 With the great resignation, there is now more opportunity than ever for you to land your dream job or upgrade the job you already have. Companies are panicking and trying to get people to come back to work as they realize that their workers are no longer willing to work in toxic job environments for low pay. So this is a huge opportunity for you to upgrade your pay, work situation or lifestyle. But there's a problem. There are still a lot of companies out there that are continuing to treat their employees like crap and not pay them well. And it's really important that you learn how to recognize these types of companies and avoid them if possible. Because if you don't, you'll likely make less money, you'll have less opportunity, you're not gonna enjoy your job and therefore it's gonna make you less happy in general. No God, please no, no. So in this video, I'm gonna show you how to recognize the 10 most important red flags for jobs and job interviews. And this is coming from someone who's done a lot of interviews and I've also interviewed a lot of people as well. So I've been on both sides of the table. So if you appreciate my insight and my hard work here, go ahead, gently tap that like button and let's get into it. All right, so number one on the list and this is something you can do before you even apply to the job itself is to check to see if the company or the industry the company is in is struggling. Now, I don't wanna come across here the wrong way. There's many examples of companies who are in struggling industries that do a great job. They treat their employees well and they give them lots of opportunity. And these small companies might be struggling to get a piece of the market share but they're doing everything right. What these people don't understand is that it's not about the size of the office, it is about the size of the brains of the people in that office. And if you are loyal to the company, maybe you will be rewarded in the long run. You know, there's lots of stories out there of janitors at Microsoft, for instance, who ended up becoming millionaires. Okay, so those are exceptions and that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is usually gonna be more of an established company that's really struggling to adjust to the current market conditions and they've shown this over time, right? So these are companies that have consistently shown that they're not able to do well and a lot of the time they are in industries that are dying. And in many cases, you'll find that the reason they're struggling so much is because for decades they've had the strategy of doing the bare minimum for their employees. So things like not paying their employees well, not treating them well, not investing in the training of their employees. And this strategy might result in more profit in the short term but long term it's going to hurt the company. And what I'm really referring to here is a lack of opportunity. Is there only one computer? Yes, yes, yes. So when it comes to industries, think about them almost like a pie. If the industry is growing really fast, the pie itself is getting bigger. And when new companies or people come into the industry, there's plenty of pie to go around. There's lots of opportunity. This tends to lead to more positive and collaborative environments. Whereas if you're an industry where the pie either isn't growing or even worse, it's shrinking, that's gonna lead to a very competitive environment. Because if you want to get a piece of the pie, you're gonna have to take it from somebody else. And there's this old saying of show me the incentive and I can usually predict the outcome and that holds true here. Now of course, there are always exceptions to this rule. There are companies that are in struggling industries that still do an amazing job of treating their employees well. And actually long term, that's probably gonna be the best strategy. But generally speaking, if you're in a struggling industry, this is gonna be the case. It's gonna be extremely competitive. There's not gonna be a lot of opportunity. So it's very easy to look up information online about different industries and how they're doing. You can also break it down even further and look it up in terms of different types of careers. So for instance, all healthcare occupations are growing at 16% on average according to BLS, which is much higher than the average of around 4%. And I believe that's actually the highest out of any type of occupation. If you look at specific careers on BLS, you can see nurse practitioners have a job outlook over the next 10 years of about 45% growth, which is way faster than average. That's like 10 times more than usual. And all public companies have to release financial information online. You can always go check those out. But if you don't wanna learn to read financial statements, I think a really easy way to look at the health of a company is to just look at their stock price. So for instance, Google stock has gone up consistently over the last five years and right-aid stock on the other hand has gone down consistently over the last five years. Now, unfortunately, it's a little bit more difficult to evaluate a private company because they don't have to release that financial information. So in that case, you would wanna maybe look at the industry they're in and look at their competitors to kind of have a ballpark estimate of how the company is doing. Now, keep in mind, these are just red flags. So if a company has just like one or two of these, it might not be a big deal at all. But if they have a bunch of these, that could be a huge sign. And get out of here. Treat these red flags just as an indicator to maybe look a little bit further into something if you notice any of them. All right, so number two is gonna be a huge red flag. And this is where you either have to pay to start or do free work. Now, if you have to pay to apply to a company or pay to get started with a company, you might be dealing with what's known as an MLM or a multi-level marketing company. And you should run the other way. MLMs are pretty much always a scam for everyone except for the people at the very top. And it's just really sketchy in general for a company to ask you to pay to apply to them because they could be making a ton of money just off of the applications alone. So even if they aren't an MLM, this is a huge red flag in my opinion. Now, other companies might ask you to do free work for them as part of the interview process. So for instance, if you're a designer, they might ask you to draft up some designs for their company. And these designs are very difficult. They're probably gonna take you several days, maybe even a week to make. And this is also a big red flag because chances are they're just gonna use your design and the designs from hundreds of other people who are applying to the job and then not have to hire another designer. So they're basically getting free work in this case. That's not fair. Now, there's one semi-exception to this, still a little bit sketchy in my opinion, but unpaid internships. Most of the time, you really wanna try to get a paid internship even if it pays you minimum wage. And many companies that offer a lot of unpaid internships are relatively predatory. And again, they're just trying to get free work out of people. And it can be a sign that the company has the philosophy that they are trying to extract as much value out of people while giving as little as possible. And you really don't wanna enter into a relationship with people who are like that, whether it's a company or someone in your life, a friendship, et cetera. Another example of working for free is when a company says they're gonna pay you from nine to five and then they expect you to stay until eight o'clock or nine o'clock that night for free. So if the company gives you any indication that they do that, for instance, if they say, oh yeah, you know, it's nine to five, but most people decide to stay until 10 o'clock. Ah! Ah! Ah! Trust me, nobody is gonna decide to stay at their work unpaid until 10 o'clock. That's something where if you don't stay, you're magically gonna get fired, right? So people have a fear that they're gonna get fired and so they stay out of fear. And you'll notice with most of these examples, it's a one-way street where one party is getting almost all of the value and this is almost never gonna work in the long run. Healthy work environments are where both sides benefit from the relationship. The number three red flag to watch out for is bad vibes from the employees or the person who interviews you. Get off my ass, you hag. Hey, hey, hey, something about that seems inappropriate. So this one is a little bit hard to describe and obviously some people are better at picking up on vibes than other people, but if you're thinking about applying to a job, you go to the job interview and your interviewer is a total jerk, that's a really bad sign. Even before the interview, if the receptionist is a jerk, that's a bad sign as well. And honestly, I think it's a pretty good idea just to go there as a customer and see how people interact with you. You'll be surprised how easy it is to pick up on the vibes if it's a toxic work environment or people are expected to do way more work than they can. If they're really rude to customers that tells you something, some other signs are if they seem really frantic or busy or if they seem really negative or just unhappy or stressed in general, or in some cases they might straight up tell you that they don't like the company. If you ask them, hey, how do you feel about your job? And I hate everything. Or even if you just pass some employees in the hallway, they don't make eye contact with you, smile or even acknowledge you at all, that kind of gives you a sense of the vibe of the company. Another huge red flag is if your interviewer makes negative comments about past employees. That is a huge red flag and that shows that it's probably going to be a toxic workplace because even if they did have a really bad past employee, totally possible, it's so inappropriate to bring that up in an interview. And then lastly, just pay attention to your gut feeling. Your instinct is something that kind of got your ancestors through much harder times than now. They basically survived evolution because of their instincts. So it's definitely something you shouldn't ignore. All right, number four is the job description is nothing like they describe in the interview. Now, sometimes you're going to run into a job description that's just totally ridiculous and when you look at it, you basically see that they expect you to do everything in the company. But most of the time, companies like this are a little more sneaky about it and they're not going to just put it out there that they treat their employees like indentured servants. So if you look at the job description and you see that it does require you to have certain skills and then you go to the interview and they tell you that you have to have all these different skill sets, that is a bad sign. Now, this actually can be somewhat normal at smaller companies and startups. And the truth is you kind of just have to accept this. There are many different pros of working at a startup but that is definitely one of the cons. But at a normal company, if they're trying to do this, what it probably means is they're trying to get you to do a high paying job for a low salary or they're trying to get you to do multiple different jobs for the pay of one. Another thing they might do is they originally advertised that the job was say $40 an hour. And then when you go to the interview, they say, oh, it's actually $30 an hour. What the hell are you talking about? So any type of bait and switch deviations that you see like that are huge, huge red flags. And that kind of leads into the next point which is low balling you for the position and the amount of work. So for this entry level position, all you need is a four year degree, five years of experience. You must be fluent in three different languages. You must work evening, weekends, holidays, leap years, et cetera. You must be willing to travel and relocate. And you must complete a large test project that will take you a week before you even know if you have the chance to interview. Oh, and you also must be willing to sacrifice your first-born child. And the starting pay is $12 per hour, part time, no benefits. Sound good? If this shit go down, I ain't going down with you. So a lot of companies try to do this thing where they will combine different jobs and then pretend like it's one position. Now, if you've done your research, you know what you're worth and you know what the expected pay range for the job should be. And some companies will try to low ball you hoping that you're in a desperate situation and you'll just accept the offer. And again, this is a predatory sign because it's a one-way street, one party is getting much more value than the other is. And it's a sign that they don't really want to have a long-term relationship with you. They want to extract as much value out of you as they can for a short period of time and then you're probably going to move on. So chances are they don't have a very healthy work culture and their employees are probably not very happy. And companies that low ball workers and don't treat them well tend to have a very high turnover rate. And so they don't expect you to stay with them for very long and so they're just going to try to get everything out of you that they can. Number six on the list is going to be asking uncomfortable or in some cases outright illegal questions. It was a setup. Here in the U.S. age, race, religion, gender, disability, pregnancy status are all illegal questions that companies should not ask you. And I think most people are aware of this but there's some questions that technically aren't illegal or they're legal in some states and illegal in others. So one question that is legal in some states not legal in others is if they ask you how much you're making at your current job. Even if it's legal in your state this is an extremely uncomfortable question and it's honestly pretty rude to ask. Another bad sign is if the interviewer asks you questions that insinuate they expect you to work for free or work during your time off or be on call. Again, people even if they enjoy the job are not going to want to work for free. They're going to want to go home to their families. They're going to want to have fun and rest. And there's many different other examples but basically if you feel like you're being pressured to agree to something during the interview that you weren't aware of, that can be a bad sign. All right, number seven on the list the hiring process is too fast or too slow. If a job hires you right away and it only takes a day for you to get started that's a bad sign. Usually that means that they have a high turnover rate and we just talked about that, not a good sign. On the flip side, if your job takes multiple months to get you through the hiring process this can also be a really bad sign as well. It could mean that they actually don't need anybody for the position and they're just keeping people on the back burner in case someone quits or it could mean that they're just incredibly disorganized and getting things done inside of the company is a bureaucratic nightmare. Now according to glassdoor.com the average hiring process in the United States takes about 23.8 days. But again, there's always exceptions. For instance, government jobs do tend to take several months before you can get hired because they have to do an extensive background check on you. And there are certain jobs that have a really long interview process like professor. But yeah, generally speaking if either of these things are true it does tend to be a bad sign and it's something to look out for. Number eight on the list is going to be corporate buzzword overload and cult-like behavior. Look, I'm all about loyalty. In fact, I feel like part of what I'm being paid for here is my loyalty. Now if you have found this strategic presentation to have met your KPIs I propose that we effectively synergize by circling back around and merging with the like and subscribe buttons below. Now all joking aside I do have to be careful with this one because many corporations do use certain buzzwords and acronyms in order to communicate their corporate philosophy and they really want to make their philosophy and mission very clear to their employees. So a small amount of acronyms and buzzwords is not necessarily a bad thing because that's going to help them to create a positive work culture and get everyone on the same page. But if a company goes overboard on the buzzwords to the point where it feels like a cult that can be a bad sign. So if you get a culty feeling from the company in general like they're trying a little bit too hard to force positivity. One, two, three, smile. Try to smile. You result a lot today everybody. Think happy thoughts. Or they try too hard to make it seem like they work hard, play hard and they're one big family. What that really means is you're probably going to get overworked and underpaid and you better be happy about it. Also, if they imply that you need to work nights and weekends and always be on call that's a pretty bad sign as well. Now my personal philosophy about work is when I'm at work, I work really hard and when I'm off work, I do whatever I want. I would never personally be okay with constantly being pinged about work related stuff on my time off but I know there are exceptions to that like high level management positions, executive CEOs, et cetera. So if you're going for a position like that you kind of have to expect it. But if they're expecting people who are in like lower or mid-level positions to be like that where they're constantly getting pinged when they're off work, that is a horrible sign. To me, that's kind of like being a business owner and working as hard as one without getting paid the same way that they would. And one of the big pluses of being an employee and just getting a nice stable steady job is the fact that you do have that really nice work-life balance. Number nine on the list is when interviewers give you bad answers to questions. Usually at the end of an interview the interviewer is gonna turn things around and let you ask them questions. Now you should always have a few questions ready for them, of course, because it shows that you're interested in them and the company and you did your homework. If the interviewer seems annoyed by this that's a bad sign. If they seem like they can't answer basic questions that's a bad sign as well. So for instance, if you ask them what the training and onboarding process is like and they can't give you a good answer that's a really bad sign. In a company that's organized, that has a good work culture, the person interviewing you should absolutely know what the training and onboarding process is like. What that probably means is there pretty much isn't any training process and you're just gonna get thrown into the fire. Now if you ask them what challenges they've commonly seen with people who are in your position and they tell you that turnover, job satisfaction, stress, salary, et cetera were a big issue, that is also a bad sign. Number 10 on the list is going to be one that you can actually check before you do any of this as well and that is going to be low employee satisfaction levels. So there are many websites out there that will actually allow employees to rate how satisfied they were with a certain employer and these do tend to be pretty accurate especially at large companies. And some of these websites will even let you see how happy people were in certain careers at different companies as well. So very easy to find these, glassdoor.com does this. I think indeed.com does this as well. The way I find it is I just actually type it into Google. So for instance, you could type in glassdoor Google software developer and the first link will probably be the right one. Now again, at smaller or private companies this can be a little more difficult. One thing you can do is type in a Google search for company name and then defendant or company name and plaintiff. And if you see that the company has been involved in a lot of different lawsuits especially if it's with previous employees that can be a bad sign. Although to be fair, sometimes there are legitimate reasons for this so take it with a grain of salt. All right, so I do have a quick present for you for making it until the end of the video. I put together five steps to avoid toxic companies and this is gonna be a step-by-step process that you should go through when evaluating a company and the first step is the one you should do first and then the second and the third and so on. And this is just gonna help you to avoid a lot of different toxic companies out there. So you can check that out at the bottom of the pinned comment down below. Let me know if I forget to post it. Also check out this video I did right here on the six companies with the best benefits. If you haven't done it already, go ahead, gently tap that like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video and I will see you next time.