Interviewing for values

In a 2000 survey, the Ethics Resource Center found that 92 percent of employees of large corporations felt loyalty to their company if it had a complete ethics program in place. That's substantially higher than the 73 percent who felt the same way towards companies that had only a set of ethics standards.

While employees should feel free to ask lots of questions, they should do so tactfully, warns Keith Greene, director of organizational programs at the Society for Human Resource Management, which represents human resources professionals.

"Are you ethical?" won't elicit a useful response, he says. But an employee who begins by saying something along the lines of "I'm really concerned that the organization I work for fits with my ethical perceptions" can introduce a string of key questions. What is the composition of the board of directors? How are these individuals selected?

"As a prospective employer, if I'm asked that question, I'm going to say to myself: 'Here's an individual who wants to make a truly educated decision," says Mr. Greene of the Alexandria, Va., organization.

Don't just rely on the interview. Try to pick up the feel of the place. What are the employees talking about in the cafeteria? How organized or informal does the workplace look? "You want to nose around," says Peter D. Kinder, president of KLD Research & Analytics, the Boston consulting firm that created the social-responsibility Domini index. "If there's a convenience store next door, ask the convenience store owner what he thinks of the people who work at the company."

Get candid assessments from current workers by hanging around the parking lot at closing time, Greene suggests. And don't overlook Internet news groups, where you can troll for current and former employees.

These steps will go a long way toward avoiding working for a company that will embarrass you – or lay you off because of scandal – down the road. But they can't eliminate all the risk. Companies such as Enron fooled even social responsibility investment experts.

"If you're talking about something like an Enron situation or a WorldCom situation, there's really very little a potential employee can do" to spot trouble, says John Warren, associate general counsel of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, a professional membership organization based in Austin, Texas. But "from talking to people in the industry, you can get a sense of the corporate culture."

And that might be enough to send up a red flag. In the end, "you have to go with your gut," says Mr. Kinder of KLD, "and never go against your gut."

Before a face-to-face interview with a prospective employer, use the Internet to conduct an ethics audit of the company. Any good search engine will find big controversies the company has stumbled into. Then use these sites to dig deeper:

• Business Ethics Magazine (www.business-ethics.com) lists the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2002.

• Business for Social Responsibility (www.bsr.org/Meta/MemberList.cfm) lists many of its members. If your prospective employer is on the list, it means the company is at least interested in exploring ethical issues.

• Calvert Group (www.calvert.com) posts a social index, which profiles companies that have passed its criteria and produce safe, beneficial products with integrity and attention to employees and the environment.

• Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (www.iit.edu/departments/csep) contains hundreds of codes of ethics online. Click on "Codes of Ethics Online" to see if your company is listed.

• Domini 400 Social Index (www.domini.com/dsi400) lists companies that uphold certain social-responsibility standards, including commitment to the environment, employee diversity, charity, and human rights. Of course, no list is perfect. The venerable Domini 400 included Enron at one point.

• Fortune magazine (www.fortune.com/lists/bestcompanies) ranks every year the 100 best companies to work for.

• Working Mother magazine (www.workingwoman.com) ranks the best 100 companies for women who balance career and children.

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