HOW TO SPOT A BAD WORKPLACE 

Introduction 

In today’s blog post I will be talking about what makes a bad company, how to spot the red flags, and what you can do to avoid these kinds of companies. 

Vague Job responsibilities 

This can come across as confusing to the candidate because they don't know what they are signing up for. If you accept a job with vague responsibilities you may end up doing a job you're not happy in, and due to the job tasks being unspecified, it may affect you from growing in your job. This means you may not be able to advance into a bigger job role because to the employer it could look like you don't know what you're doing.

The way you can avoid this from happening to you is during the interview if the responsibilities are unspecified you can ask your potential employer to clarify this and this will ensure that the job role is right for you and you can deliver the work ethic that is expected of you. 

Bad Reputation 

A company with a bad reputation could be a warning sign as they may be branded bad for a reason.  You can't believe everything you hear but you may still want to be a little bit wary of places like this. 

You need to do your research on them to make sure it is a reputable company and the reviews that past employees have left could be a crucial part of your research too. 

Some examples of places where this can found is glassdoor or career bliss.

Social media 

The company’s social media handle can also be a good thing to add to your research of whatever company you’re interviewing with as it can reveal what kind of place it is.Some examples of good company social media is that  it can show the brands  values like diversity, inclusion and respect. It also increases people’s awareness of the brand and their products and it can cause an increase in website traffic. Additionally if a company is engaging with their customers this is good too because they are making an effort to get to know their customers.

Things you can spot about bad companies on social media is if a big number of customers had a bad experience with a company and they write bad reviews on social media. Another negative of social media from a company is confidential information being made public on social media and this is bad because that is information that should be kept protected. 

If a company doesn’t use social media this may be because the size of the company is fairly small. 

Personal questions 

Questions around diversity are illegal to be asked. If an employer or interviewer asks those kinds of questions they are committing a crime so companies like that are best avoided. 

Unprofessional

To start with is hiring based on culture and this is not inclusive so if you want to work for a company with inclusive values then I would steer clear of companies like this. Another sign of an unprofessional company is an employer that is a big gossip and this is not a good sign because it gives the candidate the indication that the employer encourages gossip in the workplace,  if you aren’t keen on that kind of environment then companies like this may not be the right place for you. 

To steer clear from unprofessional companies you can see your interview as a preview of what’s to come. Behaving unprofessionally is a sign that the company is bad and you may not want to work somewhere like that.  If you are kept hanging during the interview process for a long time this is not only classed as disrespectful but very unprofessional to do so.

Evading Questions 

Interviews are two-sided because the candidate also deserves to be able to ask questions too to get to know the details about their potential job role.  This is a big red flag if your interviewer is avoiding your questions, especially because if they were being honest with you then they wouldn't have a problem answering them. 

If you’re not getting the answers to your questions this could make it more difficult to make a clear decision, this may be something you want to consider. You should trust your intuition and what this means is if you feel something isn’t right then you should take that as a sign that maybe this isn’t the company you want to work for. 

Have you had an interview with any of these red flags?

If you have let us know in the comment section. 

Amber from The Apply4U Team 

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