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There is campus recruitment at college on Monday. I want to find out about the work culture of the company for which I have applied. I want to know if they have proper work life balance or not as it is important to me. It's not very famous company and has about 100 employees. The online reviews on sites like glassdoor are very mixed and inconclusive. I have an acquaintance who is working there for last 2 years and has great things to say about the company but his review maybe biased about it.

Considering it's a one day process and if I clear the personal interview I would have to accept the job and I will be out of the placement assistance process from the college how can I make sure that company has good work culture and doesn't ask employees to do over time without extra pay. Since most software companies in India atleast the startups don't have good work life balance I am skeptical about this company as well.

I know I can ask about it during the interview but no company is going to talk negative about them.

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    Possible duplicate of How can I gauge a company's culture before I begin working there?
    – gnat
    Commented Sep 6, 2019 at 21:53
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    If you don't believe and trust the word of your friend who works there then why would you believe and trust the word of anyone else? Your logic is a bit flawed.
    – joeqwerty
    Commented Sep 6, 2019 at 21:55
  • @joeqwerty He is just an acquaintance not a friend. There is a huge difference.
    – Stupid_Intern
    Commented Sep 6, 2019 at 21:57
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    OK, still... you want to solicit the input of perfect strangers but not someone who you at least know to some degree. I'm not understanding why you're outright discounting their input. That's not to say that the input of others won't be valuable, but how will you know that you can trust someone else's input?
    – joeqwerty
    Commented Sep 6, 2019 at 22:32
  • doesn't ask employees to do over time without extra pay : I am indian IT for a while, 90% of the companies are NOT paying for the overtime, you CANNOT start to home based on clock. VERY HARD REALITY.
    – NiceGuy
    Commented Oct 30, 2019 at 12:45

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I was in this exact same situation once. I was applying for a job at a company that had the same sort of mixed-bag reviews. And my solution worked pretty well for me.

Purposely be hyper-aware when you're walking through an area of the company with cubicles and office-workers - and try to get a sense of the "aura" of the work environment. Do people's voices sound happy, or downtrodden? Are the people walking around upbeat/optimistic, or are they trudging? Are there smiles? Frowns?

Keep in mind, while an interviewer will generally try to paint a happy picture of the company (Great culture, etc) it's a lot harder to fudge the environment around the office. In my case, I didn't quite know for sure from the interview itself, so I went ahead and asked the interviewer if I could take a quick tour of the area I'd be working in if I accepted the job. They took me around the section of cubicles I'd be in - and while they thought I was there to see what the workspace would look like, I was actually using it as an excuse to get a sense for what the atmosphere would be like. (It was actually pretty good, so I ended up taking the job.)

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  • I cant visit the office since interview is at college
    – Stupid_Intern
    Commented Sep 7, 2019 at 5:46
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    @PrisonMike - that's actually not really an obstacle. Proceed through the interview. If they give you a job offer later on, simply say, "Can I take a tour of the office before accepting? I'd like to see where I'd be working before I give you my answer."
    – Kevin
    Commented Sep 7, 2019 at 13:59

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