6 ms·

Ask HN: What do you see as red flags in a job application process?

12 points by chaosharmonic 5y ago

(Specifically, in contrast to ones that come up in interviews.)

dave_sid 5y ago
A two month notice period.
- codegeek 5y ago
  very common in Asian Countries.
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  I’ve had up to three in Sweden.
- otagekki 5y ago
  In France 3 month notice period is commonplace
chaosharmonic 5y ago
I'm also going to throw my own gripe here: applicant tracking platforms that require you to set up logins in order to apply for a job. There's a lot about typical application processes that's just... kind of obnoxious. Making people manually correct the bad parsing your tracker does on uploading your resume? That's clunky and annoying, and a failure to respect your applicants' time. Making people beg for a job by writing up a 500 word essay about what excites you about them specifically, along with their opinions about puppies just so that you know it was personally crafted? (And yes, I've seen that specifically.) That's kind of demeaning, and a failure to respect your applicants' time. But requiring that they create a discrete user account, for something they're effectively going to interact with once, that in all likelihood is using a recycled login and going to be forgotten in a week? That's on a completely separate level -- it's a failure to respect your applicants' security, by pointlessly adding to the risk that their user credentials are going to show up on Have I Been Pwned someday, and it's just irresponsible.
warrenm 5y ago
- demanding to know previous salaries - trivia questions in the interview (https://antipaucity.com/2011/10/03/doing-technical-phone-screens https://antipaucity.com/2011/10/03/doing-technical-phone-scr...) - don't know why they're hiring you (eg "we think we' have more projects after this one...") - can't explain benefits in a couple simple sentences - they require you to be in X location ...but won't pay to relocate you - won't accommodate salary/title/etc to your actual experience/expectations There're 6 I bet I could add another 20 if I worked at it
RedXIII 5y ago
"We're a family."
ruben81adelaide 5y ago
They don’t mention other benefits rather than just the pay package. And nowadays, not allowing remote work.
westcort 5y ago
"Vacation is accrued over the first year" and it turns out that means you can't take any vacation for a year. Benefits cost more than they would through the exchanges...and they get a kickback when employees do not use the insurance, so it's a moneymaker for them. Also, the insurance requires disclosing all health conditions on an unprotected form that goes to HR creating an incentive for hiring younger and healthier people. There is a core group of long-serving employees and a revolving door for others. "Family" atmosphere in general--that is not a model for a workplace, it is a model for a family.
kody 5y ago
Red: - You can do anything (frontend backend ci/cd backend product management IT) - We’re a family here - Yeet ninja 10x rockstars, “you friends see you as a badass hacker” (yes I saw the latter in a job description) - 120k - 165k for a junior position I haven’t gotten enough jobs to have a clear green flag filter, but my most delightful interviewing experiences have been take home projects to demonstrate ability to reason about a domain that pertains to the job for which I’m applying. E.g. “build a web server that can return X and memoizes results, bonus points for creating a one-click-run Docker image for the project”.
- warrenm 5y ago
  >my most delightful interviewing experiences have been take home projects to demonstrate ability to reason about a domain that pertains to the job for which I’m applying I can't figure out if you're being serious ... or if that's raining sarcasm
  - runawaybottle 5y ago
    I can’t tell if he thinks 120k-160k for a junior position is good or bad (the answer should be that’s really good).
    - warrenm 5y ago
      yeah - pretty sure this guy doesn't understand the question
  - kody 5y ago
    I'm serious, but that's because I can't stand leetcode-style interview questions.
- warrenm 5y ago
  >120k - 165k for a junior position You have something against higher-than-average salaries?
  - 5y ago
jstx1 5y ago
- the words "urgent" or "immediately" anywhere in the ad - asking for current salary - "/" in the job title e.g. Data Engineer/Scientist or Senior Developer / Scrum Master - requiring a cover letter
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I personally hate seeing "Computer Science or Finance degree." Immediately this tells me this is a junk data entry job. Finance majors couldnt even code a stock tracking app in python even if you gave them the code base from the start and apl they needed was to add the logic. Half the time business analysts to me, are just faf middle management employees that dont do much.
forgotmypw17 5y ago
green flag: email us to apply yellow flag: greenhouse.io red flag: adp
shetill 5y ago
- bad Glassdoor reviews or not enough reviews (I would be looking for at least 1k reviews to consider a company). Anything 4+ stars with 1k+ reviews should be good - most adverts coming from random (and new) 3rd party recruiters outside the companies themselves. They hire these recruiters because they know their role/company is shit and no one would apply otherwise - any 200 people or less company (most startups are shit) - any in the adtech/crypto industry - any saying that they will "disrupt the market" - recruitment/HR barely if ever replying after offer was "verbally given" - not having benefits package (bonus, health, dental, pension etc) - offering lower than previously mentioned or below industry standards compensation - paying their seniors the same as junior or mid - majority of their work force made up of cheap labour from third world countries - having offices in third world countries to do their dirty job for nearly free - not declaring the tech stack clearly or the role duties (plenty more left but these should be the main)
- warrenm 5y ago
  >I would be looking for at least 1k reviews to consider a company If you only want to work for big companies where you're just an employee number ... I guess that's ok?
  - shetill 5y ago
    not sure what you mean, you are always an employee anyway, smaller company doesn't guarantee that you will be treated any differently
- warrenm 5y ago
  >any 200 people or less company I'm pretty much the opposite - if you're more than a couple hundred ... you're probably crap
  - shetill 5y ago
    I've worked in both and bigger companies definitely take better care of their employees in my opinion

12 points by chaosharmonic 5y ago

(Specifically, in contrast to ones that come up in interviews.)

dave_sid 5y ago

A two month notice period.

codegeek 5y ago
very common in Asian Countries.
brtkdotse 5y ago
I’ve had up to three in Sweden.
otagekki 5y ago
In France 3 month notice period is commonplace

chaosharmonic 5y ago

I'm also going to throw my own gripe here: applicant tracking platforms that require you to set up logins in order to apply for a job. There's a lot about typical application processes that's just... kind of obnoxious. Making people manually correct the bad parsing your tracker does on uploading your resume? That's clunky and annoying, and a failure to respect your applicants' time. Making people beg for a job by writing up a 500 word essay about what excites you about them specifically, along with their opinions about puppies just so that you know it was personally crafted? (And yes, I've seen that specifically.) That's kind of demeaning, and a failure to respect your applicants' time. But requiring that they create a discrete user account, for something they're effectively going to interact with once, that in all likelihood is using a recycled login and going to be forgotten in a week? That's on a completely separate level -- it's a failure to respect your applicants' security, by pointlessly adding to the risk that their user credentials are going to show up on Have I Been Pwned someday, and it's just irresponsible.

warrenm 5y ago

- demanding to know previous salaries - trivia questions in the interview (https://antipaucity.com/2011/10/03/doing-technical-phone-screens https://antipaucity.com/2011/10/03/doing-technical-phone-scr...) - don't know why they're hiring you (eg "we think we' have more projects after this one...") - can't explain benefits in a couple simple sentences - they require you to be in X location ...but won't pay to relocate you - won't accommodate salary/title/etc to your actual experience/expectations There're 6 I bet I could add another 20 if I worked at it

RedXIII 5y ago

"We're a family."

ruben81adelaide 5y ago

They don’t mention other benefits rather than just the pay package. And nowadays, not allowing remote work.

westcort 5y ago

"Vacation is accrued over the first year" and it turns out that means you can't take any vacation for a year. Benefits cost more than they would through the exchanges...and they get a kickback when employees do not use the insurance, so it's a moneymaker for them. Also, the insurance requires disclosing all health conditions on an unprotected form that goes to HR creating an incentive for hiring younger and healthier people. There is a core group of long-serving employees and a revolving door for others. "Family" atmosphere in general--that is not a model for a workplace, it is a model for a family.

kody 5y ago

Red: - You can do anything (frontend backend ci/cd backend product management IT) - We’re a family here - Yeet ninja 10x rockstars, “you friends see you as a badass hacker” (yes I saw the latter in a job description) - 120k - 165k for a junior position I haven’t gotten enough jobs to have a clear green flag filter, but my most delightful interviewing experiences have been take home projects to demonstrate ability to reason about a domain that pertains to the job for which I’m applying. E.g. “build a web server that can return X and memoizes results, bonus points for creating a one-click-run Docker image for the project”.

warrenm 5y ago
>my most delightful interviewing experiences have been take home projects to demonstrate ability to reason about a domain that pertains to the job for which I’m applying I can't figure out if you're being serious ... or if that's raining sarcasm
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  I can’t tell if he thinks 120k-160k for a junior position is good or bad (the answer should be that’s really good).
  - warrenm 5y ago
    yeah - pretty sure this guy doesn't understand the question
- kody 5y ago
  I'm serious, but that's because I can't stand leetcode-style interview questions.
warrenm 5y ago
>120k - 165k for a junior position You have something against higher-than-average salaries?
- 5y ago

jstx1 5y ago

- the words "urgent" or "immediately" anywhere in the ad - asking for current salary - "/" in the job title e.g. Data Engineer/Scientist or Senior Developer / Scrum Master - requiring a cover letter

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I personally hate seeing "Computer Science or Finance degree." Immediately this tells me this is a junk data entry job. Finance majors couldnt even code a stock tracking app in python even if you gave them the code base from the start and apl they needed was to add the logic. Half the time business analysts to me, are just faf middle management employees that dont do much.

forgotmypw17 5y ago

green flag: email us to apply yellow flag: greenhouse.io red flag: adp

shetill 5y ago

- bad Glassdoor reviews or not enough reviews (I would be looking for at least 1k reviews to consider a company). Anything 4+ stars with 1k+ reviews should be good - most adverts coming from random (and new) 3rd party recruiters outside the companies themselves. They hire these recruiters because they know their role/company is shit and no one would apply otherwise - any 200 people or less company (most startups are shit) - any in the adtech/crypto industry - any saying that they will "disrupt the market" - recruitment/HR barely if ever replying after offer was "verbally given" - not having benefits package (bonus, health, dental, pension etc) - offering lower than previously mentioned or below industry standards compensation - paying their seniors the same as junior or mid - majority of their work force made up of cheap labour from third world countries - having offices in third world countries to do their dirty job for nearly free - not declaring the tech stack clearly or the role duties (plenty more left but these should be the main)

warrenm 5y ago
>I would be looking for at least 1k reviews to consider a company If you only want to work for big companies where you're just an employee number ... I guess that's ok?
- shetill 5y ago
  not sure what you mean, you are always an employee anyway, smaller company doesn't guarantee that you will be treated any differently
warrenm 5y ago
>any 200 people or less company I'm pretty much the opposite - if you're more than a couple hundred ... you're probably crap
- shetill 5y ago
  I've worked in both and bigger companies definitely take better care of their employees in my opinion