🔒How To: Avoid moving from one bad job to another

You're looking to move on from your job. You dutifully made your list of “likes” and “dislikes” for your current job. The last thing you want to do is end up at a new job with the same problems (picture Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day”). So the question you ask yourself is, “How do I avoid jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire?” The answer is a three-step process. I'm sure the first two steps you're already aware of. The third, not so much.

Step one:

This is most people's first stop for a lot of research — the internet. Start with the company's web page and go to the “careers” section and read what the leaders have to say. If they don't say anything about their work environment and/or benefits, that's certainly telling. Look for phrases that match what you're trying to get away from or looking for, such as “excellent work/life balance” or “laid-back culture.” Be realistic that those cultural phrases are in the eyes of the beholder, but at least they thought enough about the topic to mention it. In addition to the company's own website, it may be beneficial to go to a review site, such as GlassDoor, to see what current and former employees are saying about the company. One caveat is that personally I never came away from a Glassdoor review thinking better of a company. It's easy to focus on the negatives, even with companies with a high overall rating.

Step two:

Reach out to your network of friends and acquaintances. Maine's corporate scene is a small place. It's common to find that you have a friend or friend of a friend who works at a company you're interested in. Find those people and ask if you can have an informal conversation with them. Hopefully they will give you an honest and fair assessment of the company.

Step three:

The tactic that has worked best for me is to ask direct, well-planned questions during an interview. The ultimate goal of the questions should be to get an unscripted, spontaneous answer that addresses the issues you're concerned about. If you work hard on defining the question, you'll notice that regardless of whether or not you like the answer, it will provide you with a useful response.

A personal example is a great way to illustrate my point. Luckily, I just happen to have one handy. When I last changed jobs, my biggest concern was that my company repeatedly tried to do too much in too little time. The consistent result was tired, miserable employees and a sub-par product — the perfect lose-lose scenario. So I thought of a question to help me avoid finding myself in the same situation. For me it was fundamental that the question was direct, clear and had neither a yes/no or multiple choice answer.

When the interviewer asked if I had any questions, I calmly and politely asked, “When you have four weeks of work to do and only two weeks in which to do it, what do you do?” Frequently it was clear that I'd caught the interviewer off-guard because it wasn't a standard question. To me, that was perfect, because it meant that the answer was going to be spontaneous and genuine. For my particular question, there were maybe one or two correct answers and anything that deviated from either made it clear to me that it was not a place I wanted to work.

Rob Levine is a software manager with two decades experience at Oracle, most recently as senior development manager. He is also a member of the Association for Consulting Expertise, or ACE. He can be reached at rolevine@gmail.com