The Secret to Finding Your Ideal Workplace | Marion Campan | TED

Imagine this. You've been applying to a ton of jobs for months, and now finally, you're getting not just one, but two job offers. Congratulations! It's time to celebrate. It's great news, right? But after the celebration comes the time where you can ask yourself, how is it that you're going to choose between those two job offers? Some people are going to tell you, "Just go for the salary, The higher the better," right? Others are going to tell you, "No, go for the title, the position. The higher the better." And others are going to tell you, "Look for the mission, the kind of projects that you're going to be working on. The more experience, the better." Well, I suggest that you look at a completely different criteria. I suggest that you choose your next job based on the company culture. My name is Marion. Or better said, my name is Marion, and I am passionate about corporate cultures.

When I say my name, people can guess that I am French, and they usually want to guess further. Where in France is she from? And there is a city that comes to their mind, the capital of love, Paris. But I have to disappoint you. As beautiful as Paris is, I come from an even better place, even more beautiful. So I don't come from Paris, I come from Tahiti. And Tahiti is this island in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean. And a lot of people dream of retiring there with a coconut in their hand by the beach. Well, I didn't wait for retirement. I actually spent my childhood there. And this is how I was, five, six years old, living the best time of my life. And Tahiti is great, yes, for the beaches and the coconuts. But the best thing in Tahiti, it's the diversity. Because, you see, Tahiti is an island with a bit of a melting-pot culture. So if you’re thinking about these two job positions that you have, and you're thinking about which one should you choose, and if you're looking at corporate culture, you might find it hard to know from the outside what it's going to be like to work in that company. Most people think that it is impossible to know beforehand what a company culture is going to be like before you work there, right? How are you going to know before you go to Japan what the culture in Japan is really like? Well, I disagree with this, and in my sharing today, I would like to share with you two different ways for you to figure out what a company culture is going to be like beforehand, because that's going to avoid you signing a contract that you're going to regret down the line. I think most people don’t follow those two tips that I’m going to share, and the numbers show. Gallup has run a study on the state of workplace worldwide, and I've pulled the numbers for East Asia, and the numbers are dreadful. Overall, there is only 17 percent of people who are engaged in their work. That means about 80 are not. When people are not engaged, then they tend to want to leave and go somewhere else. More than half of them want to quit. And if they can't quit, because maybe the marketplace is not that great, what happens is people are starting to be quiet quitting. That means they're coming to work, but really they do the bare minimum not to get fired. For employees and employers, this is dreadful numbers, and I'd like to take those numbers and bring them to reality. What does that look like, really? And I'll give you an example of a coaching client a couple of years ago who is a lawyer, let's call her Junita. And Junita is an awesome lawyer. She's really great at what she does, but she didn't want to end up in a law firm, she found it a bit boring. She wanted something more exciting and fancy. So she ended up in a startup. But after a few months, she just realized this is not the right fit here. You see, Junita really, really likes things done well. She likes to take her time and double check. But she’s surrounded with entrepreneurs and startuppers, people who want to go fast and break things. So there were a lot of tensions between her and the rest of the team. So very quickly, after a few months, she just burnt out. Professionally, she was questioning herself. As a lawyer, she was questioning herself. As an individual, she was questioning herself. "Why is it that I can't fit in here?" So we worked together, and she moved to a more traditional workplace culture, where she saw that people were behaving a little bit more like her and shared her work ethics. That's where she really thrived in her job. And this is what I wish to every single one of you, is to experience a place, an environment that brings not the worst, but the best out of you.

So basically that you don't look like her. So how are you going to do that? Know that a place is going to be good for you. Basically, you're asking me, how can I do to know that a thing is going to be good before I experience it myself? Well, I think you're doing this on a daily basis. For instance, have you ever checked for a restaurant's rankings and comments before you go? You're checking, you're trying to see what it's going to be like. Or maybe if you're doing groceries and you're looking for, I don't know, avocados because you want to do a guacamole, how are you going to select the right avocado for yourself? It's the same. So I would like to compare company cultures to avocados. If you have ten avocados, how do you know which one is the right one? You're probably going to take one and put some pressure on the skin, and you might feel that there is resistance, maybe too much or too little, and that's how you're going to judge. So today, what I would like to share with you are two tools. The first one for you to assess if a culture, a company is going to be the right fit for you, the first tool for you is to observe. Observe, observe. What do you observe? Well, you observe the entire recruitment process. Because what happens in the recruitment process is companies are trying to show you their best side. They really want to attract you. They want to get you, they're seducing you. So if there is some things that you don't like there, you're probably not going to like afterwards either. Let me give you an example. If a company takes weeks to answer your emails or even book an interview with you, well, that kind of culture is probably a bit slower than what you would expect. If that dynamism is what you're looking for and you like structures and companies that are more process-oriented, that's the right culture. But if you're looking for a very entertaining, dynamic, energetic workplace, that’s probably too slow. You might want to look for a company that responds in a matter of days or even hours. Another example would be if you have three people interviewing you and only one speaks and the other two are silent, and you figure the one that is speaking is the boss, that culture is very hierarchical. And that's fine, because it's not good or bad, it's not right or wrong, it just is. And you need to know whether you like that kind of culture and that fits you, or if you want a company culture that really is more flat and allows you to speak up and challenge the status quo. That's probably not the right kind of culture for you. So the first thing you can do is observe, observe. The second thing you can do is to ask questions. And so asking questions is really cool because that's when you have the avocado in your hand and you're putting pressure there. You know when they're asking you in an interview, "Hey we finished all the questions. Do you have any questions?" Hell yeah, you have questions. You should have questions. And I'm going to give you three questions that are going to up your game when it comes to interviewing. This question starts with the first question, which focuses on the future potential that you have in that company. And it's a bit in-your-face

but the question is "What kind of people get promoted here?" If they tell you, "Well, nobody got promoted in the last year." You know you probably don't have a big future in that company. But if they say, “Oh, Alexei got promoted last month.” "Interesting. Alexei sounds like a really cool person. Tell me more about him." There, you're asking follow-up questions to discover more. "Well, why is it that he was selected as the one being promoted?" And then you listen to what they're telling you. If they say, "Well, you know, he was the boss's best friend, so he got promoted." Well, unless you're very close to the boss, you probably don't want to join that company. But maybe they're going to say other things like, “You know, Alexei is technically the best out of us. For instance, the best engineer in the team. So we promoted him.” Great. This company culture is about meritocracy. So if you're really good at your job, you're going to get promoted. If they say, "Well, Alex got promoted because he's been the longest here, he's the longest in the company." Alright, this company values loyalty, longevity, tenure in the company. What is it that you like? So for me, the best answer to this question, if I would apply for a job, would be, “Alexei got promoted because he’s the best at his job,” so he has the skill. "He also is the best of us, we all look up to him." What that means is that he is a team player probably, and he represents the culture best and we promote that. And finally we're promoting him because he has the potential to be a great manager. For me, these are green flags. So that's the first question to see if you have the potential to grow in this company and stay long-term. The second question is very simple but also tells a lot.

And that question is "What are your core values?" I'm going to give you the red flags straight away. The red flag would be "Core values? What are you talking about? What is that?" That's a company that has no idea about corporate culture. If they say, "Yeah, we have core values, but I don't remember what they are, sorry." Red flag. Or if they say, "Yeah, yeah, we have a core value. Our core value is excellence." Then you need to follow up with a question again. "Great, excellence is a core value. Tell me about it. When was the last time that you have seen excellence around here?" And a red flag is, "I don't know." A green flag would be someone telling you, "Yeah, Just last week we provided the best project so far with the team. And we're all really proud of what we have produced." OK, keep asking because then you know what the company culture is like. So that's the second question. And the third question is also tricky, but it's reminding you that there is no company culture that is perfect. And from time to time, you will have conflicts, discussions that are a bit tough to have. And what you want to know with this last question is how are the people in this company going to deal with these challenges? How do people deal with one another? That last question is

"Tell me, when was the last time that you received feedback here?" Again, a red flag would be "Never." Well, that's not good. If the company says, or the interviewer says, "Well, I receive feedback once a year in a performance review." That's probably not enough. But if they say "We're providing and receiving feedback very regularly, almost daily, because we care about the growth of the people here, and we trust that our colleagues can take feedback and that we're good enough to deliver it to them." Whoa, that's a green flag right there. OK, so we've seen the three different questions.

The first question is: “What kind of people get promoted here?” The second question is: “What are your core values?” And the third question is: "When was the last time that you got feedback here?" Now these questions are really important because you're kind of grilling your interviewer. And your interviewer could be a very junior interviewer, up to the CEO of the company. That will tell you a lot as well of what the company culture is like. But so at some point, you will have to realize that, yes, the interview is important because it helps them select you as a future employee. But it’s also helping you select them as a future employer. So the balance is reversed here. And what you need to bear in mind is the idea that it's not only about them here and you discovering more about what the core value and what the company is like, but also about you as a professional. And you need to be very clear about what you want and what you expect from a company. So be very clear and define: What should work look like?

What should work feel like? and what should work be like? If you define this for yourself; if you observe, observe; and if you ask the three questions that I have shared with you, I trust that you will be able to choose between those two job offers and decide which company you would like to join. And I also believe that you will be able to choose for yourself the most outstanding workplace culture. Thank you.