I had some bad experience with interviews in 2010 & 2011 in Canada and USA, any market will have good boss and bad boss, sometimes it is better to walk away from an offer completely, it all comes down to PEOPLE.

Some may think declining a job offer is a silly thing to do today. In fact, it is not a bad idea when you sense something is wrong about the job before you have even started. This is exactly why job satisfaction is more important than the salary in many instances.

Think it of this way, if you start a job that you know straight-away that it is not going to work, how long do you think you can last in that position? Moreover, if your sense is correct, and you decide to leave the position 2 months later, how is that going to help your resume, it will actually leave a bad mark on your job experience, and the worst thing is, you have wasted your time when you can potentially find a better position.

Do not rush into a decision, this is especially important if you are a recent graduate, or if you are changing your career, or if you are moving into a new city or a new country.

The boss is showing no respect in you

I was in a job interview one day, and the CEO was so excited and decided to offer me a job on spot. He then called me 4 times on the same day, which was at 9pm, 10pm, and latest was at 1am. He asked, are you asleep already, well, it is 1am in the morning.

He then repeated the same routine every week; he always called to say he wanted to talk about the role, and just kept pushing back the time and date.

Of course, nothing worked in the end, I then found out that he was unable to find anyone working for him for 12 months; and he still has no idea the reason for it.

Dishonest Manager or Director

Nothing can be worse than working for someone who is dishonest. It is not hard to find this out during the interviews. You can ask them about the company’s financial situation, then ask other colleagues in the same company to see if the statement is the same. If you work for public listed companies, you can pull out their financial statements online, I have met so many CEOs who tried to recruit me and started misleading figures. I had worked for 2 of such companies, and problems started to occur very quickly, and the morale is also very low for this kind of management.

Disorganized Boss

While I do not consider myself as super-organized, I do think I am an average-organized person. I have met a number of disorganized CEOs recently, and they will be a nighmare to work for. The quickest way is to do a quick inspection on their office – I walked into an office and there were 10 chairs around the room, each chair has a big file on the top, plus another 3 tables full of files. This shows a person’s personality straight-away, he does not trust anyone else to handle his documents, and it also shows his organization skill. Avoid these kind of people or you will become the dumping ground for his documents.

Someone who can’t handle personal finance

This is a recipe for disaster in managing a company. This can also be easily detected during interviews. I met a CEO during an interview, he tried to pay 2 cups of coffee, he did not even have a wallet and dropped coins all over the place, and they are also a big mix or currencies. I saw on his desk that his credit cards are being cancelled due to late payments. The company collapsed 2 years later due to financial statements problems; if he was unable to manage simple things like credit card payments, how can he manage a company?

Someone who likes to do everything himself

This also relates to trust. I was in an interview with a director who manages a consulting firm. He was complaining how his assistants could never met his expectation. I sensed the problem immediately and found out that he had changed 5 assistants in 1 year already. He is a typical person who distrusts everyone, and likes to do everything, including cleaning the rubbish bins, fixing the computers, changing the light-bulbs..etc. The company was managed a hell, it was one of my worst working experience, and I left the company after 5 weeks.

You maybe discouraged to see so many evil bosses out there, the truth is, majority of bosses are quite good; but every now and then, you will meet with someone as described above. Once again, if you sense there is something wrong with your future boss, better step back and rethink about the whole situation again instead of regretting about it later on.