Here are five red flags you need to look for from your prospective employer when you go to a face to face interview:
1. Disorganization 2. Trash Talking 3. Inappropriate or Offensive Behavior 4. Bait-and-Switch
5. "Many Hats"
If you see an employer demonstrating one of the above behaviors - run!
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Today, I'm going to give you five interviewer. Red flags. If an interviewer brings something like this up, you know, to run the other way, spent all this time looking for a job, you finally got a call back. You nailed the phone screen, and now you've been invited to face to face or a Zoom call with the employer. So here's five things that you need to watch out for. Red flags on the employer side. And if you see one of these red flags, you might not want to take that job before we start this. If you're not subscribed, please, like, please subscribe and please share this with your buddies or developers who want to get a good job. Red flag number one disorganized interview process. Hi. So I know you're going to interview with Sharon, but Sharon's got a long term sick leave and Carl's in her place. But Carl only works every other odd number day when there's an odd number of days and even months. Now, if the even numbered month ends in an odd numbered day, he's here between twelve and three. So I was going to be talking attached, but attaches down the headquarters ever since there was that fire. So I'll find someone to interview you. Okay, so that's an extreme example. But if you show up for an interview and everyone's disorganized, they can't find the people who are supposed to interview you or they don't know where they're supposed to be. Then you might want to reconsider working there. Now, don't get me wrong. There's going to be hiccups. There might be an emergency, and someone might have to leave the meeting with you or the conference room might get double booked. Things like this happen at work. But if it seems like it's part of the culture that there's extreme disorganization, you probably don't want to work at that company. Red flag number two, trash talking and negativity. You know, the last person who held his job real idiot couldn't code to save his life. Screwed up our whole system. So you'll be dealing with what he had to do. Let me tell you something. He smelled as well as sea salt and vinegar chips were a person, it would look like him. You got a pretty interesting resume. He seemed like a highly motivated person. Let me tell you something. Every single dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated person, too. If the interviewer has a negative attitude or he trash talks his own company, that might be a sign that you don't want to work there. Now, there's a big difference between trash talking the company and being honest and candid about the challenges of the job. If you know, you're going into a difficult position, the guy just might want to say upfront, hey, this is a difficult position, or we have a very difficult customer. And there's a lot of challenges in this that might be totally fine. But, you know, when a guy is trash talking. And you know, when a guy is being honest, if someone's trashtalking their own workplace, you don't want to work there. The third red flag is rude, offensive, or inappropriate behavior. You're President of Delta Zeta sorority. Nice. When I was in school. Delta Zeta's are the hottest bunch of functioning alcoholics on campus. They didn't teach you how to wear heels. If someone's being rude or inappropriate during the interview process, how the heck are they going to treat you when they're giving you money every two weeks? And one thing to remember. At least here in America, you can't be asked about your age, your race, your marital status, whether you have children. So keep that in mind. If the interviewer starts getting a little too personal, which brings us to Red Flag number four, the classic bait and switch. I see there's a lot of C sharp on your resume. Just know that this job is a C sharp developer, but it's actually 10% C sharp, 50% Python, 50% MongoDB, 50% MATLAB and 100% BackboneJS and 50% help desk and all of their duties as a side. So if the job description doesn't actually match what you're interviewing for, consider that a red flag. The company may be trying to find someone and they can't find anybody. And so they resort to trying to trick someone who's desperate to work for them. And be wary of companies that say a position is 50% help desk and 50% coding. Here's why Help Desk is always going to take the majority of your time, because if you aren't working the help desk, your boss is going to know about it immediately. So if you're doing 60% help desk, you're still going to be expected to hit your deadlines and do 50% programming. This is how you end up on a performance improvement plan, even though you've been working your butt off. So if a company says 50% help Desk and 50% coding, be very, very wary of that company. And finally, Red Flag number five, we pride ourselves on wearing many answers. This is a red flag because sometimes companies need an entire It team, but they only have the budget for a junior developer. So those are the red flags. Good luck on your next interview.