this is what matters all the power of the great and mighty. However, the case does not say anything. Empty ostentatious emotions.

    In general, eloquence often indicates the absence of constructive thoughts. If speech has no content, then they try to give it an exquisite form.

    upd: for some reason, many readers are sure that communication with a mat is no less effective than without a mat. I offer them a couple of simple experiments: replace all the nouns in this article with a well-known word; insert the famous words through the word. Will the article become clearer from this?

    What time do you have to leave work?

    Obviously, the team works efficiently if it is as harmonious as possible. If one part of the employees works from 9 to 18, and the second from 15 to 24, then such a coordinated work cannot be called.

    Imitators always leave work late. Indeed, (the logic of the simulator) the later a person lingers, the more he works. In addition, after eight, the simulator can safely do nothing - no one will see this, but tomorrow it will be possible to say with pride: “I left after midnight yesterday!”

    What time do you have to come to work?

    Of course, it happens that I’ve been at work. Then the team goes to extreme measures, people give all their best and, indeed, work around the clock. But this mode of operation cannot last long.

    If it is not about work, but about imitation, then it goes on for years. It is not possible for years to come on time and leave late. The simulator does not come to work before lunch.

    (Occasionally, non-simulators-owls meet, they begin to work as soon as they get out of bed, do half of the work at home, and only then come to work. They are easy to distinguish from imitators - they leave work, not staying too long; see the previous paragraph)

    Is it customary for you to spend holidays on time?

    Do not go on vacation - another feature of the simulator. He is such a valuable employee that he simply cannot leave things! He is irreplaceable! In addition, the time spent at work does not tire him at all and he does not feel an urgent need for rest.

    In a healthy team, people are able to replace each other (for more details, see the penultimate paragraph); and if a person really has a lot of hard work, then he will not postpone the vacation.

    upd: There are times when a person is truly indispensable. But (!) First, this does not apply to ordinary web-designers, but to chief accountants, senior managers and other similar people. And secondly, these people still go on vacation :-) Yes, they do not part with their laptop and mobile, and the day begins with reading Vedomosti, but they go on vacation.

    Do you have dinner in the dining room?

    Most organizations have dining rooms or arrangements with the nearest café. The food of the employees is somehow organized. But the simulator is so busy with work that he either doesn’t eat at all (he eats, of course, but after the end of the working day), or takes food at the workplace.

    Have you had any discussions about new technologies? Project development plans?

    If the work goes on, then there is always something to improve. Management of assembly, configs, versions; transition to new libraries and software versions; processing critical sections of code and code written in an emergency mode ... Even if everything works perfectly, new employees appear who need to be up to date; new requirements appear ... In a healthy team, where employees are busy finding solutions to problems, there is always something to discuss and share.

    But the imitator is always against such discussions. Firstly, he has nothing special to tell. Secondly, others can master his site of work and he will lose all his indispensability. Then he will have to create a new site of work, and this is not included in the plans of the simulator. And thirdly, he has no time, he is very busy ... not related to work affairs.

    What is the nature of staff rotation in your organization? (department, group)

    Imitators often say that they quit. Sometimes they even go for interviews and collect things (ostentatiously handing out their goods). But they leave the crane rarely, much less often than people who work. It is understandable, the simulator does not want to change his swamp to a turbulent workflow. In addition, deep down, the imitator realizes that he has already lost almost all of his skills and is not interested in anything.

    In a team suffering from an IBD, the rotation of personnel has the following character: There is a “backbone” consisting almost entirely of imitators. Here people have been working for 10 years. And there are constantly current employees who come, understand what’s the matter and dump. Such people last 1-2 years.

    This feature is not very reliable (therefore, it is at the end). A similar situation with personnel can be caused by other reasons (however, they are also not very good). However, if you find out that the nature of the personnel change is just that - this is an occasion to think.

    All success! Smart bosses, interesting tasks, professional growth and a lot of fun from work! :-)

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