It’s not easy to be an intern these days. With everyone from college graduates to high school seniors vying over the same shallow pool of positions, we are left with plenty of fish on the sand. To top it off, many of those who get to swim are having to pay for the opportunity.

Needless to say, when Kristian Andersen + Associate’s extended their summer internship position to me, I was thrilled. The prospect of having a job at all was magical (my hometown had the biggest year-over-year unemployment increase in the nation), but the prospect of having a job that resonated with my personality was sublime.

Last fall, I was fortunate to hear Zappos.com’s CEO, Tony Hsieh, lecture on the importance of measuring a company culture as we search for employment. He stressed to the hundreds of college students in attendance that any good company has a set of values, and if those values aren’t harmonious with our own, we probably shouldn’t bother. Not only will we be unhappy, but we will be doing that company a disservice if we aren’t wholly committed.

I based my impending internship hunt around this notion, and if I couldn’t visualize myself starting and managing a company like the prospective employer, I didn’t invest my efforts any further. Sure, with the aforementioned job market crash, turning down any opportunity for employment is risky, but the hunt for the ideal culture paid off immensely, and now I truly look forward to coming to work every day. I’m surrounded by a collection of talented, positive, forward-thinking individuals–and that’s exactly what I wanted.

Further reading: Hsieh puts his money where his mouth is with the quit-now bonus.