If you listen to most employers, their company is an ethic driven, results rewarding utopia where the best employees will find the job of their dreams. But job candidates know this is far from the truth. All companies are flawed; but some are just more flawed than others. How does a job candidate dig deep and get the truth about a company’s real corporate culture?  Below are a few tips:

1. Start with the internet. Do a search on the company’s name along with the phrase “employee complaints.”  This is the first step in discovering some of the worse things others have to say about the employer.  A word of caution, some of the complaints may simply be the ranting of disgruntled slackers; but others may have a grain of truth in them. 
2. Try to find former employees who are not invested in bashing the company and ask them what it was that they enjoyed most while working there.  This can also be done on the internet, by posting “anonymously” on forums.
3. After the interview, ask if you can have a tour of the office.  Make sure you pay close attention to the body language of the employees. Do they seem tense, bored, scared or at ease and happy?  Take mental notes and compare those notes to the information you gathered online.
4. Ask the interviewers what type of events they hold for their employees. Do they have Christmas parties, retreats, conferences?  Or, do you get a blank stare. Do you really want to work someplace where it’s all work and no play?
5. Ask the interviewers to talk about the training courses and workshops where they sent top performers in the past year.  Note that this is a lot different than asking if they pay for workshops and training courses. Some employers officially offer this type of support; but actually getting them to back up that promise is another story.