Looking for a new job is an exciting chapter in many people’s lives, sometimes some offers seem too good to be true, sound familiar?

We’ve all been there, so it’s important to understand that not all job roles are the right ones and what key things to look out for when things seem sketchy.

But before you start to panic, this does not necessarily mean that you need to avoid a company all together, but they can provide great insight with a reason to look a little closer and see if the role is really a good fit for you!

Vague job description
When applying for a role, you want to know what is required of you, so when faced with a sparse job description this does not leave us feeling very hopefully to what we will be actually doing.
In many cases, a vague job description indicates that the company is looking to hire someone who can fill many roles and not just the one they are applying for. The successful candidate may also be assigned with many responsibilities they were not made aware of and to make matters worse, they will not usually be paid any extra for this.

Lack of communication
There’s an old saying “no news is good news” but that is often not the case when it’s comes to the hiring process.
When it comes to applying for a role and the hiring manager doesn’t follow up to when they arrange to message you and weeks fly pass, then this is a big red flag. Baring in mind, not every job you have applied for will respond to you, but this changes if you have been invited for an interview or they make you an offer, if you have not been brought up to date with these processes and the hiring manager is MIA, then this is a major red flag.

Not meeting the team
Most of the time, roles require some sort of collaboration to be a successful candidate.
In an ideal world it makes sense for the candidate to want to meet the team that they will be potentially working with and majority of the time the time the current employees will want to do the same. However if your request is shut down, then something is trying to be hidden from you which isn’t a good sign.

You’re offered the job on the spot
Sounds perfect! You’ve been offered the job there and then…
But hang on one minute, why are they so eager to get you to sign straight away?
Potentially they’re trying to force you into accepting certain terms immediately, not allowing you time to think or read through the offer. Or perhaps the employer might be afraid that if they give you enough time to think about the offer, you will find some problems with it. Another possibility might be that the job has high turnover, and they need to fill the position as quickly as possible. If this is the case and the employer have issues with staff retention, then there might be a huge problem that ultimately makes the company a terrible place to work.

The company has bad reviews
This ultimately speaks for itself, most of the time former and current employers don’t go out their way to write a review unless they had a fantastic experience working there or worse, a terrible one.
If the bad reviews are consistently the same throughout glassdoor (or a similar feedback website) then it goes without saying, this is not a good sign.

So what is the moral of this story? Keep your eyes open and pay attention to the details! You don’t have to magnify every job you apply for, but it’s worth noting if you’re seriously considering applying for a role, invest time in reviewing the job description & look out for red flags throughout the hiring process…