
First Signs That You Should Not Take That Job - gerryg
http://www.approvedindex.co.uk/hr-consultants/first-signs-you-should-not-take-that-job
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ryandrake
I like it--unfortunately, you usually never get a glimpse of those warning
signs until after you accept and move your family across the country.
Interviews with toxic companies are like tours of North Korea. Carefully
scripted, they select what you see and who you talk to, and make sure all the
crap is well hidden.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> you usually never get a glimpse of those warning signs until after you
> accept and move your family across the country

For what it's worth, finding new jobs without moving your family is a prime
advantage of technology hubs like Silicon Valley (and, to a lesser extent, New
York / London / etc).

~~~
pnathan
I can't stress this enough. Having done the 'work in non-hub' thing before,
and having moved for it: not worth it. Having the _large_ number of jobs open
is a big deal. Means that, for the right company, you can literally just walk
into a different floor of the _same building_ you were working at two weeks
ago. It's a massive advantage. Not to mention the networking between
companies, the competition, and the speed of advance.

All of that is for you yourself, without family. Imagine the same thing, but
for your children and their social networks & education. :-/

~~~
ryandrake
I agree with you both (and live in the Bay Area for pretty much that reason
and that reason only). But that reduced risk comes with a significant increase
to your cost of living.

~~~
pnathan
Unfortunately, yes. I'm in Seattle, and it's sitting at ~10% YoY house price
increases for purchases, with some horrific rent increase for units on the
market.

Other cities are more stable than SF/Seattle, afaict, without the price raise.

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kabdib
Bad signs:

\- They are too eager to have you.

\- All of the critical work is being done by contractors.

\- "This is just a prototype of the software," they say, "There's no way we're
going to ship this." Double the "run away" factor if the company is doing a
hardware product and the runway is less than a year . . . maybe two.

\- Your old boss from two years ago calls you up and says, "Interested in
rescuing a start-up?"

~~~
jguimont
However rescuing a startup/project is good as a contractor. Did it more than
once and it is rewarding in both experience and money.

~~~
odonnellryan
It depends. I haven't exactly rescued a startup, but worked on several
completely failed products to bring them up to "workable" status for a lot of
large companies.

Usually, if I'm working directly for the company, it is great. They understand
the previous team failed and they want to move forward. It might be a little
tough to ultimately gain their trust, but confidence goes a long way.

If I'm working as a subcontractor for the contractor/team that failed, it
won't be fun (in my experience). They are not grateful, they are going to blow
budget (their problem, but they make it yours) and they will blame you when
the time comes for it. Also, they take forever to pay.

------
bshimmin
I'm pretty sure this is linkbait advertising "Approved Index", whoever they
may be. I'm also pretty sure there's nothing in here that someone with half a
brain couldn't figure out for themselves.

~~~
stuaxo
This may be so - it's a pretty amusing infographic though, most people can
probably relate to a few of these.

~~~
VLM
Apparently "airplane passenger seat safety card" as a web comic style can be
implemented better than expected. I wouldn't mind seeing more.

------
cballard
The weird thing is when everyone else _doesn 't mind_ these, so you can't
catch it with #7. My current job has stuff like:

\- Open office with music playing, people talk at will (RIP, focus)

\- Long hours that people just _do willingly_ (i.e. no one asks them to)

\- Spent money on making office look nice, yet have desks from Ikea

But everyone else thinks it's the best place to work ever - "OMG, let's have
beers! At work! OMG!"

~~~
Someone1234
> Spent money on making office look nice, yet have desks from Ikea

You say that like it is a bad thing. I'd take an Ikea "LINNMON" table top with
their "GERTON" adjustable legs over half of the crappy desks I've had to work
at. Their "BEKANT" range isn't too shabby either (inc. the BEKANT sit/stand).

I'd say Ikea's office chairs are "meh" but their actual table tops/desks are
definitely up to par. I wouldn't be disappointed if I rolled into an office to
find them.

~~~
cballard
Well, we got the cheap ones apparently, because they're tiny and they wobble.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Yeah, their cheapest stuff is worth every penny you paid for it (i.e. both of
them ;)). The higher-range furniture is actually quite nice and sturdy, OTOH.

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sbenj
For software jobs, if the coding interviews are too easy it's likely you will
be working with people who are not very skilled, both because the low bar
allows poor programmers in and because it's a sign that the people putting
together the interview aren't very good. And of course that means you're
likely to be working with lousy code, and we all know how much fun that is.

~~~
herge
On the other end of the stick, an interviewer really should avoid really
tricky code interviews/tests. I find reading a candidate's code is more useful
to evaluate their ability to write clear code, to open up conversations about
harder problems around the code, or optimisations, or whatever, than to probe
their knowledge of programming tricks.

Having a gotcha coding test where even good candidates would spend a lot of
hours or miss entirely is not very interesting, as most working solutions will
resemble themselves and not really show the strengths and weaknesses of the
candidate.

~~~
tdumitrescu
Yeah, calibrating coding questions for timed interviews is really tricky and
in my experience always requires iteration. Trick questions with an "aha!"
moment lead to binary outcomes (either you pass or completely flop) and don't
give much useful signal. On the other hand, simplistic questions tend to focus
the interviewer on critique of stylistic details and personal coding
habits/preferences which don't say much about the interviewee's effectiveness.

------
donkeyd
I have to say that #5 isn't always true in IT. I see lots of companies that
are growing rapidly, but are selective at who they hire. Therefore they have a
constant need for people in pretty much the same role. The last 3 companies I
worked for had jobs that were always open, and they were great companies to
work for.

~~~
mercer
Yeah, that was the only one I immediately questioned. Many companies that I've
worked for as a contractor were permanently looking for developers, and I was
their more-expensive plan B.

The problem was that they either just didn't get enough applicants, or the
ones who did apply proved incompetent right away.

In one company they were so desperate that they blindly hired someone who
appeared to have a pretty decent track record. After two full weeks of him not
asking any questions and producing code that seemed 'off', I got suspicious.
Under the pretense of needing some help with a trivial bug, I sat down next to
him and observed, in total shock, that he didn't know even the most basic
keyboard shortcuts like copy and paste or alt-tab. I'm not sure how he managed
to write any code at all and suspect he outsourced it...

Of course, the _real_ problem is that these companies are not willing to pay
competitive salaries...

------
bulatb
On mobile there's a giant "HR quiz" thing taking up the screen and
masquerading as the content. Scroll down to see the infographic.

------
arethuza
One from my own past "How are you with managing difficult people?"

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kelukelugames
A few of my own.

1) Fake reviews on Glassdoor.

2) People don't give real answers to "Are there things you that could be
better?" or other probing questions.

3) Everyone is the same gender or race. This usually doesn't matter because
people are generally mature and respectful. But it's not a chance that's worth
taking.

~~~
odonnellryan
I don't get the Glassdoor thing. I was contracting for a few months at a
company that literally asked all their employees to leave reviews on
Glassdoor. They did. So like 20 reviews, all five star (one 4 actually, he got
called into a meeting) all from the same IP, same domain for email. How do
they not catch that?

~~~
zorked
Their legit review probably also fit that profile (same IP, same domain, etc.)

~~~
odonnellryan
Yeah, but not 15+ within a week, is my thought.

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fasouto
I will add one more:

\- There's no onboarding process for new hires

I've been in this situation twice and it sucks...

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mettamage
To what extent are these things true? To me the infographic looks a bit
exaggerated. Or are there people here that saw some of these points in their
own experiences while being interviewed?

(studying @ uni myself)

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nqzero
my #1: the company posts clickbait on HN

