One thing I encourage people to think about is to look not just at the company, but look at the specific person you’re going to be working for. When you look at exit interviews, across the board, 75 percent of the time, people leave because of the manager.
So look carefully at the person who you’ll be working for. Do you want to work with that person? Can you learn from that person? Are they going to help you? Are they going to support you? Make that a key part of your decision.
Because if you work for a great company for a poor person, you either have to find a way to change quickly or you’re going to be unhappy and you’re going to want to leave, regardless of how good the company is. Most people are blinded by the brand of the company, and they ignore what the experience day-to-day is going to be like. And it’s that experience that is going to ultimately matter the most.
Mike Tuchen as quoted by Adam Bryant, “Watch the Road, Not the Wipers”, The New York Times (10 April 2016), BU2.