Why You Should Heed These Job Interview Red Flags

44. A Major Bullet

I walked into a job interview once at an open space office. I realized very fast that I was the only woman in the room. It was a small company, but not small enough that there would be no women present at all. Towards the end of the interview, another woman walked into the space, walked up to the coffeemaker, and kind of announced to the room that it was a mess again, why hasn’t anyone cleaned it up? And with a huff, started organizing it.

I even asked about it in the interview. They said of course there are more women! They even got one to call me up after the interview, to prove there are girls. You shouldn’t have to do that.

There were other red flags there, but don’t work for any company that’s homogenous. If you can’t see any women/people of color in a big room, it speaks volumes about company culture, hiring practices, etc. At my next job, I met a woman who’d worked at that company and told me that I dodged a major bullet – she’d gotten a concussion on the job and they were trying to cheat her out of benefits.

45. The Only Thing That Accounts

When you ask, “what do you like about working here” and the interviewer talks about the location of the job (“it’s a great place to live!”) instead of the actual job.

46. Make Promises

They asked me to commit to working there for a minimum of 3 years.

I told them I’d stay forever as long as I was being treated well and compensated appropriately. I asked them why they wanted a 3-year minimum and they explained they’d had people leave after only working there for a few months.

They started back-peddling madly when I asked them why people were leaving who had only worked there for a few months.

47. Someone Who Can

Mass firing of several employees prior to the job posting because “they weren’t a good fit.”

Hallmark of a toxic work environment where blame is spread readily and management’s conclusion is that they just had the wrong people.

I took a job once where I found out only after I was employed that one of those who was mass fired was tricked to come in on a Sunday just so they could fire him.

I often heard managers say, “Do the job or I’ll find someone who can.”

48. Can You Handle It?

I was in the final round of an interview for a marketing position at a major Ad Agency. One of the younger associates that would be on the team kept asking/hinting at the general q: “Can you handle challenging/difficult personalities? That’s going to be a major component of the job and managing expectations and such of high-level managers on other teams.”

I’m not sure if she was genuinely trying to warn me that the job involves working with difficult people or if she wanted me to turn down the job because she had a friend/connect that was also in the running.

Ragnarotico

49. Just Bad Vibes

“We start at 12$ here for everyone no matter the experience then after ur 6-month trial is up we move u up to 13$ an hour. And after every year you go up!”

Me:” but the job listing said 14$ an hr starting pay and I was hoping since I have 5 years working in childcare at 2 different places and with the local school district during Those 5 years and my certifications are up to date, and I have SELMA training and everything. I could do 15$ or 15.25/50$”

Them” everyone starts at 12$”

I said nope after that and ignored all calls/emails, and plus while I was there I watched how a teacher worked with her 13-18-month-olds…..screaming and just bad vibes.

50. Nope Homie

I had an interview recently and holy sh*t was it a disaster.

I asked an employee (of a global athletic company) in the interview if they had a good work-to-life balance. His response,

“Yeah, I suppose. I’m working about 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. So, it’s been really good.”

Yup. There’s no life balance in there homie.