The Red Flags You Should Actually Pay Attention To in an Interview Process

Most candidates are looking for green flags. They want to feel excited, like the team, see a strong salary, a good brand, growth potential. And that makes sense.

The problem is, interview processes are designed to make you feel optimistic. Everyone is on their best behaviour. The company is selling, same as you are. So if you only look for green flags, you are going to miss the stuff that actually matters.

Red flags are rarely dramatic. Nobody sits across from you and says “we are disorganised and the culture is toxic.” It is usually much smaller. A strange answer. A contradiction. A question they dodge. A tone that feels slightly off. A feeling that every stage is chipping away at your confidence.

I spend my life inside these processes, and candidates often only clock the warning signs after they have already joined. By then it is expensive. Financially and mentally. You leave a stable role, or you turn down another option, and three months later you realise the problem was sitting right there at stage two when the hiring manager and founder gave completely different answers and you told yourself it was fine.

So this is the stuff I would pay attention to. Not the obvious things. The quiet ones that tell you what it is probably like to work there.