How to Spot a Shiny Turd

[deanwebb]

This is important for us. How can we determine what the job will REALLY be like as we interview and apply for it? What are some good signs? What are some warning signs?

[dlots]

one warning sign I had was a REALLY fast offer.

[icecream-guy]

employers usually do a 30/60/90 day evaluation period to make sure you fit in with the company, team,  and position, works the other way too.  but quitting a crappy job with no backup sucks.  If there were only a way one could hold open their previous position until the new company evaluation period ended.

[icecream-guy]

This is important for us. How can we determine what the job will REALLY be like as we interview and apply for it? What are some good signs? What are some warning signs?

one must observe the surroundings when on-site.  when on tour look around, see what other people are doing,  focused and busy? muttering under their breath "get out, get out"? BSing around the water cooler? tying a noose and throwing it over the light fixture?

notice the decor. is it clean and tidy? are there holes in the walls? pictures on walls, are they cheap "hotel style" or maybe something interesting from a local artist? notice decor in offices, are there lots of personalized things? (we got hockey fans here with their office walls covered in team gear banners and such). Are there limited personal belongings, maybe a picture or two on a desk and that's all?

In the DC, look how things are layed out, are things nice and neat? does it look like people cared when they did their installs? or are all the wires in a spaghetti ball?

Asking questions in the interview also helps  asking if this is a new position or a vacancy fill.  new position could mean that the company is growing, vacancy fill, could mean anything, last guy upgraded , fired, couldn't take the workload, had a fight with the manager, etc, additional probing questions would need to be put forth.  of course ability to identify a lie to your question would be helpful. ( it's a new position (in title) 3 engineers just left because of the new manager with anger issues).

I could go on...

[deanwebb]

Do a google search with the company name and "bankruptcy" as keywords. See what that turns up.

PROTIP: Don't start work at a company that is entering, in, or recently coming out of bankruptcy.

[Nerm]

These are all first hand experiences for me over the years.

1.) The Senior Network Engineer sitting in and asking the "technical" questions for the interview has never heard of a Layer 2 loop.

2.) The hiring IT Manager says "I didn't understand a word you just said, so you really know your stuff". Then he makes you an offer to start right away even though this is just the "initial" phone interview.

3.) The title of the position you interviewed for is "Senior Systems Engineer". They make you an offer that is less than the market average for an entry level helpdesk position.

4.) During an interview something seems odd and your gut says run. Later after telling them no thanks you find out that the previous "IT guy" that you were being interviewed to replace was basically a dirt bag and wrecked the entire infrastructure of the way out the door.

5.) During the interview the existing System/Network Admin sitting in on the interview attempts to correct you because Microsoft Exchange has nothing to do with email. (I swear to God I am not making this up. I wish I was)

There are more but those are the top 5 most memorable lol.

[NetworkGroover]

The only two that stick out in my mind are:

1. You sit in a board interview with 10+ people for a Network Admin 1 position paying $21/hr

2. "What ethertype is "X"?"
    "Hmmm... I honestly don't know and I feel like I should.  What is it?"
    "I dunno, I just was wondering if you knew."

[deanwebb]

Warning signs... yes, these happened, and made me want to stay far, far away from these jobs...

They ask if you know a guy... you do, and he was not very professional... then they ask you what you thought about him... does he still work there, or is he gone? Either way, these guys are setting you up. That reflects on the politics of the environment. If they talk about people behind their backs to complete strangers, that is not a good sign at all.

They ask some tech questions, say five... You answer truthfully, to the point of saying that you're guessing on one of them and flat out don't know another. The interviewers nevertheless say you did the best on it and want to set up next steps on getting you in there.

Lots of questions about stuff I don't know about... the job really isn't a good fit for me and I say so. Honest interviewers thank me for my time and move on, like professionals. Shiny Turds, Inc. interviewers say, "Oh, that's not a problem, you'll learn on the job" and keep going with the interview. Wait, I have zero experience with BGP, and you want to put me in charge of your WAN?

Ask about where IT staff are located... ask about who actually owns/operates the equipment... and who owns the architecture and design... often times, the brand new IT office in a different location from the national headquarters means they just bought a new company, turned over the IT reins to them, and there is massive resentment in the parent company. Also, if there are outsourcers in charge of support AND arch/design, then that means all the IT staff are there to manage services and throw up their hands in frustration if there's ever an outage.

Any travel percentage over 100% is not good for anyone. It's simply not possible to be in two places at the same time. OK, this never happened, but you have to watch out for high travel numbers. Low numbers tend to approach zero in real life: the 10-20% travel is there just in case, so that way they can say you agreed to some travel, should they have to ship you somewhere for a short while. High numbers tend to approach infinity in real life. Anything over 40% is likely understating how much travel is actually involved, and that can be a real killer, unless you're something of a drifter and prefer living out of a suitcase, with nowhere of your own to call home. (I know a guy like that, and he's perfectly happy with his 100% travel job. Go figure.)

The guys doing a team interview make half-jokes about how frustrating their jobs are. TRANSLATION: the work there is very frustrating, they don't get the resources they need to do their work, and it's likely as not to be almost 100% break-fix.

Ask about work from home/remote policy. If there isn't any, it may be because of micromanagers, poor technology, nobody knows/wants to build/support a VPN, or all the other benefits suck, too.

Ask to use the bathroom while you're there. If it's all that's what facilities management there is like.

Interviewer attitude and energy is important. If the interviewer is attentive, friendly, and upbeat, you probably want to work there. If he's distracted, cold, and half-bored or worse, then that's because of what he was doing before the interview started. He doesn't want to be there and has a lot of reasons why he doesn't want to be there.

Jobs that ask for five years of experience on products that are about to be released next quarter. These guys do NOT pay attention to detail.