5 Developer Job Interview Red Flags

Key Takeaways

recently i co-hosted a twitter space on job interview red flags more than 100 people came and we shared and discussed various red flags you should watch out for in a technical job interview in this video i'm going to share five of the most likely and maybe even egregious job interview red flags you should watch out for and maybe even run from let's get into it in this space we had leanne and michael from scrimba our friend connor and some other friends who have worked at amazon adobe and google i shared some thoughts too but i was mostly taking a lot of notes so i can make this video and share with you the most important learnings before i jump right in i want to take a minute just to point out that we are all people at the end of the day equally liable to make mistakes or have a lapse of judgment i don't necessarily think all red flags are an indication that you should run a mile for example sometimes we see companies trying to hire rockstar engineers this could be seen as a company trying to hire one developer on one salary that does the job of multiple developers they should probably pay multiple developers to do that's the kind of cynical perspective right if we look at this from the other side hiring good people is actually quite challenging and it's not too hard to imagine that the person writing that job had had good intentions and maybe didn't realize just how overused a term like that is and what it's interpreted to mean by the developer community they might think it's actually a really flattering title that is going to draw more candidates or they might have seen another company doing it but not thought critically enough about you know what it means and why you probably shouldn't do it so if you saw something like this as an example it might not be an indication that you should run a mile but certainly as i progress through this video i want to remind you the most important thing you can do in any job interview is start that dialogue if you think something doesn't sound right it's really up to you to probe a little bit and determine whether it's a lapse of judgment or a mistake or whether they truly have intentions that don't match what you're looking for with all that said let's jump into the first red flag oh my god unlimited personal time off it sounds amazing on the surface we all have bad days and maybe even bad weeks where it's actually in everybody's best interest if we take some time to rejuvenate and come back fresh and ready to perform afterwards it's also possible there's a lot of things happening in your life maybe a few weddings or events that you don't want to miss because of work but maybe you're saving your time off right or you've used it all unlimited pto on the surface sounds awesome i get it the trouble is more often than not employees with unlimited time off take less time off than people who have a fixed number of days off moreover it's not really unlimited because if it was actually unlimited you could theoretically never work a single day and earn a full salary there's obviously going to be some policies and expectations around how to approach this and actually because they're oftentimes not that well documented or understood it causes people a lot of anxiety about when is it okay to actually take time off what is the limit and at what point are you pushing that limit this was actually something that michael from scrimba who if you're a subscriber here might recognize from the weekly live streams with liane link to those in the corner by the way it's something that they experienced hands-on and they found the exact same thing to be true people took less time off michael also made a really good point which is that in some countries if your holiday days expire or you leave the company you actually get paid for those holiday days it's kind of calculated based on your salary a sort of pro rata amount it's kind of hard to imagine how that could work if you have unlimited personal time off going back to my pre-text about looking at things from both sides it is possible that unlimited personal time off could work maybe the company takes a hybrid approach where you have a minimum number of days you have to take with the option to get more should you want them i don't want you to see something like this in the job ad and think oh i'm not going to go near that because alex from scrimba said it's a red flag as i said be aware and then start a dialogue you can maybe learn more about the policies and if for example during an interview you go out for a team lunch it could be something that you take a note of to ask more about and see if it fits what you're looking for whilst there might be ways unlimited personal time off can work it's really hard to excuse companies that say you know we are a family you're not basically people in families don't get fired people in families don't get performance reviews and performance standards you wouldn't do favors for your co-workers you might for your family who've known you since you were a baby right it's not the same thing i can maybe just about understand why companies make this error because there are some aspects of family-like culture that are important like caring for your co-workers showing respect to people even if you don't agree with them and you want a sense of belonging within a company and a team i think that's important but there are too many problems with this principally that kind of attitude can make you very sheepish about advocating for what's best for you it's kind of a harsh reality intact that if you want to make the most significant salary bump you do typically have to change role and if you feel reluctant to do that or entertain it because you feel like you're betraying your family or something it's kind of a sick irony because that is preventing you from making a move that could benefit your real family potentially now or in the future i'm fortunate to never have worked as a company with this kind of culture but i have worked at a startup in london where in a city like london a lot of people tend to move to the city for the job as a result it's very natural for people in the company to hang out and become good friends it makes it really difficult to know when it's time to move on because you're not just leaving the company or moving on from the company you're moving on from your sort of social circle as well and that might not be the healthiest thing in general so just something else to keep in mind even though it might not be a red flag as such imagine this you've nailed the screening call things are going really well the person on the other end pauses and asks you where are you right now in terms of salary and what are your salary expectations if you make this move leave a comment on this video and let us know how you would answer because it is a tricky one and the question in itself might not be a red flag in my opinion it depends on the intention behind the question and that's something you can quite easily figure out with a follow-up question what do i mean exactly well nowadays more than ever jobs don't tend to list the salary range on the job ads whatever you think of this for better or for worse it means that when you get on the phone with the recruiter they probably want to understand if their budget for the role matches your salary expectations because if you got to the final stage and your expectation was just so far beyond what they're willing to pay then that's just a big waste of time right from their point of view maybe you were overpricing yourself from the beginning on the other they might just not value that role so much and so it'd be in both your interests for you to go and apply and look for an opportunity elsewhere with that said that exact same line of questioning could be considered quite predatory since they're actually trying to anchor you to a number throughout the interview process and pay you as little as possible instead of what you're worth and what the market rate is at scrimba we have the front-end developer career path geared at helping people become hireable we also host a podcast and run live streams to help you break into tech in my personal opinion this is especially unfair towards people who are changing industry since say you were working as a retailer before right it was a totally different job in a totally different environment and you've scaled up and developed new skills in a brand new market with their own worth by answering a question like that you only really serve to disadvantage yourself so how do you answer this question well as i mentioned we're all a little bit flawed and have some misconceptions and biases and things like that the number one thing you can do is try and understand their intention and act accordingly i would avoid trying to be too clever honestly and just simply explain that you appreciate them asking but since you're so early in the process you don't want to disclose your current salary out of respect to your current employer you could go on to say that your salary range is flexible of course but you'd like to be compensated fairly according to the market rates if they start pushing you for specifics that's when it starts to feel like a red flag you could just deny them and walk out if you really wanted to but if you want to reply try something like yeah well i would like to understand more about the specifics of the job before putting out a solid number however i understand positions similar to this range from range depending on who you are and what kind of industry you're coming from you might see this as quite a normal practice if you want to treat it like a negotiation my best advice is to just do as much homework as possible about what the market rate is for that type of job and your skills and experience in that particular market you might also try and flip the question on his head and say well hmm what is the budget for this role and that equally can help you understand if it's worth proceeding from both sides if they truly want to know if your expectations are aligned they could just throw out a number i do feel like most employers are going to be a little bit reluctant to do this so early in the process very much for the same reasons you might be they don't want to anchor themselves moreover since you haven't really put much sort of dedication forward yet you're at the very beginning of the process they might not want to throw out a number in case the current employees learn that number and become disenfranchised or disgruntled i know that sounds bad and like its own red flag and it could well be but there are some nuances for example the tech market is kind of crazy right now much more so than it was a year ago that's the kind of transition that i think a company would be wise to navigate carefully um but equally it's not really about anyone else's opinion what what are you comfortable with probe and ask and see what they're about and see what kind of vibe you get and from there you can make a decision say the interviewer or someone on the team doesn't make you feel very good think about it is that really somewhere you want to work for eight hours a day don't forget that the company has more incentive to be nice to you during the interview process than they will probably ever have afterwards so if that's the way they treat you during the interview how will they treat you after imagine they are late without a valid excuse a little bit dismissive maybe or what if they barely recognize your cv and seem unprepared heaven forbid they ask you inappropriate questions about your age or your plans for a family maybe one mistake isn't enough to put you off completely you're probably a really nice person and wants to give them the benefit of the doubts plus there are of course some exciting reasons to be there that's why you applied and agreed to the interview just be aware that if these little things add up and to be honest the last point i made about asking inappropriate questions isn't even that little all that to say if it adds up it could be a red flag you might feel like you don't particularly trust your gut or like you want more information to make a decision don't wait until it's too late and the interview's over i can't stress enough how important it is to start a two-way conversation and a dialogue during the interview process ask as many questions as you like and see how it makes you feel for example you can ask about their technology stack their projects you could ask them about their processes whether they do testing or agile the answers specifically might not matter but if the interviewer is at all dismissive or evasive or opaque that could be a very negative sign in my opinion this should be a fun and exciting conversation you were talking about a brand new exciting project an awesome opportunity that you can't wait to get started in and they can't wait to have you i really think that's a vibe you can pick up on it shouldn't feel like you're drawing blood from a stone i can assure you if you are at all unsure check glass door just bear in mind it's more likely that someone who's upset or disgruntled goes and leaves a negative review then someone who's happily chugging along uh leaves a positive review i don't think you should tolerate any sort of rudeness or power moves during an interview i think that sounds like a pretty bad recipe for success in the space michael shared a story about how he received the job offer and expressed that the compensation was too low just like that they offered him a 20k bump on the salary which basically means they were low balling him from the very beginning and holding back their budget michael said no which i think was a great decision because how can you trust them going forward if they lowballed you at the very beginning when they were incentivized to act and behave their best every single thing that happens next you might be wondering what they're holding back no just in general there is nothing wrong with having a pleasant polite negotiation with an employer there's no harm in asking and anybody or any interviewer or employer that reacts negatively or with hostility probably isn't a great partner or employer to have in the long term in the space i heard of the candidates who i won't name that's counter-offered and the employer said very bluntly you're not worth that it's so rude and really specifically phrased to put you down and make you think you're worth less than you are each of their own but i would probably stay clear of that kind of behavior myself we are getting into the realm of stupidity here but this is something that did come up in the space as well just these kind of stupid power moves where the employer makes you wait longer and make you sweat or something or an office environment designed to make you feel small where they have a big lush desk and you sit on a stool or something fortunately i don't think these are very common nowadays and they're quite obviously red flags so i'm not going to belabor them too much but can you believe that came up that's crazy well there you have it those are five pretty suspicious job interview red flags that i learned in our twitter space i hope you found them useful remember to comment down below with how you would handle that sort of pressure to disclose your current or expected compensation i'm really curious to hear about that and yeah let us know as well like what kind of red flags have you seen or heard about it's going to be super interesting to get the conversation going in the comments so i'll be hanging out there replying to every comment if you haven't already make sure you subscribe to the scrimba youtube channel there is a link on the screen right now as well as another video i think you might like until next time