Finding the Right Company for You

‘Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life” – Confucius

The average working week is roughly 38 hours a week. That’s 152 hours a month or 1672 hours a year! The majority of this time will most likely be spent at your place of employment, surrounded by fellow employees, engaging in the company culture and, essentially, working towards making the business successful. Of course, this time is made easier if you like your job, that goes without saying. But what happens when you surpass merely having nothing to complain about?

Believing in a company, their values, their product or service, is not the same as simply liking your job. Belief is an intrinsic feeling, an idea that goes beyond making well-scripted statements about the validity of the company you work for. Often true belief results in taking on these values and integrating them into your life.

This is where we in the surfing community are incredibly lucky. Most of the time these ideas and beliefs were spawned the moment we stood up on our first wave. And better than that, they are transferable into any career. If you believe in working towards better environmental solutions, then there is a multitude of ways to do that, from being a marine biologist to a technical engineer. If your beliefs and values are focused on health and wellbeing you can work as anything from a personal trainer to a naturopath. Aligning with a company whose products, services and ideas you personally believe in makes being at work more fun and more rewarding. It often gives you access to circles of people who are like-minded and who will add value to your career and your skill set. Company successes will be shared on a personal level, which makes for higher levels of job satisfaction too.

Belief in what you do during your working hours not only increases the likelihood that the company will be successful, but it supercharges your own success. Employees who truly believe in their company or what they do for a career are more likely to innovate, will be willing to put in longer hours and more concentrated effort to achieve results and will enjoy it more. Studies have shown that employees who are invested in the values of their company tend to rise up higher and quicker compared to those who aren’t, regardless of their results.

Words like ‘passion’ get thrown around when talking about careers. Finding your passion is certainly an important, deep and meaningful question and shouldn’t be ignored. But the assumption that passion comes before finding a job you love can be misleading. Sometimes passion can follow perfecting a skill and becoming a leader in that field. If you’re really, really good at something you are more likely to enjoy doing it and therefore be passionate about it. It’s easier to start with learning about your values and beliefs and finding companies that share those, than trying to tackle the big philosophical questions of passion. So here’s 5 ways to help you find the right company for you:

1)    What are your values and beliefs? Sit down with a pen and paper, write down your beliefs and then think about the type of people and the type of companies who share those. Think about the company culture. Are you looking for a global organisation or a start up? What are these companies trying to achieve? Do their values match yours?

2)    Do your research. Before applying for positions get talking to people. Talk to people who have worked in the company before or are currently working there. Get hold of people who you know perform a similar role to the one you are interested in and invite them for a coffee to find out more about it.

3)    Look at the company’s online presence. What is the image they portray? Are customers positive about the company?

4)    Understand how you could add value to this company. What can you contribute and how would you do so? Hiring managers need employees that solve their problems, so investigate where you could help the company achieve their goals.

5)    Use your imagination. Career skills are often transferable and if you have belief and drive sometimes companies will be willing to train you for a position in order to use those skills and enthusiasm for the greater good.

What are your company’s values and how do you identify with these?

Posted by: Sarah Price, on February 17, 2014
Categories: Articles

Tweet