“What’s your culture like?”
A 3-point response cheat sheet A/E/C professionals can use with prospective employees.
1. MISSION. Start with talking about the mission, not the mission statement. The difference? The mission is shorter, cleaner, and has emotion. Examples. For a structural engineering firm, “We just love (location we work in). Our statement buildings are how we love this community.” For an architecture firm, “We believe our seniors deserve our gratitude and respect so we focus on designing fun and safe homes for them that are meant to bring joy.”
2. CORE VALUES. Take the mission and frame it with your core values. Core values are never just single words! They are narrative, they profess a point of view, and they serve as decision making tools. For the structural engineering firm, one core value may be safety. But we don’t blurt out, “Safety” and leave it at that. Instead, we narrate our definition of the core value. “To love this community means we need to keep people safe. Safety is paramount in this firm and we spend more time than is customary on our quality control process.”
3. STORY. Bring the mission and core values to life using supporting stories. Short, interesting, relevant, true stories that reinforce the sentiments of mission and core values. A few pointers on a good story. (1) Develop the story before you need to tell it. Off the cuff stories usually end up confusing. (2) Make it 2 minutes or less. Short, concise stories are gold. (3) Articulate the drama. Surface what makes the story interesting.
When you do this you will crush the other design firms that your superstar candidate is considering. More than ever, new team members want to be inspired.
