Red Flags From Job Listings That Scream 'Stay Away'
Reddit user Zdvj asked: 'What are some job-posting red flags that scream “Stay away”?'
Being able to work and make enough money to pay bills and get groceries is harder and more important than ever, but finding a good quality job where someone feels appreciated is being to feel as rare as, well, seeing a unicorn.
Ironically, it's the workplaces you'd want to avoid that are the exact ones who are seeking a unicorn themselves.
Redditor Zdvj asked:
"What are some job-posting red flags that scream 'Stay away'?"
"We're Looking For a Unicorn."
"Any use of the word 'Rockstar.'"
- Jsmith0730
"Or 'Ninja.'"
- Pumpkinspicepolice
"Also, 'Guru.'"
- nocolon
"Don't forget 'Wizard.'"
- ilikewc3
A Can-Do Attitude
"I’m finding a 'can-do attitude' to be problematic recently."
- chamomilky
The False Interview
"I agreed to a Zoom interview, showed up looking professional, and noticed eight other guys attending as well."
"The guy who called me said, 'Okay, guys, the presentation starts in 10 minutes; take notes because there will be questions at the end.'"
"I noped right out then and there."
- jimes00
"This happened to me once. They advertised for sales agents for home appliances."
"When I got there, it was a warehouse full of people who all thought they had a job interview, but it was a demonstration for one of those water companies. It was incredibly awkward."
- ishouldbefolding
"Anytime you enter a Zoom job interview,' and someone starts off with, 'Hello, everyone,' just disconnect immediately, because they are wasting your time."
- Effingehh
Signs of a High Turnover Rate
"'Urgently hiring multiple candidates.'"
- smurfsundermybed
"AKA: the entire last crew got p**sed and quit."
- miraculous-
To Be Determined
"'Salary to be discussed.'"
"Every single interview I've gone for that didn't disclose the salary upfront was severely underpaid."
- Mobile_Prune_3207
"When I was younger and recruiters reached out to me without a salary chat, I just took the interviews being naïve."
"Now I’ve learned the call doesn’t go any further until I know the salary band."
- toronto_programmer
Competitive for Whom?
"'Competitive wages.'"
- ACaffeinatedWandress
"Competitive pay means your pay will be competing against your bills."
- Random_Guy_47
A Fast-Paced Environment
"Fast-paced environment. That usually means absolute chaos with no one in charge."
- Spellflinger2019
"Translation: 'It’s so f**king busy and stressful that multiple people recently quit.'"
- md22mdrx
Team Player Culture
"'Work hard, play hard,' meaning, 'We’re all alcoholics.'"
- PaintedLady5519
"And even if they aren't alcoholics, they still schedule a lot of evening and weekend get-togethers that are unofficially mandatory."
- notthesedays
"And if you don't show up, you are 'not a team player.'"
- OldMork
Flexible Schedules
"And even if they aren't, they schedule a lot of evening and weekend get-togethers that are unofficially mandatory."
- missypierce
Degree and Pay Disagreement
"'Bachelor's degree required; starting pay $12.50 per hour.'"
- DeathSpiral321
A Variety of Factors
"A job listing written in all caps."
"A litany of technologies listed."
"'No job hoppers!'"
"If they ever suggest that you should care 'more about the work than compensation,' no, you shouldn't."
"'Some weekends' means, 'every weekend.'"
- template009
Start-Up Culture
"'Start-up culture,' means, 'a disorganized hot mess of egos."
- LeSmeg47
A Bubbly Personality
"Must have a bubbly personality."
"F**k off."
- silentwhim
"I wonder if this is code for, 'We want to hire an attractive young woman.'"
- beka13
"That's EXACTLY what that means."
- VivaLaCon88
"We're Family."
"'We are a family' companies expect you to be fine with getting underpaid and doing endless overtime because hey, they order food once in a while for the team, which is soo cool..."
- Zitson5150
From the Other Side of the Desk
"My job partially includes job placement. I went on a tour today with one of the higher-ups, and she used the word 'nightmare' several times to describe some things. Then she was complaining that they can’t get anyone to hire on or stay hired on, and that they had eight candidates file and get screened, and that day of, only two showed up."
"I wanted to ask so badly what they were paying, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to control my reaction, so I refrained."
"Then she complained later that people 'didn’t want to work, wanted to take days off during the middle of the week, and didn’t want to work over 40 hours.'"
"I was getting nauseous. I don’t want want to deal with that s**t, either, especially for half of my pay that I get now. Not to mention dealing with deadlines and back-breaking work."
"On top of that, they were b***hing about it from a nice office position. You don’t have to work in the factory with no climate control, lifting heavy s**t, or dealing with all the other countless bulls**t. You get to sit in a nice office and gossip with the other office people while making three times what those line workers get."
"I don’t know if I have the heart to place people in these positions."
- Jay-G
While we all need to make money and have a job in order to make that happen, we all deserve to have standards for our workplaces, just like the standards for how we are treated in our other relationships.
Though some of these characteristics have been on job listings for a long time, some of these tactics and phrases are pretty new and something to look out for, for those who haven't been job hunting for a while.
It seems kids are being encouraged and pressured to choose a career at an earlier age every year, and often the information they have to base their decisions off of isn't the most accurate or transparent.
Unfortunately, a lot of people pursue the dreams they had as a child, like to be an artist or astronaut, only to discover all the hard work they'd put in was for a job that fell desperately short of their expectations.
Redditor American-pickle asked:
"Did you ever obtain your 'dream job,' only to realize it wasn’t actually what you wanted? Why did it not live up to expectations?"
Working from the Air
"I always wanted to be a flight attendant. Then I actually was one. No thanks, ever again, but for a few years it was fun, and then it just became a series of indistinguishable hotel rooms, and it wasn't worth putting up with the passengers anymore."
- oy-withthepoodles
Too Far From Home
"I always wanted to be a part of the music industry but didn't want to be a performer. I went to college for audio engineering and was a live sound engineer/stage tech/guitar tech for about seven years."
"I did love the job and I'm glad I did it, but it was pretty clear after I started touring that it wasn't feasible for me as a lifestyle."
"In order to do the job consistently, you have to basically be homeless and miss everything that happens at home. It wasn't like I was miserable and being held hostage, but after missing enough birthdays and holidays with family and instead spending them with other random stage techs that you aren't super close to, it gets hard to rationalize."
"The days are long, but the pay doesn't reflect that. If it was a show day, I'd usually work for 16 hours straight. I was working with pretty big-name acts, but my day rate was still about $175 a day, and if I asked for a raise, they'd call someone else."
"Everything I did was also as an independent contractor, so my taxes were f**ked to begin with. That was actually what forced me out of doing it full-time, the change to the tax code in 2017 pretty much ruined my career. I went from paying $600 per year to paying $4,000 in one year."
"When I quit, I still kept doing it on the side for a few years with some of the local audio companies I worked with coming up, but it paid way less than touring, which already didn't pay a lot. After about two years and the beginning of the pandemic, I walked away entirely to focus on my career as an electrician, which is a much better fit."
"I miss the experiences, but I don't miss the lifestyle. Again, I'm glad I did it, but I'm glad I don't do it."
- DeltaBearlines
A Little Too Quiet
"I worked a lot of physically demanding jobs during my twenties and had these recurring fantasies about working in a store, sitting all day waiting for people to buy something, and having all that free time."
"Well, a couple of months ago, I found that job. Great pay, some benefits, great bosses."
"But every day it's slower than the last, and weirdly enough, I come back home tired from doing almost nothing all day long, the f**k is with that?"
"Now sometimes I fantasize about going back to my old job, where I would end up covered up in sweat and dirt but at least there was a feeling of accomplishment."
"So dumb, I hate it."
"Edit to Add: Yes, I tried to use that free time on something educational. First, it was programming, and then knots, not sure why, and then I got bored and started Portuguese to 'learn how to learn,' so I could move to more serious subjects and stop abandoning interests."
"I'm planning to study English formally instead of picking it up through memes, but I never get that right motivation or discipline or mental state to actually do it, to do anything at all."
"I just... play mobile Mobas for hours."
. MaeSolug
Camping for Work
"My first job out of college was as a forestry field tech. Turns out camping is way less fun when you worked 10 hours, don't have cell service, are on a random flat spot you found, and there's no one to talk to."
"Now make that eight days in a row, your only water is in jugs in the work truck, and you're covered in grime and wearing the same clothes for the entire time."
"Now I get to stay in a cabin during the field season. Having running water, a bed, and four friendly people on the crew is a godsend. I am so much happier just having company and running water, 'adventure' be d**ned."
- Mirrorflute88
That Living at the Zoo Dream
"All throughout childhood and college, I wanted to be a zookeeper."
"When I was finally offered the internship though, it took me less than a week to realize I couldn't stomach it."
"It's a lot less 'playing with and training cute animals' and a lot more 'cleaning up the vilest messes and being bombarded with the absolute worst smells on planet earth' than I imagined."
- duneden9
"A pony kicked me and gave me a concussion and I got fired for it, lol (laughing out loud)."
"It makes me laugh now. But I was a Junior Zookeeper and they just would tell me to do random things with no training or supervision."
"I had never even seen a horse in real life. I was cleaning its stall and from behind pushed it softly and told it to move outside."
"So in response, it broke two of my ribs and launched me into the gate and I got a concussion, and then it came over and bit me while I was puking."
- MaloPescado
Boring License
"I never really enjoyed driving but always wanted to learn to fly. So I dropped 10k on a pilot's license and found out flying was just driving with up and down added."
"Weird was how quickly a childhood dream turned to 'meh.'"
- thecoolerllcoolJ
It's Not All About Helping Animals
"I dreamt about working in Veterinary Medicine my whole life. When I finally did, I ended up traumatized."
" It wasn't the blood, the abuse, or even the euthanasia. It was how we just didn't talk about it."
"Bad day? Don't talk about it. Got hurt? Don't talk about it. Rude pet parent? Don't talk about it. Burnt out? Don't talk about it."
"I felt so alone in situations where having support was essential."
- lilybear032
Playing with Trains
"When I was younger, I desperately wanted to work on the railway as the money was great, and I really loved railways and everything in that world. I eventually managed to get a job as a welder with a local firm."
"It was f**king w**k. Permanent nights, working every weekend in all weather, with equipment that weighed an absolute tonne that had to be loaded up dark embankments. I was working with thermite and explosive gases, usually after pushing all the gear about three or four miles down the track."
"One Christmas, I worked a shift on a site where a guy was killed the previous weekend after getting his arm chopped off by an excavator. They had a collection box in the site cabin with a picture of him and his young kid on it. F**king heartbreaking. And to top it off, everyone I worked with was a complete and utter [c-word]."
"F**king s**t job."
- CommentOne8867
Working in the Science Lab
"Working as a chemist in an academic research lab."
"Academia is full of narcissistic nutjobs that pretend like their research is the holy grail of their field when it's actually practically inconsequential. The stakes are so low that the results don't matter and everyone is just scavenging for what little funding they can pull together for something nobody really wants or needs."
"The amount of pettiness, sabotage, and frankly fraud is rather pathetic. But they face little to no repercussions because, again, nobody cares."
"Which is why I now do research in a corporate lab."
- AbortionSurvivor777
The Renowned Music Teacher
"I am a teacher and when I first graduated college, I couldn't decide what age range I wanted to teach. My first job was ages four to twelve in orchestra."
"At first, this was amazing, because I could guide the same students from beginners to graduating, but I quickly learned that the 4-12 position was supposed to be a three-person job and not a one-person job."
"I, unfortunately, had to quit because I was so overwhelmed and my school wouldn't hire anybody else. I lasted six years and I don't regret it, but I also don't miss it..."
- karaoke_knight
The Glamourous Life
"To answer the original question, sort of. I got close to it. Close enough to see what that life would actually be like. And it sucked."
"It turns out, I don’t like working with celebrities. They’re kind of annoying clients. It’s not fun and glamorous. It’s unnecessarily stressful."
"And I don’t want to be a famous stylist or famous anything. It makes people weird. Mark Ruffalo is only normal because he hasn’t figured out he’s famous yet."
"I still enjoy doing hair. And I still like people, for the most part. So I went with a more low-key path. I’m very happy with my choices. Sometimes on the way to your dream job, you have to make adjustments."
- friendlynbhdwitch
Hopefully an Isolated Incident
"I got my dream job as a designer of skiing magazines, but then my workload doubled with no raise, the raises I was promised never came, all of the people I liked working with left, and things just got gradually worse."
"I left three months ago, and they still haven't been able to fill the position because they're offering a wage that was low nine years ago for half of the work."
- partial_birth
Teaching Isn't What You See in the Movies
"Teaching at a college."
"I love my field and I love research. It's easy to ramble for hours on end about a topic. The passion and curiosity I held for my discipline, I thought, would make me a good instructor. What I did not expect was how much hatred, contempt, jealousy, and sabotage would come from the administration."
"'Oh, you're enjoying teaching an entry-level class with 30 students? We'll raise the cap so it has 75 enrolled. Have fun grading until you cry each week!'"
"'Oh, you want to be an expert educator in one area? Then you get to be the (unpaid) consultant on *all* department exams on that topic. Enjoy re-writing 7 midterms for your colleagues with one week's notice!'"
"'Oh, you haven't had a raise in six years? The football coach *needs* to be the highest-paid person in the state. If you ask for a cost of living increase again, we'll set the students against you by claiming inflation-adjusted raises for instructors would result in doubling tuition costs for students!'"
"And so many of the students see the courses as box checking and are burnt out from previous bad educational experiences. I don't blame them, but no matter how hard I tried to be kind and share my excitement for the subject it felt like throwing a dandelion into the grand canyon of despair."
- Clever_Mercury
The Truth Behind Graphic Design
"I always wanted to be a graphic artist. I wanted to pass by billboards that I designed, print ads I made, a portfolio with all my paid work, and case studies. I even centered my major around it."
"When I got to the professional world of it, I found out it wasn’t as fun as it was when it was just a hobby, not even close to how I thought it was going to be. The sleepless nights, the deadlines, moving goalposts brought by irrational revisions and indecisive stakeholders; it’s draining."
"I shifted careers and started a job as a backend software developer. I find it more enjoyable. If the code quality passes and it works as expected, then I’m off the hook. No 'Can you try a different font? I just wanna see it,' or 'What happens if you switch this and that? How is it gonna look?' types of stuff."
"Fast forward, and I’m in an architect and designer role now. Best decision I’ve made for my long-term well-being. I still do graphic design, but it’s for my passion projects now."
- abmendi
Plot Twist!
"I worked for a small non-profit doing work that I was super passionate about. I thought it was going to be a dream job. In reality, I was super overworked and underpaid. And being such a small organization there was lots of interpersonal drama that I was just not into."
"I now work a more 'corporate' job, but it’s still work I’m passionate about and makes a difference. I’m getting paid over double what I made previously, my workload is manageable, and I am way less stressed. I also really like my coworkers and boss, AND I work from home full-time."
"The job I was unsure about wound up being the dream job."
- littlepinch7
Like anything else, careers are often portrayed in our social circles as something that's wildly different from actually living the life of that profession. How teachers, doctors, and zookeepers describe their days at the front of a classroom full of starry-eyed children is hardly the same as when those children later walk into those jobs as an intern or new-hire.
Fortunately for some of these Redditors, they were able to find adjacent work that better suited their needs, without leaving behind the full dream they'd been chasing.
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay |
Times are tough and that makes the job hunt even more of a "Hunger Games" situation. I understand needing to do everything you can to be the best you can be, so that you can be sure to rise above the rest, but let's not get carried away people. When constructing a resume there are literally thousands of online tutorials to choose from. Please seek them out. Rule #1... more is always too much.
Redditor u/Shimanu wanted everyone to listen to what is not useful on a job hunt by asking... HR personnel of Reddit, what's the most unnecessary thing you've seen in a resume?It is helpful to have extra, fascinating skills in life. That's what makes us all more interesting and fuller humans but you don't need to least every special skill. If you're applying to be a supermarket clerk, maybe don't mention you can name all of the world's capitols or that you can assist in the birth of cows. Let that be a surprise for parties later.
I think...
deep thought think GIF by YultronGiphyDescribed themselves as a "thought leader" for anime.
Visuals
I was shortlisting resumes for my boss, and came across one that was absolute freaking gold.
The position was for a tape operator at a television station.
The guy was an artist, I think. And his resume was a 31 page visual representation of his journey through life. Each page contained a moment in time that had shaped him into who he was as a man, as one of the Earth Mother's children, and as an artist.
There were pictures of his art, and it wasn't great.
Edit: there also wasn't a cover letter, or a contact email. And there was a lot of "the earth mother birthed me from her glistening bowels" kind of stuff.
To this day I don't know if he was serious... or if he was freaking with us and submitted it to get his application numbers up to meet his mutual obligation requirement for JobSeeker.
Smile
Not as bad as some of the ones here, but I once had a guy hand me a resume with smiley faces on it. Like the generic Microsoft version of 🙂 they were typed right in next to his previous experience. Like "cashier at Walmart 🙂." It wasn't actually Walmart. I just used that as an example because the experience that he listed was similar. It definitely wasn't a trademark. He also had it on one of his skills. something like "Good communicater 🙂" (yes, the resume was also filled with spelling mistakes)
Old McDonald?
speak jimmy fallon GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonGiphyThe candidate proudly listed that they had (presumably self-) published a book of erotic poetry about a type of farm animal. They were applying for a professional office job that had absolutely nothing to do with poetry, or farm animals, or erotica.
Artistry
One candidate wrote "The lost art of letter writing" as an additional qualification.
Another submitted a hand drawn comic book. It was quite entertaining and well done.
A guy I interviewed once sent me a hand written thank you card. It definitely made him memorable, but not a qualification for the job, but I guess it could be for some job.
Now some of these people had to be drunk when they put those resumes together. At least I hope they were. Does no one ask for advice or research these situations before heading out into the professional world? I shudder to guess what else we're going to hear. Let's get at it...
Learn the other 60%...
I am going to spin this around. What wasn't written.
I interviewed a candidate and it turned out his one of his parents was Chinese and the other Indian. His English was fine and he claimed to be fluent in Mandarin and Hindi. It was pretty clear he wasn't getting the job (just didn't have the skillset needed) but I liked him so I mentioned "right the fact you can speak to about 40% of the human race might be something you want to put on your resume for next time instead of your love of baseball."
"Lusty"
My team was hiring and I met this woman at a party who sounded like she had the experience to do that job. I told her to send her resume to the hiring manager (small start up, easy to bypass recruiting). She did the next day.
The hiring manager came over to my desk with her resume printed out laughing. Apparently her nickname is Lusty.
OK fine whatever if you keep that in your personal life. But no, right at the top of the resume was Jane "Lusty" Doe. And her email address was lustylady@whatever or something similar. To cap it off, he Google'd her name and found her personal website where she had posted something about job hunting and what she was looking for: "
I really just want a job where I can put in minimal effort and not have any responsibilities." OK I mean. that's fine if you're looking to work at a gas station or something. This was a tech job paying in the high five figures. She had the skills, but that tainted it all and we never even did a phone screen.
After that I'll only recommend people who I've worked with in the past or that I've at least known for a long time. Was pretty embarrassing but we laugh about it now.
No Princes
Season 9 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphyNot in HR, but had to hire a couple people in the past. One of the applicants included that he was on his high school's homecoming court on his resume. Obviously, I didn't hire him. Dude wasn't even king.
Show off...
Once got a resume where they put down "stump removal with a chainsaw" as a special skill.
They were applying to be a cashier at a grocery store.
I've gotten some great gigs that way.
At least two of my fave clients were people who had interviewed me for something else and got excited about a different service/skill I've had to offer. I'm shameless about self-promotion because it pays off.
Now Bend & Snap
legally blonde smile GIFGiphyI actually had someone pull an Elle Woods and spray perfume on their resume. It did not get them an interview or into law school lol.
Rule #2... just stick with the facts. Keep it simple. Nobody likes a braggart. And most people hiring are already busy, if they want to read a novel they'll do it at home. And honestly, some of the things we can do extra, aren't all that interesting. Again... the facts.
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Not having to earn a living through work is quite the luxury. You've only ever done small, non-demanding jobs and now yuo need a serious one. That can be quite the life shift. One Redditor Orbmave has had to face this experience and she needs help dealing. She wrote... Hey, Sorry if this is rambling and weird, Im having a rough time.
This all sounds so stupid and first worldly but I am seriously struggling. Im in my 30's and have been spoiled much of my life. I was the youngest of my family. While I was a child we were poor but then my dad made a career change and we were suddenly doing quite well. I had no obligations or expectations on me. I see as an adult that I was neglected a bit. I think my parents were done raising kids before I came along.
As I was a good kid as a teenager, didn't do great in school but I didn't cause my parents many headaches. I was never punished for anything though. Bad grades? Broke a window? Supposed to clean my room but didn't? Just "don't do it again." And I'd just get the same words next time it happened.
I had a few jobs as a young adult. Cashier at Target then later data entry at a mortgage loan firm. I only worked at Target for a month and the firm for three. So even that experience is small and kind of sad.
At 21 I left my job at the firm to marry my husband and move with him to Canada. He's in the Navy so for the next 12ish years we've moved around while I was a stay at home wife. We didn't want kids so it was easy to afford our lives without me working. I'm not blaming my husband for spoiling me in that way but I wish now that we had made different decisions.
Now my husband has retired after 20 years and we've moved back home near my family. His retirement pay is alright but extra would lessen the burden. He's been looking but hasn't found anything yet.
I got a job as cashier/stocker at a local small grocery and I hate it so much. I get this terrible tightness in my stomach/chest just thinking about having to work tomorrow. I feel like puking and crying all the time. I just flatten out and can barely have a conversation with my husband when i get home. The job is totally fine, everyone is nice and its pretty laid back but it's so difficult for me to handle. I feel like such an idiot and a child that I can't do what everyone else does almost every day of their lives. My husband tells me he's so proud that I got a job but it hurts so much just hearing that. How can anyone be proud of this? I don't want to disappoint him by quitting. I don't want to quit because I worry I'll never get another job if I do that. He tells me to talk to a therapist but when do I do that? There's no time for anything! I get home and have to recover for like 3 hours then I might have an hour or two where I feel normal but then I start worrying about having to go back the next day.
What do I do? Is this anxiety? Depression? Does everyone else feel this way? My whole body hurts with the stress. I haven't even worked there very long. He keeps saying itll get better. How is that even possible? Will this feeling just go away in a few weeks? I don't know what to do.
Thanks for listening. I have to go to work and writing this was a good distraction. I'll reply when I get home.
Well people... thoughts?