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The job market is still hot despite fears of a recession, and job seekers continue to show confidence in their ability to land better jobs.
“I get this question quite often from my students…how do they choose from the many proposals they receive?” said Olivier Siboni, professor of strategy at HEC Paris.
But as candidates find themselves in power, the “most likely mistake” they would make is to let their decision-making be swayed by a single interaction, he told CNBC Make It.
This is also known as the “halo effect,” which is the tendency for a positive overall impression of someone or a company to positively influence one’s opinion in other areas.
Quite often when people don’t respond to a job, it’s because they haven’t done their homework properly… they haven’t asked the right questions.
Oliver Siboney
Professor, HEC Paris
For example, if a job applicant’s first interaction with a company representative — which is usually a recruiter — is positive, the questions he or she will ask during the interview “will support that initial judgment, Siboni said.
“You will find the answers satisfactory to all the questions you ask, and you will only ask questions that confirm your initial positive impression,” he added.
“You’re not going to ask the hard questions … that would actually get the answers that would make you think, ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good company after all.'”
How can you avoid choosing a job you might regret? CNBC Make It finds out.
1. Ask the same questions
To overcome the halo effect, you have to “force yourself to ask” every company the same questions, said Siboni, who is also an associate fellow at the University of Oxford.
“Whether you actually ask those questions in the interview or get the information from another reliable source is a separate question,” he added.
“You might be much better off getting the answers to your questions from Glassdoor or from people who work at the company — rather than asking the interviewer — who is very unlikely to give you the right answer if you’re realistic about it.”
2. Do your research
A “good practice” is for everyone to have a list of questions or criteria they would like their work to meet, Siboni said.
“Quite often when people don’t answer a job, it’s because they haven’t done their homework properly… they haven’t asked the right questions.”
“Quite often when people don’t respond to a job, it’s because they haven’t done their homework properly,” said Olivier Siboni, professor of strategy at HEC Paris.
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The author of “You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake!” recommended this process for creating a checklist: Talk to five friends who have quit their jobs within months or “tell you how much they hate their jobs every time you meet them.”
“Ask yourself, what could this person do before taking the job that would give them the information they need to make the right decision? What is the red flag he should have seen but didn’t look for?’
3. Are your potential colleagues satisfied?
In addition to talking to your friends, it might be worth talking to your potential colleagues, Siboni said.
“You might think you’ve been given a lot of information … but they are [on the] inside they have a lot more information than you do.”
If they’re unhappy, there’s a very good chance you’ll be unhappy too.
Olivier Siboni
Professor, HEC Paris
He added that applicants can ignore red flags, thinking they are “different” or “unique.”
“But you’re less different than you think. . . . The best indicator of how happy you’ll be in a job is how happy the other people who are in that job are.”
“If they’re unhappy, there’s a very good chance you’ll be unhappy too,” Siboni said.
4. Know what is important to you
Another reason why job seekers are not fit for work is that “they don’t really know what matters to them.”
“Part of what you do when you start a new job or when you take successive new jobs is not just learn about these companies. It’s about learning about yourself,” Siboni said.
He added that even if you’ve prepared as best you can, there can be “bad surprises” once you start a new role.
“I remember talking to a former student who said she felt very depressed and alienated because people were working from home all the time and [she] I wanted to be in an office with them,” Siboni said.
Treat every new job as a learning opportunity — not just about the job, but about yourself, Siboni said.
Morsa Images | Getty Images
“I asked her, but you didn’t ask that question [during the interview]? She said, “No, because I didn’t know it was important.”
That’s why Sibony encourages job seekers to treat every new job as a learning opportunity — not only to learn about the job, but also about themselves.
“You don’t really know who you are until you experience being many different people in many different situations,” he added.
Do not miss: Here’s how to protect your career from a recession, according to one executive
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