Presenting 7 Interview Red Flags You Don’t Want to Miss

We’re familiar with talking about all the work that goes into preparing for an interview, but the red flags displayed by the interviewer and employer rarely get discussed. An interview for a job role is commonly seen as the interviewer’s chance to assess the candidate, but it is equally important for a candidate to look out for warning signs in a job interview that signal what kind of workplace it is. 

Some organizations have overly elaborate hiring procedures to create the illusion of a hard-to-fill role to confuse you into accepting the offer, but once you accept the job, you realize that all the signs of a toxic workplace were evident during the interview. Performing your best during an interview is good practice regardless of who the employer is, but you might also want to open your mind to the red flags in the job interviews that warn you away from the organization. 

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Job Interview Red Flags That You Need to Keep Your Eyes Peeled For

A job interview is never meant to be one-sided—there are always two or more participants and everyone has an equal stake in the results of the interview. It is essential for the recruiter to find a candidate who meets the organization’s expectations, but it is equally important for the candidate to find an employer who can support their career. With this in mind, while the interviewer investigates your knowledge base and experience levels, it’s also up to you to understand what the employers have to offer to aid in your journey to your professional goals.

Repeated Rescheduling or Scattered Planning

Your interviewer’s first impression of you is usually created by your resume, cover letter, and application for the job, but your first interaction with the organization occurs during the interviews. If an interviewer asks you to make yourself available at odd hours, reschedules the meeting repeatedly without reason, shows up late for the interview, or sends rude, biting emails in response to your queries, then you should consider it to be your first interview red flag. 

Such unprofessional behavior may just be the fault of the interviewer and not the organization at large, but it could also reflect the company culture as a whole. The signs of a bad interview don’t mean you should give up on the job immediately, but you can exercise caution and investigate the situation further.

Lack of Clarity About the Roles is a Sign of a Bad Interview

When you prepare for an interview, you’re expected to do some research into the organization and understand its business concept and your role at the organization. Similarly, the interviewer also needs to be clear about the role they are interviewing you for, in order to correctly assess your eligibility. Of course, an HR manager conducting the personal interview may not be able to answer the nitty-gritty details of what the job entails, but any interviewer should have a healthy understanding of the area they are interviewing you. 

Further toxic workplace interview signs in the same vein occur when the interviewer gives you an entirely different job description from what was advertised. Many job postings are recycled without being updated or they hide information in order to attract candidates. A mismatch is never ideal.

Too Many Rounds of the Same Processes Can Be a Warning Sign of Bad Interviews

Many employees believe that a maximum of three rounds of interviewing should be sufficient to determine whether a candidate is a good fit or not. Unfortunately, many organizations, especially those on top of their industry, regularly require their employees to work with different interviewers and panels before they can make it onto their team. As a result, multiple rounds of interviews are often inevitable. What you should look out for, is whether the interviews are repetitive—with the same people or on the same topic again and again. 

When the series of tests and interviews at an organization serve a purpose, they’re usually differentiated by the tasks required by different teams and stakeholders that need to approve your qualifications. When you’re asked the same question over and over again by different team members or by the same members who did not record your previous response, you should be wary.

Derogatory Behavior is a Certain Sign of a Toxic Workplace

One of the most significant interview red flags is derogatory or discriminatory behavior. As much as it feels like the interviewer holds the power and is in a superior role, a candidate is never beneath them or undeserving of respect. Simple behaviors like scoffing and rolling their eyes at what a candidate has to say are unprofessional, even when the candidate is underperforming or embarrassing themselves. 

Just as it is a bad idea for you to badmouth your previous employer during a job interview, an interviewer should not be caught criticizing the company, his colleagues, or the employee you’re supposed to replace. 

Derogatory opinions are often disguised as jokes and passed off as casual comments. Understand where your own limits lie with such behavior because once you join the organization, there will be significantly more of that language you will have to encounter. 

In other situations where a joke is made about another community and you’re expected to join in and agree with them, you should note that such remarks could be turned on you to put down some part of your identity in the future. A toxic work culture that does not set boundaries on appropriate workplace behavior and language is not one you should aspire to work at.

Non-disclosure of Salaries and Benefits: Certain Red Flags in Job Interviews

Pay transparency laws are growing more common across states and their regulations require employers to disclose an approximate salary range in the job posting. If your state isn’t covered by such laws, you should look into your own rights and see whether an employer can ask you to disclose your previous salary. The employer is in charge of determining how much they can pay for a particular role and your salary doesn’t necessarily have to depend on what you were paid at your last role. 

When you’re approaching the end of the series of interviews, the recruiter or their employer should be willing to disclose the range they had in mind and the benefits that come with the role. You are owed all of the specific details before you take on a role, so don’t be shy to negotiate until you’re able to land a reasonable agreement.

Refusal to Make Time for Your Questions 

Another sign of a bad interview is an interviewer who doesn’t want to discuss your questions. Most interviewers make time at the end of the discussion to answer your questions about the role. In some cases, an interviewer may forget to pause and ask if there is anything you need to clarify, so you should feel free to pipe up and state that you had some questions. You can also ask them when it would be a good time to clarify them—an interviewer may be in a rush to get to the next interview but they will usually give you another time when you can talk.

If the interviewer dismisses your questions or answers them with vague non-committal answers, you might want to consider that to be a warning sign as well. While you’re at it, remember to ask for clarity about the timeline for filling the position in the initial interview so you know what to expect and when. 

Rushed Processing and Offer Timeline

Interview red flags come in pairs sometimes. For example, we already discussed that an overly prolonged interview process is a bad sign. Similarly, an interview process that ends in a heartbeat without really going over your qualifications should warn you that it may be a role that has a high turnover rate. Don’t dismiss the role entirely on the basis of this one criterion but take a moment to question why the interview process was so rushed.

It is also essential that you take a few days to make your own decision about the terms of your employment at the company. If you’re being cornered into signing an agreement or saying yes to the job on the spot, then explore the reason behind it and stand your ground about requiring a little time to consider your decision before you make it. You can counter their timeline by suggesting your own deadline. 

These interview red flags are fairly common and are just the beginning of the signs you should keep in mind when you’re working toward a new employment opportunity. Any of them individually may not be enough to dissuade you from the job but put together, it should be a reason to give you pause. 

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