Why Millennials Ask This During Interviews & Why You Should Care

You have probably interviewed a lot of millennials throughout your tenure as a hiring manager, and it can be a tough profile to crack. They can be very different from the average employee in the office: whether it's their needs and wants; their priorities; their approach to problem-solving; or their overall perspective in the workplace. The bottom-line is that this diversity is exactly what you might need to remain successful and relevant. Let me explain with an example:

As a millennial, I am aware of the implications a lot of interviewers have about me when I walk into a face-to-face interview. One hiring manager (who ended up hiring me), pointed out that one of my follow-up questions left an impression on him because he thought about it for several days after our conversation. My first question, as with any of the positions I interview for, was: "Can you tell me about the culture in your office?"

I never really thought deeply into the exact reason as to why I asked this during every interview. But after my hiring manager discussed it with me, it makes total sense. Employees and bosses alike swear that "people don't quit their jobs, they quit their managers", but if you dive into why that is, you'll learn that the issue does not stop at the manager. It all begins with the culture within the company itself: what they value, how they take care of what they claim to value, etc..

I was told that when I asked the hiring manager the question, it immediately told him that I was a perfect fit for the company – regardless of the position. The company's culture revolved around their employees, with the mentality that if they took care of their employees, they would take care of their clients and customers alike. I admit, it sounds a little naïve to think that would work for all businesses, but it brings up an important question to business owners and decision makers: What is your culture like? What do you value in your company? What do you do to take care and prioritize them?

To put into simple terms, I created an analogy to explain where a company's culture fits into a business. Imagine the company as a human body: the lifeblood of which is money (revenue, investments, loans, etc.) provide the business with the necessary resources to achieve its day-to-day tasks; the business has organs (departments) all of which have their own necessary functions; and the culture is the skeletal system – to which everything else finds support.

Business is not always about profit. It's incredibly important as a long-term goal, but when one's culture influences their process, it allows them to be guided by something that cannot be influenced by outside factors. For example, Amazon took 14 years to break-even with its costs. For the early part of its life, they were not making a profit, but by sticking to what they value, their objectives and their goals, they are now one of the biggest success stories in business history.

So with that said, let me ask one more time: "Can you tell me about the culture in your office?"