Searching for a new job is rough, and sometimes it’s hard to know what to look for. I mean, how can you accurately assess an environment before you’re part of the every day there? Below are some red flags that people wish they had seen for what they are before they’d taken the job.
#15. No real training structure.
“Constantly having people leave. Constantly hiring people. No real training structure for new hires.”
#14. Be prepared.
“They’re not prepared for you on your first day. If I don’t even have a damned computer password just to get into Windows for a week so I’m sitting there twiddling my thumbs, it’s not going to work out.”
#13. How we’ve always done it.
“If you constantly get “this is how we’ve always done it” responses to your suggestions.”
#12. Nope.
“Being asked to create a presentation to justify my “high” wages… They hired me about 4 weeks previously. Lasted 18 months before getting the hell out of that place.”
#11. A laundry list.
“Being hired for a specific job and then having additional duties tacked on after you are hired.
The company doesn’t follow it’s own employee handbook or whatever rules and guidelines they have.
Work hours and days change after you are hired.
Telling you which holidays you have off, then not giving you those holiday’s off.
Every employee is talking shit about every other employee.
Poor or non-existent training time.
Management with no management training or knowledge.”
#10. In-betweeners.
“People have either been there for decades or a few weeks. No people in between.”
#9. Get the f*ck out.
“If, within the first month, your boss complains to you about your peers. Get the fuck out.”
#8. Insufficient funds.
“They have insufficient funds to cash your paycheck.”
#7. Asking straight up.
“When they want to know about private accounts or even some asking straight up for social media log in information.”
#6. Work hard, play hard…at work.
“We work hard and play hard”
translation: You’ll have no work-life balance but we also all drink too much.”
#5. You should be interviewing them.
“I already posted one comment here, but I’ve got another.
I got started in HVAC last spring and a month before tech school graduation I went to every HVAC company in my area and handed in my resume.
I had four interviews, my current employer was my third. He gave me the job offer but then told him I had an interview somewhere else shortly after this one and I wanted to see how it goes. After I said that he gave me some really good advice. He says:
“That’s good, that’s great. Interview at as many places as you can. You need to find a place that fits you and your expectations. If that isn’t here, then I wish you luck. Just remember: Not only are they interviewing you, but you should be interviewing them.”
After he said that I pretty much had my mind made up. This small company actually gives a shit.”
#4. Good questions.
“I always ask in interviews what the turnover rate is, or why the person I am replacing left the position. Definitely avoided some sketchy scenarios with those questions.”
#3. That look of defeat.
“The look of defeat on the faces of their employees.
When a place is good to work, their employees seem to be excited to be there. There are smiles, there are jokes, there is enthusiasm.
When a company screws over and abuses their employees? The employees get that look of defeat in their eyes. Their job has no enjoyment, it is merely about survival. When I say survival, I don’t mean working to make some money to get food to eat, I mean that you are trying to make it to the end of the day, just to go home and repeat the cycle, each day a bit worse than the next. People don’t joke and if they do, it seems to be morbid jokes about the workplace. People aren’t social. You can feel the lack of joy. The company has managed to defeat their workforce.”
#2. Protest too much?
“Having a guy saying in the 1st group meeting: this company IS NOT a pyramid scheme.”
#1. Warm bodies and complicated bonuses.
“The person interviewing you doesn’t seem to have any idea who you are. I don’t mean your name, I mean the stuff in your CV/application. If they don’t know who you are, that means they don’t care who you are. They just want a warm body for as long as they can have you.
Also, an overly complicated bonus schedule based off a large number of metrics. That’s the sign of a company that will be doing everything they can to screw you out of bonuses while simultaneously using the promise of future bonuses to retain people. I can guarantee you that at least 2 of those metrics are all but impossible to hit simultaneously.”
Learn from their mistakes, my friends!
