I’ve had a chance to have long discussions with people in search for a change in their career. We usually talk about their strength, weaknesses, vision for the future and values. We also go back and try to analyse what was the road that led to current situation.
It’s not that uncommon that there’s a company in serious need of a person for a key position. When suitable candidates emerge, they, of course have their own desires and wants. Nowadays ability to work remotely has become one of the most wanted one. Sometimes there’s a match and sometimes not. And at times either side is willing to say almost anything to convince that the relationship is a match made in heaven. That situation will end up only to one unhappy employee.
A role is not a responsibility, and vice versa
One of the basic rules of management involves recruitment, hiring, training and retaining of the right people as members of the organization. Part of the process is looking into their qualifications, characteristics, potential contributions, and their strengths and weaknesses. But that’s not all. It should also include defining roles and responsibilities. After all you can’t really match a candidate to a role without knowing exactly what you’re looking for.
Sometimes things get unnoticed or overlooked. For example, as a result of my thesis research (Identifying multi-locational work and distance learning capabilities), I found it was uncommon for companies to evaluate competence for remote work and study during recruitment process, even if the role would require remote environment survival skills.
What can you do to ensure the accuracy of promised role and responsibilities?
I suggest you have discussion with your employer candidate about following issues:
- Expectations of your coming role – measurements (KPIs)
- If you have interest in career path, ask what the company can offer you within your time frame and if remote ability is important to you, are there roles that can’t for some reason be remote.
- Crucial part of knowledge workers job is to learn new things, ask how learning is measured, what kind of ways of learning the company uses and how and when do they expect you to handle it.
- What are the ways to stay in contact and feel as a part of team when you are not at the office?
- Rules, regulations and other operational stuff that influences on your daily routines.
I have found this approach useful, especially if you’re considering working remotely.
There are qualities that can make you more successful in remote environment, but over all whatever kind of role or working style you are after succeeding in it is very much about knowing yourself, your personality traits, what makes you tick and what doesn’t.
It’s relatively hard to evaluate cultural fit to a company. The thing you can do, is to open LinkedIn, check who’s working there, and give someone from that list a call or message. I believe it’s fair to get some references from both sides!
