If You're Looking for Red Flags Once You're in a Job, It's Too Late

04 Dec 2024 #career

It all starts with the job description.

No job description? Red flag.

“We’re looking for a passionate coding ninja to join our family. We work in an agile and fast-paced environment. We’re looking for a coder with 5 years of experience who can work on our public web page, mobile app, backend, frontend, DevOps, security, compliance, sales, marketing, documentation…Compensation based on experience and interview results.”

I’m making that up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a “real” job description like that one out there.

Passionate, coding ninja/superhero/master, family, fast-paced, high pressure…Nothing screams danger more than those words in a job description. Run, Forrest, run!

After reading between the lines of the job description, look at the company website.

“We’re a family.” That was the opening line on the careers page of a company someone tried to refer me to. I stopped reading. I didn’t need to look at anything else. It was a hell no. That was a blinking danger sign with sirens.

Ironically, every company claims to offer excellent conditions, and every applicants seems to be the perfect candidate for the job.