Do you fit in your company culture?

As recruiters, we spend a lot of time thinking about culture-fit. 

Will this candidate really fit in at that firm? Can this company truly give that person what they need?

It’s essential to the job that we’re willing to ask the tough questions that clients and candidates sometimes shy away from.

Yet for all the energy we expend fretting over such things, we often forget to turn those questions on ourselves. 

What do you really want from work?

In this article, we want to invite our community to really think about these questions. 

If you were your own recruitment partner, how would you advise yourself? 

Is the culture-fit between you and your employer right? 

Or should you be looking for something new?

Here are three questions we believe you should be asking: 

Does your culture encourage growth? 

It’s easy to equate “company culture” with ping-pong tables and trips to the pub.

But we all know those are just fun extras to fill your Friday nights. 

What really matters is whether you’re spending your days surrounded by people who want you to succeed – and are capable of helping.

That’s not to say you have to be aggressively ambitious.

You just have to feel the folks you work with make you want to be better.

People can be like liquids: we reshape ourselves to fit the environment we’re in.

But if that means you’re consciously downplaying your ambition – or your skills aren’t being made proper use of – your company’s culture could be doing more harm than good.

Do you look forward to seeing your colleagues?

For better or for worse, we spend more time with our colleagues than we do virtually any other person in our lives. 

And while that doesn’t mean we have to be best friends, the effect those people have on us has a lasting impact on how we think, feel and see ourselves.

We’ve all been in the situation of having to fake enthusiasm – perhaps a little too often.

But to go into work everyday and have to engage with people who fundamentally don’t excite you? 

No amount of pay or prestige is worth that.

Because in some sense, culture is really about energy.

And if you feel being at the workplace saps yours, it might be a sign that you need something different.

Do you like what your company stands for?

Values are increasingly central to how many of us see our work. 

it’s not just about getting people a pay rise or helping companies find fresh talent – it’s about promoting a particular way of doing things.

But this can create a problem, because our employers don’t necessarily share our beliefs or reflect our values. 

It’s easy to overlook this:

“Well, I can still do things the right way, even if the leadership isn’t on board.”

But it inevitably creates tensions down the line, when we start to see decisions being made which simply do not sit right with us.

So rather than convincing yourself those differences don’t matter, it’s important to ask yourself honestly: 

Do I feel proud working for this company?