If Your Job Interviewer Asks You THIS, BEWARE!

If Your Interviewer Asks These Interview Questions, TREAD CAREFULLY! Some interview questions may seem innocent on the surface but might indicate a cultural issue when you dig deeper. Here's a list of interview questions to which you should pay close attention when looking for a new job.

1. How many unplanned absences did you have in the last year?
2. What's your minimum acceptable salary?
3. Are you willing to commit to [minimum time frame, ex. two years]
4. Have you ever been fired?
5. They accuse you of lying on your resume.
6. What's your greatest failure in your career?
7. Asking for your availability on off-shifts or weekends.
8. How do you deal with rude coworkers or managers?
9. Interviewer doesn't allow you to ask any questions or dismiss your attempt to ask questions.

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Are you struggling with your job search? Applying for job after job and not getting any interviews? Perhaps you’ve got a few interviews but always seem to get passed over for the job? Or maybe you’re not satisfied with your current career and want a change. Well, you’ve come to the right place.

As a corporate recruiter with over 20 years of experience hiring thousands of employees at all levels into major corporations, I’m going to spill the beans on how to get noticed by recruiters, start getting more interviews, navigate through each step of the hiring process, and ultimately land the dream job you deserve.

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[ALifeAfterLayoff]

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[earthsteward]

I went on a job search class and the instructor said she went for a panel interview where she figured out from the questions that it was a messed-up company. She decided she didn't want the job but for fun gave strange answers to questions. They asked her if she was willing to have a drug test and she responded that it would depend on the drugs they wanted her to test 🙂

[ChadWilson]

Red Flag Phrase: "We treat our employees like family."

Time to stand up and leave the interview.

[NunyaBidness-zrmn]

The attendance thing... 15 years ago I took over directorship of an organization with 20 employees. The previous director (who passed away - hence the opening) was there 25 years. The employees had to ask permission to leave their station for anything more than 4-5 minutes. If it was longer than that, they had to clock out and clock back in when they returned, etc. They all had PTSD about it. The first day on the job I called them all into our conference room and I said "That bullshit ends TODAY. If you need to go run an errand or something, just go do it. Tell someone you're going so they know to cover for you while you're gone, but you don't have to go come find ME and get permission, or clock in and out. I would much rather you have your HEART in your JOB, than your ASS in your SEAT." Morale went up instantly, and no one abuses it. Treat people like professionals, and they usually won't disappoint you.

[inudigifan]

My red flag is when they say they’re like a family, but they also say they can’t keep anybody.

[StewartDavidJ]

#2 is interesting. I was asked "What salary do you want?" I gave the interviewer an answer and she then said "Well, I think we can do better than that". And they did, and 10 years later it is still the best job I've ever had.

[howtosober]

The questions:
1. How many unplanned absences did you have in the last year?
Indicates company culture of hyperfocus on peoples' attendance and trying to extract the max out of their employees time; punitive toward workers that need time off.
2. What's your minimum acceptable salary?
They're not looking for pay equity.
3. Are you willing to commit to [minimum time frame, ex. 2 years]
High turnover.
4. Have you ever been fired?
None. Of. Their. Business! Past performance isn't indicative of future performance. Redirect them to your accomplishments and your future performance.
5. They accuse you of lying on your resume.
Never a good sign for an employer that starts off suspicious of you.
6. What's your greatest failure in your career?
Looking for something to use against you or form a negative bias.
7. (common with hourly roles) Asking for your availability on off-shifts or weekends. Same with if they present a remote job and ask you about your ability to go in to an office.
Exploitative of your time; no work-life balance.
8. How do you deal with rude coworkers or managers?
That's their work environment.
9. Interviewer doesn't give you the opportunity to ask any questions of your own, or dismisses your attempt to ask questions.
One-sided interview, lopsided balance of power.

[washingtonradio]

A question I hated was "where do you plan to be in 5 years" as if my plans for 5 years out are immutable, fixed in stone.

[maryannschumacher]

The BEST interview question I ever experienced was from my last job (I'm now semi-retired but still work for them part-time as a consultant). The woman who ended up being my immediate supervisor asked me, "What makes YOU happy in a position?"
No one ever asked me that before in an intetview--and I've been working more than 50 years!
I was speechless, and anyone who knows me can attest -- that takes some doing! 🤣 Now you know why I still work with them, they're fabulous! 🥰

[AndragonLea]

My favourites are "can you work in a fast-paced environment", "how good are you with thinking on your feet and adapting to sudden changes" and "can you be flexible with your work shifts".
This tells me that they put their workers under a great deal of stress on a regular basis, that their organizational skills suck to the point where you get ambushed by sudden changes in circumstances repeatedly and that they will require you to stay longer, come in earlier and cover for employees that didn't show up or quit.
That paycheck better be spectacular.

[BelArtist]

Worst failure of my career: failing to advocate for myself when I deserved better
How did I overcome this?: by learning from creators like you and taking action 😚

[SINJASON]

You literally just described every single job in my area. There's not one of these topics that you've brought up that I haven't been through with just about every single job in my area and I'm pushing 50 years old and have been working for over 30 years. This is why we have a country full of people who don't want to work it's not that they're lazy and don't want to work we're just tired of being slaved out for minimum wage while our bosses are out playing golf on the weekends. Every single red flag you talked about I have seen on every single job I have ever applied for in my area every single one and that is the problem with this capitalistic crap country. I mean yeah we got some lazy people out there but the biggest problem is greedy corporations

[mykalwhite]

I had a panel interview with Asurion. Doing a quick read of the room, I noticed the HR person did not know what the job was or anything about it. I was asked by the HR professional what my greatest failure was. I replied; "I took 3 strippers to Las Vegas and failed to get laid."
The other panel members, while shocked, had a good laugh.
I got the job.

[gsmith]

Years ago, a company I worked for went out of business all around the world. It was a computer company and I worked in the logistics department. In one interview, the manager of the department I was applying for and I hit it off real well. He was impressed by my resume and the only step was to talk to HR. The person came in, she was young enough to be my daughter. She looked at my resume and asked me about my previous job. I told her the company went bankrupt and went out of business. She asked me why I was let go. I told her everyone in the entire company was let go. I had my former boss as a reference. She said I don't need that, I need the companies phone number. Why didn't you put it on your application. I said here it is but the number no longer works, here is a reference number from my boss. No, I don't need that, only the companies number so I can verify your employment. I thought to myself, good luck...thank goodness I am retired...

[ahlsrobe]

If the interview seems hostile or the company asks any questions that make you second guess working for them, it's totally okay to end the interview saying "This isn't going to be a good fit for either one of us".

[thenappyotaku]

I was once asked if i was married, if i had kids exc...
When I answered no to all and that i was single and planed to stay that way for the foreseeable future, they denied me the job.
Their reasoning was that they figured my lack of family, was an indicator that I had "commitment" trouble and wouldn't be "committed" to the job.

[QueenBabylonnia]

My brother that had been working in and out Freelance of the same company for years producing award winning designs. A HR girl new to the company decided that everyone needed to be interviewed on the basis of if they could do their job etc. He saw her (even though freelance) to give her a bit of respect being new. Everything was obviously all over her head, he showed her work he had produced for that company and others that had all taken awards etc., at the end she asked a few ridiculous questions along with what else can you do for the company when he said he thought what he did was enough she still persisted on wanting to know ‘what else he can do’, so he told her he was practising playing the violin whilst hanging upside down.

[Mita..]

The worst interview I ever had was a surprise group interview. I was scheduled to have an interview over Zoom with what I thought was one person. I joined the meeting and saw that there were about ten other people and one host. Everyone was asked one by one to introduce themselves and provide a bit of information on their background. It was bizarre and you could tell that others were confused. I listened to a few people speak and decided to just exit out of the meeting. It was chaos and disorganized with people talking over each other and it appeared that the host did not even know how to mute everyone. What a joke.

[Tribout]

Recently experienced resume embellishment with a low quality employer. Interviewer felt I was lying about one of my bullets points in regards to workload number. The metric in the bullet point was valid. Shortly after, the interviewer pulled out his phone and walked out of the room. Almost considered walking out of interview myself due the disrespect of my time. Can’t work for a employer that doesn’t value my time.

[kevinstoneburner]

I have had my current job for 10 years, and I’ll likely retire from it. I’m therefore not “in the market”, as it were, but I still love these videos, because I’m an interviewer for my department, and although it’s not currently toxic I’d like to keep it that way. These really help.