We've had dating red flags, how about JOB red flags?

[uniglowooljumper]

The two worst jobs I ever had, I should never have taken up after the interview.

In both interviews, it was very clear that the supervisors/bosses did not want the person whose job I was interviewing for to go. In both second interviews, the person who held the position was there and in both cases the person was promoted.

There was lots of talk about how the boss/team hated to see 'Susan' or 'Wendy' go, how super Susan and Wendy were, staff would say things like 'You have big shoes to fill' and there was constant comparisons to Susan and Wendy.

I ended up quitting both after a month or two.

Now, any interview like this is the dating equivalent of talking about exes or saying your ex was psycho. I don't go any further.

Do you have any job red flags that make you nope out immediately?

The interviewer asked me if I had any “family plans”.

I was quite young at the time and unaware he wasn’t allowed to ask me those kinds of questions.

Now I would challenge it but at the time I naively answered him with probably the wrong answer...

did you just say you don't think women should be in management positions?!

If that poster is a woman, I bet she'd make an exception for herself

@isabellerossignol

did you just say you don't think women should be in management positions?!

If that poster is a woman, I bet she'd make an exception for herself

That poster sounds like my mother. She is a sexist twat too who has a complex about female managers.

Excessive interview rituals. Tests, a number of interviews, presentations...to me harks of a place where they think their job is so special that applicants should be damn glad to give up their time several times over.
I've had a lot of ceap interviews. One where I spent 5 minutes trying to convince the panel that they obviously had another candidate's CV on front of them. Then one member disliked an old boss I had and spent a lot of time grilling me about him.
Another time I was told that a second interview was required for me and just one other candidate that they couldnt decide between (really?). The interview was a two hour bus trip away and a presentation was required. I did the interview with one panel member obviously gurning throughout -she had excessive facial reactions to everything I said. Shock! Dismay! Positive! I presume this was done on purpose to throw me as I was never contacted following this interview. I wrote a number of months later to the CEO (I was also told travel expenses would be covered) and received a letter of apology. This was a state agency.
My worst interview was about 9 months ago. It was terrible. Imagine if you went for an interview and the panel were told you were a mass murderer before you went in...that kind of thing. Aggressive, nasty..it was bizarre. Again a presentation was required on what you would do on X in the role and I gave so many good ideas...turns out the job went to a serving Board member who did not resign from the Board, who was interviewed by other Board members and did not meet the minimum requirements. I bet anything I did not meet the minimum score as this is a common trick to ensure the preferred candidate gets the job.
Taking forever to get a written offer to you (unless it's a huge institution) following a verbal is a red flag and would have saved me misery in my twenties. As is anything vague regarding a start date.
I'm quite unhappy in my current job but the interview was a dream. Sadly the job in reality is not what I signed up for.

Workplaces that have someone who, if they so much as go off sick for a day, the company falls apart because they know procedures/who to contact for that problem/know where things are kept etc. Usually it's a case of "Karen would know that but she's off" and Karen never wrote it down because it was always fine just being in her head. Karen is never senior shes always at the bottom of the rung too.

It's bad management to let so much fall to just one person and never have stuff written down or practices shared.

@Buttybach

I had a job where your entire days Toilet breaks had to amount to less than 2.5 minutes. If you went over an email was sent to the entire team to tell them exactly how long you had spent on the loo, Unbeknownst to me I had Endometriosis and it was everywhere.

I thought it was IBS. To have an email sent out on a daily basis to everyone to tell them how long I had been...really put me a in a dark
place mentally.

What The Actual Fuck

This is bullying! Was it recently?

Definitely not getting a job description. In two roles this turned into a stressful nightmare with people trying to do parts of my job and visa versa with no real clarity on what anyone exactly was really meant to be focussed on. Made for toxic colleague relationships :(

Almost every job I've ever had has turned out to be awful in one way or another! Wish I'd read this thread 20 years ago!

Learned the hard way by me:

When they're biting your hand off to give you the job! Offering it before the interview is barely started...

I took as a compliment initially, turned out it was because they were shit to work for and anyone decent in the locale knew this and didn't even bother applying.

Agree with asking illegal questions too! Too many times been asked if I'm married/co-habiting, what my childcare arrangements are, when I plan on more dc etc

Being interviewed by 2 people who spent spent the whole interview joking and giggling. I thought they were fun, working with them was a nightmare, they had constant "in" jokes between themselves and took the piss out of everyone behind their backs. I lasted 6 months months and they were shocked when I handed my notice in as they believed working with them was such fun 🙄
My replacement left after 1 month and then the job was as advertised again 3 months later and again another 4 months after that.

Red flags can be more difficult to detect when you are using an agency, because some of the important interactions that might give you some clues they are arseholes, are lost if the back-and forth is done by the agency.

Two of the worst red flags were when I was very early in my career, was too naive / a pleaser, and ignored the red flags.

Interview was in the upstairs floor of a warehouse unit. Working for the MD. Job sounded really interesting, lots of autonomy, a chance for real advancement. The boss came across as genuinely a good guy. Trouble was, where I would be working had absolutely no natural daylight, no windows, 100% artificial light and it felt like a prison. I turned the job down, environment is as important as the job to me. The boss (and I, in fairness) was gutted when I declined, but I knew I would be miserable.

Another time, I got through interview 1 and interview 2 was to meet the boss. What a complete arsehole, and I should have walked out. HR said (before I went in to meet Mr AH) "good, I'm glad you've worn heels, Mr AH likes his female employees to be tall and slim, make sure you stand up nice and tall when you go in, won't you". At that point I was already .

Mr AH's interview technique was shite, (sneering, patronising) "on your CV you say you enjoy reading the Classics, what do you mean?" "Well, I like classic literature...." "No, you haven't answered the question, what do you mean by Classics" Nerves now getting the better of me, mind gone to mush and he knew it "um.... Jane Austin, um ... " "no you still haven't answered my question!! What do you mean by the word Classics". The most humiliating experience I've ever had. He offered me the job, quite a high salary for me at the time. I accepted through the agency, but asked them to find out if there was a pension scheme - there wasn't, but he then withdrew his offer, just because I'd asked. I was gutted, and pleaded with the agency to get him to change his mind. That was a very lucky escape, even though I didn't realise til a lot later how bad it would have been.

When they can't even get the job advert right. A place I left last year has advertised so many roles. One appeared in June. Said part time and in it, it said 18 hours in one line, in another 10 hours.

Having moved elsewhere, I definitely see just how awful they are.

Job interview where every question was a breeze and then suddenly they asked one about a skill mentioned nowhere in the job description. It was so different to the job description I was honest and said I had zero experience of it, They offered me the job anyway and it turned out that skill was 80% of the role.

Interviewing manager was 45 minutes late.
I sat with the hiring manager while she talked me the other role.

When he eventually turned up, he smoked all the way through.
Verbally offered at the end of the interview, then gave back word later. The hiring manager was really apologetic.

Another time, another smoker. Staff seemed nice, as was he. Looked like an interesting job, also verbally offered.

Was going to accept but when the email offer came, it quoted half the legal minimum holiday entitlement for FT staff.
I questioned this and he said if he gave me the full entitlement, he'd have to give it to the others too!
Didn't take it.

I'm not in UK, hence the smoking!

*Talked me through the role.

The only interview question was “Tell me about your work experience”, when I asked if they wanted to hear about anything specifically, they shrugged and said to just tell them everything.

I then didn’t hear anything for a month and assumed I hadn’t got it, when I received a letter inviting me to go for a physical. After going (god knows why, it was a desk job) I got another letter telling me my start date and saying how glad they were that I’d accepted the offer.

It clearly assumed that someone had spoken to me. I was too shy and inexperienced to point out their mistake. The letter also offered me a start date of the following Monday. I called and said I would need another week, but they begged me to start earlier and so I managed to arrange things quickly.

I started in May, they finally had work for me to do in August. I was so bored. The person training me hated me, they didn’t pay sick days (which I wasn’t told until I was injured in a car accident and had to take a week off work). Oh and we were the HR department.

It was a temporary contract and as it neared its end they wouldn’t tell me if they were keeping me on or not. So I applied for something in a different (better) department that I really wanted.

My boss pulled me in two weeks later (having heard nothing from my application) to tell me that I should be really pleased they were making my role permanent and they’d removed my application for the other job since I didn’t need it anymore.

They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t thrilled.

It was awful and I resigned three months later.

I’ve also been asked about my family commitments more times than I care to recall.

Major red flags:-
Shit at interviews with no interest in your skills
Leaving you waiting
Poor communication
Telling you they’re more interested in you fitting in than how well you do the job.

Red flag no.1 "we don't tolerate crying in the office"

Red flag 2 " Karen (present) is moving to another role as despite having an au pair wants to be home in time to put her kids to bed"

Despite being a low level admin role it was clear you were expected to work all hours and not allowed to cry about it.

I told the agency to withdraw my application and gave them feedback.

I took a job locally and the money was about as low as I had seen advertised for a full time job. They offered me the job but at 2k less than originally advertised. So it was only a tiny bit higher than minimum wage at this point. I was a bit shocked by that but stupidly I took the job telling myself I'd save time travelling. But they treated me as worthless from day one. There was one awful woman called Breda who was lovely to everybody else and an ice cold b1tch to me, even going to the manager to report some newbie confusion I'd had in week 3. It was raised again in week 5. I was held to a higher account than the people who'd been there for years. The whole situation was extremely toxic. Wish I'd walked out when they held the confusion from week 3 against me for the second time in week 5. I should have just walked out but I stayed long enough for them to sack me!!!
Then when I got another job and had had them on my CV, and the next employers contacted them even though I hadn't put them down as a CV, they seemed baffled and angry with me that I hadn't lied on my CV. How would I have known I was going to need to lie?? They tried to sabotage the next job I was offered (after many months of job hunting) by refusing to send back a civil service form that just wanted to know if I was cheerful, punctual, reliable. I was. I went in every day with a smile staple gunned on to my face, but they wouldn't send back that form because quote, they ''couldn't lie''.

I think I would have sued them if their spitefulness and maliciousness had cost me the job Im in now.

Worst job I ever had. 2 interviews.

First interview was with the office manager & a member of the team I would be in. Sitting in reception (which was actually a corridor leading to the toilets, so small the chairs were directly outside the toilet doors) the atmosphere was obviously toxic. I could hear people shouting and swearing at each other, it was obviously a high stress environment. Interview seemed to go ok though and after a week or so I was invited back for a second interview with the company directors. I went, ignoring the niggle in the back of my mind.

Go back for my second interview. Waited and waited on those chairs outside the toilets for 90 minutes before the director arrived. No apologies or explanation while I was waiting or when he arrived. While I was waiting the office manager saw me but didn’t even acknowledge me despite passing me numerous times and me saying hello to her. I remember it was the day after Lance Armstrong did his big confession interview with Oprah and it was being discussed in reception, she was so angry with Lane she ended up screaming at someone who made a joke about it. Turns out the whole place was on eggshells around her which became obvious while I was waiting.

I still took the job, I had been working in the construction industry and was facing my second redundancy in about 2 years and was desperate. At the end of my first day I cried thinking about how I should have taken the redundancy and at least gotten a pay out. I found out I was pregnant after a couple of months working there, went on mat leave and left within my first month of going back.

Looking back I will second a comment someone else has made, it wasn’t a red flag but a big red bloody wall that I didn’t see until it was too late.

The company, who do a lot of work in the public sector, are currently being investigated for bribing officials to win contracts worth millions, the office was raided by police a month or so after I left. It’s all true and was discussed openly in the office. A colleague, who left the week after me, got the documents off the directors computer (which he was authorised to access) to prove it and blew the whistle. He also sent me an email the director sent about me to my manager when i handed in my notice calling me a ‘fucking bitch’ and how he would ‘destroy me’ if I ever asked for a reference.

my God. I've done some shit jobs with some horrible colleagues, but nothing like some of these. What an eye-opener.

@icebearforpresident

Worst job I ever had. 2 interviews.

First interview was with the office manager & a member of the team I would be in. Sitting in reception (which was actually a corridor leading to the toilets, so small the chairs were directly outside the toilet doors) the atmosphere was obviously toxic. I could hear people shouting and swearing at each other, it was obviously a high stress environment. Interview seemed to go ok though and after a week or so I was invited back for a second interview with the company directors. I went, ignoring the niggle in the back of my mind.

Go back for my second interview. Waited and waited on those chairs outside the toilets for 90 minutes before the director arrived. No apologies or explanation while I was waiting or when he arrived. While I was waiting the office manager saw me but didn’t even acknowledge me despite passing me numerous times and me saying hello to her. I remember it was the day after Lance Armstrong did his big confession interview with Oprah and it was being discussed in reception, she was so angry with Lane she ended up screaming at someone who made a joke about it. Turns out the whole place was on eggshells around her which became obvious while I was waiting.

I still took the job, I had been working in the construction industry and was facing my second redundancy in about 2 years and was desperate. At the end of my first day I cried thinking about how I should have taken the redundancy and at least gotten a pay out. I found out I was pregnant after a couple of months working there, went on mat leave and left within my first month of going back.

Looking back I will second a comment someone else has made, it wasn’t a red flag but a big red bloody wall that I didn’t see until it was too late.

The company, who do a lot of work in the public sector, are currently being investigated for bribing officials to win contracts worth millions, the office was raided by police a month or so after I left. It’s all true and was discussed openly in the office. A colleague, who left the week after me, got the documents off the directors computer (which he was authorised to access) to prove it and blew the whistle. He also sent me an email the director sent about me to my manager when i handed in my notice calling me a ‘fucking bitch’ and how he would ‘destroy me’ if I ever asked for a reference.

I’m gobsmacked.

I hope I know who the organisation is... I have my suspicions and IMHO it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch.

I had one interview via an agency, for a small business out in the sticks.

Went for the interview and the whole thing was disorganised. It was for an office manger role, and the two interviewers/owners of business were very candidly stating the pay would be £2k less than they'd told the agency. It wwas also clear that there was no JD, that I'd be a jack of all trades, and the office manager bit was fiction. I withdrew from that job, which was a good decision. I did tell the agency about the stuff that contradicted what they'd told me.

That agency also sent me to an interview for another office manager role. Again, a role for which the company hadn't properly sorted out their requirements. The company had just bought a location near me and were not organised. Interview was a shambles, but I got asked back for a 2nd. Went back. and it was even more of a farce.

Had one interview for finance assistant at a vets, turned out to be basically debt chasing. No thanks, wasn't as described.

Got a job by applying directly to the organisation. Did a basic Word/Excel test, had a really good interview with what turned out to be my future boss. He told me they were interviewing until lunch time the next day and would let me know then. I got a phone call offering me the job at about 2:30pm, straight after what I now know was my boss's normal lunchtime (and allowing time for them to discuss).

6 months into the role, I asked my boss why they'd picked me, thought it might be useful one day. Turns out it was because I'd come along with a no-nonsense, can-do attitude, and also (echoing some other posts) because I'd been nice and chatty to the admin officer who was administering the tests and escorting me. Still friends with that admin officer. I've been promoted and moved roles in that company, there's a lovely atmosphere there (or was, we're all wfh now, and there's less interaction at present).

I was discussing job hunting with an ex-colleague yesterday, and he told me about an interview he's just had. Aming the questions they asked was "have you got a mortgage? We prefer drivers who need the money." So he said yes, and strong hints were dropped about ignoring the working time directive. So he said he was open to offers, and they mentioned going the extra mile. They said: "you have quite a magnetic personality."

That's got a very specific and illegal meaning in haulage. He isn't taking the job, but he reckons they'll not have their O-licence much longer.

Never but NEVER accept a position as a long term contractor.....you know, the ones with rolling contracts that get renewed year after year in perpetuity. You end up working with complete commitment and having the door closed to company benefits and progression. If there's a genuine need for the role, let it be a firm fulltime employment offer, not a disguised transaction/

@DisgraceToTheYChromosome

I was discussing job hunting with an ex-colleague yesterday, and he told me about an interview he's just had. Aming the questions they asked was "have you got a mortgage? We prefer drivers who need the money." So he said yes, and strong hints were dropped about ignoring the working time directive. So he said he was open to offers, and they mentioned going the extra mile. They said: "you have quite a magnetic personality."

That's got a very specific and illegal meaning in haulage. He isn't taking the job, but he reckons they'll not have their O-licence much longer.

Tacho fraud?