You’re at HR interviewing for an office job. Is it ok to inquire about your new workspace? Or should you humbly take the job and hope it doesn’t come with a 6x6 cubicle with 4 ft high walls?
Or can you ask to visit the dept’s office and see the work space before accepting the job?
Is it a cubicle or an office with a door?
large enough to hold small meetings? For example my current office has a small table with two chairs in the back corner. I often have working meetings with one or two people from other depts. I don’t have to reserve the conference room and thats a big time saver. I can set up a quick meeting in 15 minutes.
Window office? It took me 5 years to finally get a window office. They’re assigned by seniority where I currently work.
I usually ask on the way out - by the way can I see where I would be working?
Folks generally seem quite happy to do so; I think it bothered them. I’ve only had it happen twice when I was the interview_er_ and I was pleased to show them both times.
For me, it’s more about having the chance to see the faces of the people in the vicinity - do they look happy? Are they grinding their teeth or staring blankly into space? That sort of thing.
I think it’s a great idea, but you do have to phrase it correctly - “Could I see where I would be working?” sounds about right. “Can I see where I will be working?” sounds a bit presumptuous - assuming that you already have the job. “Can I see the sweat shop?” is right out. Well, unless you are actually applying to work in a sweat shop.
I do ask about seeing where I’d be working - generally anyway, if I think I want the job. I always try to keep it very respectful and not presume I have the job, but I’ve been burned enough times now that I’d like to take a look at what I can. It also gives you a glimpse of the people you’ll be working with (to gauge the mood and energy of the place). For the same reason, I do try to ask tactful questions about culture, working conditions, etc. It’s not about being self-serving or high-maintenance, it’s about getting as much information about the job as I can. For example, if I’m starting in a tiny cube with other peons but I see lots of big, stately, well-decorated offices for a huge number of managers, that’s bad. If I see cubes and workgroups including different levels of people, that’s not so bad. Clear signs about territoriality and scarcity, like signs “this belongs to X, do not move” everywhere? Bad. Nice common areas for people to work collaboratively? Good. Every desk looks exactly the same, bad – marks of creativity and personal expression like office toys, art, that sort of thing, good. And so on. I like to work in places that aren’t officious and bureaucratic, and where people are bright and like their jobs. You can tell a lot toward that end by a brief tour.
I’m sure there would be places with a “well, you’ll take what we give you and like it” attitude. I’m glad to screen those places out.
Is the implication that you would refuse the job based on whether you had a cube or an office, or simple curiosity?
In my mind, whether you ask or not depends on what you’ll be doing and your situation. If you have a disability that requires you to have special accommodations, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to know where you might be working; if not, I would think it strange if someone asked me.
That is perfectly possible. The work environment could easily be a big factor whether I took a given job or not. I have a good job now with my own office. If I interviewed at another company just out of curiosity, I would turn down an offer even for little more money if they wanted to put me in a cube farm. I have done those before and I hated them plus it would tell me that the job wouldn’t be as at a high of a level as I have now. Interviewing is a two-way street after all.
Whenever I’ve interviewed, I interviewed people in their own offices, so it wasn’t really a question I’d have had to ask, but during the interview would be appropriate, I’d think. Asking at the job offer sounds like you forgot to ask at the interview.
This is what you discuss after they make you a offer. Then you say “In considering this offer, do I get a office or just a cubicle? etc”. You do not discuss this at the interview.
I’d never take an offer just based on interviewing with HR. You need to meet with the boss you will be working for (and preferable, also the people you will be working with) to make sure it’s a good fit. Meeting with them almost always includes seeing the space where you will be.
This. You won’t be working for HR, will you? What if your boss is someone you can’t stand. What if your prospective boss starts hitting on you? Any company that lets you talk to HR only is not one you really want to be working for, unless you are starving.
I work in a technical field, so this has never been a problem, since no one in HR has a clue about what we do and what is important - and they know it, and we work well together.
If someone asked me, and no one ever has, the answer depends on the level and the available space. I’m going through this now, and putting someone in the cubes we have built as we fill up is not any sort of an insult.
At the interview, I would just ask (toward the end when they ask if YOU have any questions about the job), “How is the workspace laid out, for this type of position? Is it an office, or a cubicle, or more of an open-concept?”
I wouldn’t ask to *see *it until I received an offer of employment.
I’m in a position to approve or disapprove of your hiring. I understand the concern about working space, and wouldn’t be overly (I think) concerned about someone who asked. However, if you’re considering taking a job with us, and your workspace is among your primary concerns and not something you trust us to deal with appropriately, it does raise questions about whether you’re too concerned about the superficial aspects of the position for which you’re applying.
In short, I wouldn’t entirely dismiss you as a candidate for asking, but I also wouldn’t ask if interviewing myself.
I think you can judge what a company will be like to work for based on the quality of chairs they offer their workers. If a company is willing to pay you tens of thousands of dollars a year but they’re not willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars every few years on a good chair which you’ll sit in for 2000 hours a year, they don’t have their priorities straight.
You can expand this to the rest of the office. If a company is not willing to put in the relatively small amount of money and effort required to make the office pleasant to be in, it’s unlikely it will be a pleasant place to work.
With lab jobs, I’ve always had a preliminary interview with HR and then a real interview with the lab manager. HR just needs to do the background checks and the reference calls and set up an appointment for me to pee into a cup for the drug test. The meeting with the lab manager is always in or near the lab, and in my experience has always included a tour of the facility.
Even when interviewing for office jobs, I’ve always been interviewed in the same building where I’d be working, and given a quick tour. The one time that did not happen, and I showed up to work at a place I’d never seen before, was when I worked through a temp agency.
Frankly, if this is the business’s thought process on providing a suitable workspace, I’m not sure you want to work for them. I spend 8 hours a day 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year at my workspace. The quality of that space is anything but “superficial”.
It’s interesting that you consider a person’s workspace to be a “superficial” aspect of the position. To me, having an appropriately designed workspace is a critical part of making sure someone is happy and productive in their role. And it also tells you a lot about the culture of the company. Do people sit in isolating 6’ cubes? Are they clustered together in collaborative “pods”? Why are they working off makeshift Ikea desks?
Really, what do you think is so special about your company that a person should ignore “superficial” stuff like the actual environment they will be working in?
It’s never been a problem because from what I’ve seen, technical people often get relegated to some back office nerdery in the bowels of the building.