Being Truly Valued as a Person in Your Career

Moving to an entirely new company can be daunting. All you know is the job description and the impression made during the interview process. But what about the company’s ethics? How do leaders treat their teams? Are the employees good people themselves?

These are questions that go through many a job seeker’s mind, especially as many of us have been in a position not to refuse a job when offered. Whilst you can ask those questions with your interviewer, you can only take them at face value and trust that what you hear is the truth.

It’s only once you’ve joined that you get to see if they actually stand behind those claims and endorse their company values or if they were empty promises to get another warm body to fill a position.

Something I’ve seen time and again in my sixteen-year career in sales is stress. It’s a naturally stressful environment that can bring out the worst in us, and how leadership deals with that stress can set the tone for a company’s culture. So when a company puts productivity over collaboration and numbers over people, that’s when you start seeing top talent leave. After all, employees rarely leave a company—they leave a bad manager.

Making the switch from competition to community

That was such a common theme in my experience that I didn’t believe it could be any different. That was until a friend of mine started working at Confluent. They had nothing but good things to say about their new role and spoke positively of their manager and never felt any worries. That was what gave me the push to apply to Confluent. Everything they said was true, even at the leadership level.

Here, everyone wants to see you succeed—they show it through empathy. They’re there when you have a question, or act as a sounding board when you make a tough decision, or offer help when you have a personal crisis. I found that Confluent puts people at the center of what they do—not the product.

Don’t be resigned, change your life for the better

Now more than ever, people are taking a hard look at their employers and deciding if they are in the environment they want to work in. And often the answer is no.

We’re in an employee’s market and are seeing great, talented people leave companies that are not empathetic, don’t provide the opportunities their talent deserves, or don’t treat them with respect.

If you want to work for a company that values you as a person and you see yourself giving that back, then check out the roles at Confluent.