One of the final steps of any job interview with Culture Foundry is “The Talk”. (We don’t call it “The Talk” internally, it’s just how I think of it.)

“The Talk” happens with the hiring manager and often the co-founders, depending on the position. “The Talk” happens after all the hoops are jumped through.

The candidate likes Culture Foundry. Culture Foundry likes the candidate. Salary/benefits/job description has been sorted out. Basically, the job hunt for the candidates is over and the slot at Culture Foundry has been all but filled.

But, in the spirit of honesty and transparency, “The Talk” is scheduled.

The entire point of “The Talk” is to discuss why the candidate shouldn’t take the job with Culture Foundry. To explain the risks of joining Culture Foundry. To expose all the warts and frustrations that the candidate will experience. To “open the kimono” and let the candidate know as much as is possible before they take the leap and join the Culture Foundry team.

We recognize that changing employers is a big life decision. This is true even if Culture Foundry has great work life balance, interesting problems and lets you work remotely from just about anywhere. The last thing we want is for an employee to want to depart Culture Foundry shortly after they arrive because they didn’t know what they were getting into. “The Talk” is a chance to prevent a candidate from accidentally stepping on a banana peel and making a career slip up.

As one of the founders says “Guess what, they’re going to learn about all these issues on day one anyway.”

Culture Foundry is a great place to work but it isn’t perfect (no workplace is). Some context can be gained from the interview process, researching our client lists or reading blog posts, but you can never know everything. We prefer to overcommunicate.

Frankly, it also affords us a great way to start building trust. If you can’t talk about company weaknesses with a candidate (who will likely have other options), will you be able to have difficult, honest conversations about weaknesses with an employee (who presumably would like to remain employed)? Or, more to the point, will the employee feel comfortable having those conversations?

We’ve never had someone turn down a position based on “The Talk”. But everyone who has been through it has a better understanding of the difficulties and opportunities facing Culture Foundry. And we think that’s a great thing.