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What You Need to Know Before Taking that Job
As a potential employee, you have two occasions to take a deep breath and do your soul searching: Once before the interview, and another before accepting the job. "Think about how much time you need to take to research the job and how much time you need to take to do self-inventory," says Dick Bolles, author of the career guidebook, "What Color Is Your Parachute."

"Once you made up your mind, spend half the time researching the job and double the time researching yourself." Investigating a job doesn't just mean digging dirt up on your potential employer; it means reflecting on yourself and finding out how you and the company will mesh. Here are some questions to ask yourself and the company before diving in:


Am I doing what I like?
Several factors go into a good fit, but more often than not, we're drawn by a job's icing - instead of its substance.

You may have an offer from the Yankees, but if you want to do their marketing, and you've just been hired to be the laundry guy, the glamour of the Yankees name will wear thin.

Most people dislike their present job - not because of the skills they use - but because of the skills they don't get a chance to use. Your everyday tasks are the bread and butter of your job.

If the duties at your potential job don't excite you, the job will probably be a slog.

"Sit down before an interview and do an inventory of when it is you're happiest - what are the tasks you're doing, and what are the skills you're using? Look to see if the job offers you the opportunity to use them," says Bolles.


Is this job compatible with the rest of my life?

Whether the job represents a major pay cut, steals time from your family or takes away from your part-time poetry career, be realistic about your priorities. The division between business and personal life has always been an illusion. So when you're choosing a job, figure out how it gels with the other priorities in your life. "A person needs to ask, 'What is most important to me?' and look at life and their job not in silos, but as a composite life picture," says Marjorie Brody, founder of Brody Communications.

Nilaja Troy, 33, began to question whether to take a job at a children's publisher when she bumped into an employee who had slept in the office the night before.

"I suddenly felt like I couldn't do it," she says. "I've got two kids and a husband, and I was going to school part-time - there's no way I can pull an all-nighter."

One great way to see if a job fits is to try out the lifestyle. Run the numbers - your salary, your commute time, etc., then spend a couple of days living the life the job allows. If you find it's interfering with your priorities, it could mean two things: that you have to adjust, or that the job isn't right.


Is my gut telling me something?

Sometimes you'll step out of an interview with a nagging feeling. It could be a tingle or butterflies - listen up, it's telling you something. People tend to downplay the role of gut feelings or intuition in favor of stark facts of how a job looks on paper, but your intuition can be a great indicator for whether a job is a right fit. Very often, your gut knows long before you can put it into words. Logical or not, don't ignore whatever it is that sets off your internal red flags. Kohli, 25, learned to trust her intuition the hard way. She saw a job in a newspaper ad that said she could make "a zillion dollars an hour," which was suspicious enough - but when she went in for training, something was clearly wrong. "My boss was missing a tooth very prominently in the front, and he kept on using the word 'faggot,'" she says. "I thought to myself that I should not be taking this job, but I took it anyway.""I ended up selling driveway sealant. I'd go house to house carrying a tape measure, and say, 'Hey, why don't we measure these cracks in your driveway?' It was impossible to make more than $4 an hour."


QUESTIONS FOR THE COMPANY

Am I on trial?

If you treat interviews like a session in the interrogation room, you're missing the point. The interview gives you and the company a chance to get to know each other and to see if there's a fit, so don't feel poked and prodded. "You're going in as a resource person, not a job beggar," says Bolles. It might not feel like it, but you're interviewing the company as much they're interviewing you. Ideally, the interview should feel more like a conversation than the kind of grilling session you'd expect from future in-laws. Go into the meeting with questions. And after you've settled in with an interviewer, feel free to ask the interviewer about his experience at the firm.

Who are you guys?

One of the major reasons people hate their jobs is because they don't like the boss, according to Bolles. So before you sign on, find out who you'll be working for - and spend some time with them. Don't hesitate to ask questions like, "Who do I report to, and who reports to me? What are your expectations of me, and what's your management style?" But the boss isn't your only work relationship. Take time to tour the office and meet your would-be colleagues. Remember, you'll be spending the better part of the day with these people. If something about them bothers you - or they just plain suck! - it might not be the best work environment. If you're hesitating before signing, ask for another interview. After you've been offered the job, you have a much stronger hand to ask frank questions. Folks will tend to be more candid.

Pssst ... What's the 411 on those guys?

There's only so much you can learn from having face time. You've already researched the company, scoured the Web site and read the newspaper and journal articles. There's one more step. "You ought to research your prospective boss, albeit subtly," says executive search consultant Marilyn Machlowitz. You'll be surprised how wide your network spans.

You may not have a friend who knows insiders within the company, but you might have a friend-of-a-friend with contacts. "I interviewed as a replacement for a friend who was switching companies. She told me that that two of the people I'd be working for were very nice, and let me know about the peculiarities of the third," says Margaret, a 37-year-old adjunct professor.

"I knew what made these people tick. And because I knew all the ways this job was good for my friend, it turned out to be good for me." Companies and managers develop reputations within their industries. As someone just breaking in, you might not have heard the gossip through the grapevine, but if you ask around a little, you'll be able to dig up a lot to inform your decision.