Woman Shares The 4 Red Flags That Made Her Decline A Really Good Job Offer
Even in a job market this tough, sometimes it's just not worth it.
Kerkez from Getty Images | Canva Pro The current job market is so tough that it's easy to go into survival mode and just take whatever job — any job — you're offered. But one woman's recent interview experience taught her a valuable lesson that many of us probably need to hear: No matter how difficult the market may be, sometimes the job is just not worth it.
The woman shared the four red flags that made her decline a really good job offer.
TikToker @brickconsulting, who works in the retail and hospitality industries, recently detailed an experience that will likely be familiar to anyone who's been on the job hunt for a while. "Even when you finally do get an interview and an offer," she said, "you might not be able to take it because of the amount of glaringly obvious red flags."
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She's eager to leave her current job and move to a new opportunity, so a recent interview for an accounting position looked like a great fit. She interviewed and was quickly given an offer — and a very lucrative one at that, for substantially more money than she asked for.
But that, along with several other factors, began to seem like a major red flag on a list of four that had her saying, "You guys, I just can't take that job."
1. The managers who interviewed her could not answer basic questions about the job.
The TikToker said she interviewed with the CFO and two other high-level officers — big wigs who are running the company in question. But you'd never know it from the answer she got to basic questions about the details of the job, training, and the goals they were looking for her to achieve.
"They could not clearly answer one of those questions," she said. Given how high-up the interviewers were, that's downright bizarre, but in the context of the other things she discovered, it's not surprising.
2. The company was 'in transition' with lots of recent layoffs.
"They let me know that their company is in transition," she said, so naturally she did her research after the interview. "Yeah, they are definitely in transition," she said — they had just laid off a bunch of people.
That's bad enough, of course, but the fact they were also interviewing right after doing so suggests that those layoffs were done hastily without much thought, which is exactly the impression this company left the more she researched them.
3. They had obvious issues managing money.
"They're kind of going through it, like, financially, too," she said, because she discovered the company used to be in a fancy, 15,000-square-foot bespoke office that was custom designed for them by an architect.
Now, after they're round of interviews, they were leasing space "in some very humble building with a couple of other companies." She also found out why they were hiring an accountant — it was because they'd never had one! Which is frankly insane.
4. Her job offer came almost immediately, with a salary offer way over what she asked.
Ordinarily, you'd think this is a good thing, right? But given the others, it seems like the biggest red flag of all. The TikToker said the company checked none of her references, offered her the job "out of nowhere" after a single interview, and threw gobs more money into the deal — but only if she'd sign on that very same day.
It all screams one thing: We are a mess, and we are desperate. Clearly, there was no competition for this job, and it left her feeling like she was dodging a major bullet by going with her gut and telling them, "absolutely not."
Speaking of desperation, it left her issuing one simple warning to her TikTok viewers: "Don't be so desperate to leave that you look past red flags and you end up in a crazy place. Don't do it. Take this as a warning."
That's easy to say when you already have a job, of course — and if you really are desperate, it may make sense to take a job like this just for the temporary paycheck. But "temporary" is the key word there. Go into it clear-eyed about the fact that this is not a job, or likely even a COMPANY, that is going to last. Collect the checks while you keep looking for something else, because a toxic job is never worth it.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.