It’s easy to forget that job interviews aren’t just an evaluation of you as a candidate, they’re also a chance for you to get a sense of the company and team you could work with. Look for these warning signs during your next interview to make sure you’re getting into a good situation.
Image from pkhamre.
Besides generally seeing if the company and culture meshes with you, you should keep an eye out for these signs that the company might not be a good fit.
- Turnover Rate: If there’s a high turnover rate, it can mean the work environment is tough, benefits are poor or there’s lack of good management. If everyone you talk to during your interview has been at the company for a year or less, take that as a sign you could be getting into something bad.
- How Current Employees Feel and Act: If the employees you talk to during your interview don’t have positive things to say about the company or their manager that’s a huge red flag. Since you can’t count on employees to always be honest about how they feel, watch their body language, and the body language of those you see around the office.
- Overuse of Jargon: If your interviewers use too many buzzwords, fancy phrasing and jargon to try to make the company, team or role sound impressive, they may be trying to cover up something, or worse, just not be people you want to work with.
- Overselling: While trying to sell to a stellar candidate isn’t unusual, if you get the feeling the interviewers are trying to oversell the position or role, probe deeper to find out what they’re hiding. Even great companies or roles have challenges that will come up and that can be shared during an interview.
- Lack of Clear Career Development: The hiring manager for the role should be able to speak to the career growth options available. If they can’t give you an idea of what your path would be within the team or company, that might be a sign you won’t get much career development should you accept an offer.
- Asking for Money: You’re more likely to run into this with small companies or startups, but if a potential employer asks you for money, even for things like background checks or training right out of the gate in a setting like an interview, be wary.
While you can’t learn everything just from an interview, by looking for warning signs in these areas you can at least spot if a company will be a toxic place to work.
Signs You Should Not Accept That Job Offer [Mental Floss]
Comments
5 responses to “Six Warning Signs To Look For During A Job Interview”
Bloomin’ heck! If any interviewer asked me for cash I’d just get my coat.
Closest I think I’ve come to something like that was a place that insisted on a police clearance certificate which the individiual has to request. But that employer had a very clear process for reimbusring the candidate once hired (and hiring was subject to being able to produce the certificate). Which seemed fair – after all, if a candidate gets to the stage of employment offer but has been lying about the presence of something that would mean they’d not get a police certificate, seems fair they wear the cost of it.
Hah what?
It’s supposed to be a job, not a charity
Not being able to explain what your daily job function will be like. This means you will be thrown into random shit kicker jobs ranging from scrum master to dev jobs that require traveling 6 hours a day 3 days a week when you are a technical lead with 10+ years. FML
Beware if a friend offers you a job, especially if one or more of their family members already work there… R U N There’s a reason they set it up this way..
Scripted questions read out awkwardly.