A world apart from the everday ...

I do all those things, however I must admit the deciding factor for me is always gut feel.

Dude, people lie to get staff into their companies and people lie to get themselves into companies. Mission statements or whatever the interviewer says are usually bullsh*t. Rather work for yourself so that you can at least have some control over what happens at work.

At the end of the day, what is the worst that can happen? Gut feel is key for me too, but knowing that there is an out is good to have at the back of your mind. I suppose I'm not really one to talk. There are not many outs when you relocate everything to Durban.

As Diago said - all of those things but boils down to gut feel. Things that attract me to a company: The company must have a good name IN THE COMMUNITY not just on paper and there must be a learning incentive for me.

Unfortunately, for both parties, job applicants don't ask enough questions during an interview. (Perhaps they're just too desparate for the job...) It is as important to match the candidate to the position as finding a job that will provide you with the opportunities that you need to further your skills/career. First, decide what it is you are looking for and why you current employer cannot provide it. Then make damn sure that the next company can provide it! During the interview, ask general questions, like: - How did they decide to financially justify the position? (If it is new.) Creating a new position because they "need more people 'cos there is so much work" is a very bad sign. It also means that the company reacts to problems, rather than planning properly for the work and people they can take on. - What are their processes? Everyone will tell you that they have a proper SDLC, but we all know that few have. The more disciplined the process, the less overall pressure - without being anal, of course. (I worked for a company that did not have an in-house development environment! We had to develop the project on the client's QA env. But, we had a formal SDLC doc that clearly spelt out that code had to be tested on Dev, QA & Prod environments.) - How good is their documentation? Stuff like ER diagrams, class diagrams etc. make life a lot easier - for old and new employees. It certainly makes it easier for the newby to get into the swing of things. Cpys without docs change their minds too often, which results in more pressure on devs. (In my new job, I am much more of a Software Reverse Engineer than anything else.) Even though "soft issues" will always play a role, finding a new job should not involve gut-feel. It should be an unemotional, hard-arsed decision in which loyalty plays no part whatsoever.