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When Interviewing at a New Orchard, Be Sure To Find The Bad Apple!
When you’re interviewing at a company for your new position, what do you find out about the people that you’ll be working with?
Usually, the answer is nothing. Most interview processes really don’t include the co-workers (in part because everyone is rather nervous about what they’d say).
However, as cited by Business Pundit, there is a new study out showing one employee can cause problems for all the rest.
While the report is targeted more at employers, you should be aware that one of those “Bad Apples” could make your life miserable.
How? Read on…
THE BAD APPLE
From the report, here’s one incident of a “bad apple” making things miserable for everyone else:
[The researcher’s] wife was unhappy at work and characterized the environment as cold and unfriendly. Then, she said, a funny thing happened. One of her co-workers who was particularly caustic and was always making fun of other people at the office came down with an illness that caused him to be away for several days.
“And when he was gone, my wife said that the atmosphere of the office changed dramatically,” [the researcher] said. “People started helping each other, playing classical music on their radios, and going out for drinks after work. But when he returned to the office, things returned to the unpleasant way they were. She hadn’t noticed this employee as being a very important person in the office before he came down with this illness but, upon observing the social atmosphere when he was gone, she came to believe that he had a profound and negative impact. He truly was the “bad apple” that spoiled the barrel.”
Many of you have been in an environment like that. I hope none of you were the “bad apple”!
HOW TO FIND THE BAD APPLE
The difficulty, of course, in tracking down the “Bad Apple” is that nobody wants to admit to even having one for fear of running you off. Or, perhaps, legal troubles if they are identified.
However, there are ways around this. I recommend:
- Meet The Team - Insist with the hiring manager that you’re working with that you get to spend some time getting to know the team. Have the company arrange a lunch for all of you to talk. Meet them one-on-one. Whatever - you’ve got to get to know your team!
- Ask About The Ugly Baby - To switch metaphors for a moment, just as you have an ugly baby about yourself, this work environment has an ugly baby, too.
So, ask the potential co-workers if they can think of one negative or difficult-to-work-with person in the office. Make sure that they don’t tell you his/her name. That way, they’re free to talk in generalities about the negative person.
Find out what the difficulties are in working with this person before you end up in the position of relying upon them for your career.
- Research the “Bad Apple” - Through people you know and other networking organizations like LinkedIn (send me an invitation at danielrsweet-at-gmail.com), find past employees or vendors who have worked with the group you’re getting into.
Ask them what the culture is like, how they were to deal with, and if there were any inherent problem personalities. Again, if you’re not asking for a name, people are much more forthcoming.
Through talking with the team and doing a little research, you’ll be able to find the “Bad Apple” and get a feel for just how rotten s/he is.
And when you get that ominous vibe off of everyone where they know exactly what you’re talking about, but become very nervous and uncomfortable and won’t say anything, RUN!
Enjoy the Search!
Dan
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Daniel R. Sweet
Chief Cook-And-Bottle-Washer / Technical Recruiter
FRACAT.com - Free Resume and Career Toolbox
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrsweet
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Photo by: egnaroorange
PS: I couldn’t really relate the picture below to bad apples and I could have gone through all sorts of bends and twists to relate this picture to the article, but I won’t. I’ll just say that I loved the picture so much I had to share it with you. Hopefully, since I put it at the end, it won’t overshadow my writing too much!
Photo by: Mariah Gale
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