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Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#61

Post by avgDev »

giantg2 wrote: post #42
karaterobot wrote: post #30

The ones that come to mind: * If they are a small company who outsources any step of their interview process to another company. If you're only interviewing for a couple positions—people you will work with every single day—take the time to do it yourself. * If they are a startup that says they are looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems . For some people, this is going to be an enticement,…

"looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems." This and other grandiose language is an immediate red flag. I fully expect the people writing these to be the equivalent of used car salesmen.

Once you start the job, so we need you to change the color of the button in our legacy winforms app.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#62

Post by giantg2 »

bazil376 wrote: post #60
giantg2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, sometimes it's not all about money. Better work life balance after making bigger money can be a nice transition as one gets older or starts a family. But yeah, those lower paying jobs have to play some kind of angle other than money. Some are garbage, but some might have perks.

Honestly I just found it irksome that the recruiter was trying to tell me how to prioritize my needs in the job search when it was obvious he was just trying to make a placement.

Recruiters are used car salesmen. I just expect this sort of thing from them.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#63

Post by JohnFen »

bazil376 wrote: post #55
karaterobot wrote: post #30

The ones that come to mind: * If they are a small company who outsources any step of their interview process to another company. If you're only interviewing for a couple positions—people you will work with every single day—take the time to do it yourself. * If they are a startup that says they are looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems . For some people, this is going to be an enticement,…

Outsourcing any part of the interview process for a small company is definitely one for me. Any hire is going to be absolutely critical and you’re going to let someone else make this decision?

Damn! I never encountered that, but if I did, I'd be probably bail immediately.

I guess in this day and age, I need to add "using a chatbot as a stand-in for a real person".

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#64

Post by giantg2 »

avgDev wrote: post #61
giantg2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems." This and other grandiose language is an immediate red flag. I fully expect the people writing these to be the equivalent of used car salesmen.

Once you start the job, so we need you to change the color of the button in our legacy winforms app.

Yeah, and when theyee willing to sell it that way with deception, they're willing to do that with other things. To me that sounds like a political yes-man environment.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#65

Post by swatcoder »

dilippkumar wrote: post #24

Back when in-person interviews were a thing, I’d use the opportunity to just look at the office space. Specific red flag signals: 1. Dominated by Windows 2. Too many people in formals 3. Nobody wears badges (and other indicators of a lax security policy) 4. Old/worn out office furniture 5. Low resolution displays 6. Old laptops 7. No evidence of people collaborating or chatting at a microkitchen etc.

Fascinating!

Depending on the size and age of the company, most of those hint towards a product-focused organization that often cultures careful, reliable engineers. It might not be fun or flashy, but there's good odds that a place like that knowns how to build their product and does a consistent job of it. They're often a great place for senior engineers to settle down and focus on low-drama productivity and for junior engineers to witness durable best practices in action.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#66

Post by geocrasher »

cryptoz wrote: post #19

Making fun of my side project. An interviewer looked at me with this vicious, incredulous look when I described my side project in ~2019, which was a weather network built on the sensors inside phones. Guy said, “a weather app, really?! You think that’s a good use of your time in 2019? What makes you think a weather app is useful to make today?” MFer, it was a good idea in 2011 and it’s a good idea today and it’ll be…

Any idgit who couldn't recognize a great hack when they see one is worthless. Glad you moved on.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#67

Post by kelnos »

tharne wrote: post #3

If they have an interview process that involves a take home project or something similarly time intensive. To me that screams, "I don't care about any family responsibilities you may have, I want a bunch of childless 20-twenty somethings I can burn and churn".

I'm torn on that. On one hand I agree with you that it's possibly a bit tone-deaf to ask people to spend a significant amount of their time outside their interview working on a take-home assignment. But:

* Live coding during an interview sucks. I'm not convinced interviewers actually learn all that much useful during those, and I know a lot of people who perform well on the job but choke up during interviews when there's a live coding component.

* It's not like there isn't precedent for this sort of thing outside tech. For example, marketing/sales positions will often require the interviewee to prep a mock presentation specifically for the interview. (That is, not something generic they can use for multiple interviews.)

I get that people have commitments outside of work, and that the ideal situation is that you're interviewing for a job while you already have one (so interviewing work is going to be on top of all your existing responsibilities). But at the same time, take-home assignments in tech are becoming more common, and refusing to do them is going to limit your options. And I don't think the usual "well I probably wouldn't enjoy working at a company that does $THING during their interviews" really applies here.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#68

Post by JohnFen »

giantg2 wrote: post #53
bazil376 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a recruiter trying to convince me to take an offer lower than my current salary, telling me it’s not all about the money. I told him I’d do it if he made up the difference by giving me some of his salary. He told me he’s not giving me his salary to which I replied “it’s not all about the money”

To be fair, sometimes it's not all about money. Better work life balance after making bigger money can be a nice transition as one gets older or starts a family. But yeah, those lower paying jobs have to play some kind of angle other than money. Some are garbage, but some might have perks.

This is true, but whether or not it's all about the money isn't something anyone outside of your own head can determine. A recruiter or other outside interested party saying it is that person straight-up trying to manipulate you. That would be the red-flag part to me even if I were fine with a reduced pay rate.

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#69

Post by geocrasher »

vusjandus23857 wrote: post #7

When I was 35, I had a mid-20's startup CEO ask me if I still had it in me... what?

haha. I'm pushing 50. If somebody asked me "Do you still have it in you" I'd say "What, to disconnect Zoom calls with smug 20 somethings? You bet." [End Call]

Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

#70

Post by kelnos »

codr7 wrote: post #35
j0hnyl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a take home assignment as a screening stage, but we ask candidates to time box it to 45min. Some folks refuse to do it and that's fine, but most are pretty open to it.

What do you do when people refuse? I know I probably would, so I'm curious.

Given how much time an interview process usually takes, I don't think 45 minutes is a lot to ask; if I were the interviewer or were setting policy, I'd advocate for, "sorry you feel that way, but we won't be able to continue the interview in that case".

Then again, not completely sure what the GP means about "screening stage"; if a take-home assignment is given before any kind of substantive interaction between the company and me, that'd be a definite red flag. I'm not going to spend 45 minutes doing your resume screening for you.

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