Blog Posts

Culture Eats Strategy

When searching for an opportunity, most job seekers search by industry, geography, salary, and benefits.  An often overlooked, but equally important criterion is company culture.  Culture is defined as the set of shared values, attitudes, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution (Source: Merriam-Webster). At the most basic level, culture is how work gets done in an organization.

If your personal values, attitudes, goals, and practices align with the organization culture then you will likely excel within a given work environment. If there is misalignment, you will wake up every morning regretting your decision to join the company.

Whether you are interested in seeking opportunities at a start-up or a well-established company; learning as much as you can about company culture prior to making an employment decision is time well spent.

Key elements of company culture

As you begin your job search, here are some of the key culture elements that you should consider: 

1. Individual vs. Collaborative Environment. In companies with a culture that focuses on individuals, you will often be expected to accomplish many of your objectives on your own with little help from your colleagues.  In collaborative cultures, colleagues typically work together to accomplish their objectives. 
2. Developmental vs. Self-Taught. In developmental cultures, companies focus on giving employees the training and development they need to realize their full potential. On the opposite end are companies that expect you to figure things out as you go.
3. Results vs. Time-Based. In results oriented companies, employees that consistently meet or exceed their objectives are promoted quickly. Companies that have time-based cultures expect you to also achieve objectives but also add time-based criteria to promotions. 
4. Loose vs. Strict. Companies with a loose culture will often ascribe to a work hard, play hard mantra while those which are more conservative will expect employees to remain serious about their responsibilities at all time.

At this point in your academic career, you have had an opportunity to complete several independent and group assignments while pursuing your degree.  Take some time to think about which of those projects or assignments that you preferred and why.

Finding clues about company culture

Depending on which cultural elements appeal most to your personality, it is important to identify those aspects while researching companies of interest.  The good news is that the emergence of social media and social networking is creating an increased level of transparency for companies to share their culture with prospective candidates.

Instead of solely focusing on career sites or campus visits by employers you can now access real-time dynamic information about companies on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Social media makes it much harder for companies to fake their culture.  By monitoring what information companies share, how they respond to their community, and what current employees share about their work enables one to get a great sense of the culture at companies of interest.

Not only does this information help you figure out how your experiences will meet the needs of an employer but it also ensures that you don’t apply for opportunities that do not fit with your personality.

What steps have you taken to learn more about the culture of opportunities under consideration?

-Omowale Casselle (@mySenSay)

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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay. We help top companies and future leaders make better employment decisions.