Our specialists share their experience and sometimes … Well, we are very surprised. So today we will tell the story that our employee shared with us (anonymity is preserved). Everyone is talking about toxicity today, so it came to IT companies. But how can you not make yourself into trouble at the interview and immediately abandon the offer, or at least free yourself as quickly as possible! 🙂
Signs of a Toxic IT Company
You’re fired! Go! And take away your bad mood!
“The Office”
- When you come for an interview, ask if someone has worked before you in the proposed position. If so, then feel free to ask the reason for the previous employee’s firing. If you are not given a clear answer, they tell you about “confidentiality” – they simply hide the real reason from you. There may be many reasons for this, but if it was “within the normal range”, then you would be told that there was an interesting project, an office closer to home, higher salaries, etc. If this was a reason (or a whole complex of reasons) such as “your management does not work well”, “you do not have enough people for full-time work and I constantly have overtime of 12-14 working hours” or “you save on all the tools for work and as a result, you have to create a product from what is”, then you will not be told about it. And who will be proud of such “achievements”? Do not hesitate to ask such questions, because recruiters are always interested in why you want to change jobs, therefore you have every right to ask why the previous employee left. Any common answers or avoidance is a bad call.
By working hard 8 hours a day, you can become a boss and work 12 hours a day.
Robert Frost
2. If from the very first minutes you hear about the “coolness” of the company and a lot of empty words without concrete evidence, then most likely you are being deceived. What is specific evidence? For example, instead of “We have a lot of cool projects and there are professionals working” you hear “Last year we successfully completed 9 projects on which a team of 30 people worked” – this is proof. In general, there is nothing wrong with “praising” your achievements, but first of all it should concern the appearance of the office, the professionalism of recruiters and the presence of first-class tools (including paid ones) – this is a sign that you will have the tools for work and a healthy working atmosphere.
3. You have already completed the full cycle of interviews HR-recruiter-manager-CTO and the manager “accidentally” writes to you and asks you to literally look at the project with one eye and determine an approximate estimate. So, you have already spent more than 6 hours (without completing the technical task) only on interviews, you have not yet received an offer or at least an answer that there will be one at all, and you are already being asked to revise the estimate. Yes, you may think that this is also a good sign – they want to hire you! But think deeper – you have not yet begun to officially fulfill your duties, and you are already being asked to calculate the estimate. This means only one thing – your time is not appreciated and will hardly be appreciated when you receive an offer. Think three times before accepting such an offer.
4. Always (!) ask if the company has onboarding as such. If so, ask what exactly is meant by the word “onboarding”. Some companies bring the concept of onboarding to the masses as a familiar acquaintance on the first working day. This is not onboarding, this is the acquaintance. We think there is no need to explain the importance of onboarding. Therefore, onboarding provides an opportunity to get acquainted and familiarize yourself with projects and analyze the existing result, and it takes at least 2 weeks. If there is no onboarding at all, or it is understood as “acquaintance”, then you should know that from the very first days you will be thrown into the “embrasure” and you will have to learn everything yourself in a gallop across Europe.
5. Chaos is the worst thing in teamwork. Where there is chaos, there is no room for quality work. Some companies believe that workers are “pretending” and may well complete yesterday’s tasks today in half an hour. Therefore, from the very first days, pay attention to the setting of tasks, if tasks arrive to you in the style of “Hello, this task should have been done a week ago, but something went wrong, so keep the file, the description below, I am waiting in 2 hours”, then hold on… If this is an exception to the rule (although as practice shows, if there is such a trend, it becomes a style of work), then just warn that next time you will not perform such tasks, since all priorities have already been determined and will have to wait.
Run, Forrest, Run!
We are sure that you have recalled your experiences of work in various companies, perhaps even rewound your memories and remembered similar bells in previous interviews. The main purpose of this article is to tell you about NOT the norm in work and how to recognize it. We, like no one else, care about the comfort of our employees, and want them to run to us, not from us. For this, we use the most modern tools for team management and provide all the necessary equipment to ensure you efficient and enjoyable work. Remember that you can always become part of our team, for this go to vacancies page and you will definitely find something for yourself!
