how do I spot red flags in a job interview if I have no work experience?

This post, how do I spot red flags in a job interview if I have no work experience? , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am a law student who just finished my first year, and I am applying to jobs for the summer. My one and only job was one that I started when I was 17 (I am 23 now) and was self-employed. Before this, I’ve only ever had one interview, and it was through my university so I knew the interviewers beforehand.

I just got out of a second interview with a potential job. I am so torn. I feel very uncomfortable with some of what I am and would be expected to do, but I don’t know if it is a red flag or just what entry-level positions have to do. This position is for a law clerk/legal assistant.

Here are some examples:

• This position is unpaid for approximately two months or so before turning into a paid position (because I will have to be taught everything, so I won’t bring any value to the boss yet). He did not specify what the pay is once I get to that level, but said we could negotiate at that time.

• The hiring manager gave me some small work to do for an ongoing case and asked me to complete it. (I know you say skills tests are good, and this is literally work that he needs to do for a case that he will be litigating later this summer. It is also not paid.)

• He said he is open to remote work, but I won’t be paid for it because I’m not in-office and therefore not of much use to him.

• He constantly talks in circles. Our first interview lasted an hour and a half, he asked me one question, and spent the rest of the time talking about his work, himself, and his children (and all of his past “secretaries”).

• He says that all women under the age of 50 are “girls” so he refers to his past employees as “the girls who have worked for him in the past.”

• He really doesn’t seem to answer questions. I’ve asked him four or five and the only clear answer I got was the one about the position being unpaid at first.

• The firm is only himself and one current legal assistant.

All that being said, I’m not sure how much of this is my own inexperience and anxiety. I can tell that he is very smart, his current legal assistant loves him, and I do think I would get exposed to a lot of different situations at his firm. On the other hand, each time I stepped out of his office after the interview, I felt uncomfortable and anxious. How do you know if something is a red flag in a job interview when you have almost no work experience?

First, do not under any circumstances accept this job. We’ll get to how to spot red flags in a minute, but first let’s tackle this specific job and the reasons you should run far away:

• The manager doesn’t plan to pay you for two months of work. This is illegal; the law requires him to pay you at least minimum wage unless this is structured as an unpaid internship where you are the primary beneficiary, not him. This isn’t that, so it’s illegal.

• He’s not willing to tell you what you’d be paid after those two months. It’s moot because of point one, but it’s an additional red flag. Decent employers do not bring people on without clearly agreeing on pay, and you should never accept a job without a firm understanding of what you will be paid for your work. His statement that you could negotiate it later on — no. You’ll have far less negotiating power once you’re already working there and if you can’t agree on terms, then what? You’ll leave, having worked for free for two months and with nothing to show for it?

• Skills tests are good — when they’re used exclusively to assess your skills. When they’re real work that the employer will use, they’re unethical and unacceptable, unless you’re paid for them.

• He’s “open” to remote work … as long as you do it for free? How generous. Remote work is real work, and you need to be paid for it. Again, illegal. Again, unethical.

• He won’t answer direct questions. This one pales in comparison to the things above but is still highly alarming.

The other stuff — talking in circles, sexism, and tiny firm size — are things that you might consider if none of the above was happening. If everything else was good, you might decide that you could live with those things, depending on what other options you had. (Tiny firm size isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it does mean that if he’s not great, that will have an outsized impact on your day to day quality of life at work and there will be no checks and balances in the mix. It also means you’ll have a very different experience than you would at a larger firm; that’s not necessarily prohibitive, but it’s something to be aware of.) But it’s all moot because the other issues are immediate deal-breakers.

So first and foremost: in this case, run.

As for how to know if something is a red flag when you don’t have much experience: One of the most important things you can do is to cultivate relationships with people with more experience and whose judgment you trust, so that you can turn to them for a reality check on this sort of thing. Ideally you’d have several people you can bounce things off of; everyone has blind spots, even normally spot-on people, so it’s good to have a variety of people you can check with. Once you start working, you’ll find more of them, but for now it might be a family member whose professional accomplishments you respect, a particularly savvy friend, a professor you clicked with, and/or someone you meet in an industry group. (Just make sure their knowledge seems recent. Someone no more than 8-10 years ahead of you professionally can be ideal because they’ll be more likely to be in touch with how things work at your level now, rather than how it worked several decades ago.)

Your gut is another resource too; there’s a reason you were feeling uncomfortable and anxious every time you talked to this guy. Guts can be wrong, of course — and in particular, if you struggle with anxiety they can mislead you in ways that aren’t helpful. But if you don’t normally feel anxious after interviews and one particular person/job is making you feel that way, listen to that; there’s likely something there. In fact, it’s good to start paying attention to your gut so that you can see patterns in how it operates; if your gut sends off a lot of false positives or false negatives, that’s good information to have and then you can see if you can find patterns in what’s making it trigger inaccurately. But if you find it has a reliable track record, that’s more reason to trust it in the future.