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You know in a job interview, all eyes are on you.

But the smart money tried to turn the spotlight on the company doing the hiring and the culture it creates.

Determining what that culture is in the interview phase can be tough. It's a time when interviewer and interviewee are all putting their best face forward.

Adam Grant wrote in the Dec. 19 New York Times about the virtues of finding out all you can about what the culture of a company is day-in and day-out before deciding if it is a good fit for you.

In "The one questions you should ask about every new job", Grant, who is a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote that asking people already in the company to tell you a story about their workplace can be enlightening.

These stories generally fall into four categories: "Is the big boss human?"; "Can the little person rise to the top?"; how they handle downsizing; and "how will the boss react to mistakes."

The answers to those questions, Grant writes will tell you a lot about a company's values — and whether those values are lived everyday or just words on paper.

His closing is particularly strong:

It’s always tempting to look for a great culture, but since bad is often stronger than good and toxic behaviors wreak more havoc than positive behaviors breed joy, it’s probably wiser to first rule out the worst cultures. When stories suggest that an organization is wildly unfair, unsafe or immovable, cross it off your list. And beware of joining a company with a bad reputation in the hopes that you’ll be the exception: the rare little guy who rises to the top. Rather than changing a cutthroat culture from the bottom, many people end up counting themselves lucky if they walk away without permanent scars.

If you’re still unsure where to work, start asking for stories about one practice that says a lot about a culture — a practice that consumes more than half of the time in big organizations. When people find it productive and enjoyable, that’s a good sign. A quote sometimes attributed to Dave Barry said it best: “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’ ”