Job interviews are a two-way affair; both the prospective employer and your manager are interviewing you. After all, you want the proper job, not just any job. Two-thirds of workers say they've accepted a job only to discover it wasn't a good fit, with half of them quitting within the first six months, according to a CareerBuilder survey. This may occur for a number of reasons, such as the sensation that you have been given a bad deal or the realization that the culture is toxic or at odds with your ideals.

When interviewing for a job, the adage "caveat emptor" — buyer beware — is applicable. This is not meant to imply that you should enter the interview process with an overly pessimistic or suspicious attitude, but rather to encourage you to be alert for any potential red flags that require your attention because they may point to more serious problems with your potential boss, the team, or the company as a whole.

Here are 10 warning signs to look out for.

• Constant scheduling changes and chaos

An interview may occasionally need to be postponed since people are busy and unforeseen events happen. But when it occurs repeatedly, it's a sign that something is wrong. "If something is postponed, say, twice and they want to postpone it a third time, that's it. That's too much, remarked executive and career coach Susan Peppercorn. Your time is valuable just as much as their time, thus there must be some significant mitigating factors that are presented to you. Furthermore, it conveys the notion that you are not important.

And I believe that in order to keep job prospects from looking elsewhere, businesses today must pay close attention to responding to them promptly, talking with them clearly, and treating them like actual workers.

"If the recruiter or the hiring manager ghosts you for a significant amount of time—and by a significant amount of time, I'm talking a week, that's a red flag," said Stokes. It demonstrates a lack of transparency and improper communication.

• Ignoring other people

Every organization naturally experiences occasional conflicts or annoyances between various divisions, such as sales and engineering. Are the individuals you'll be meeting with during the interview process able to discuss difficulties or conflicts with other stakeholders in a respectful and helpful manner, or do they do so in a derogatory manner? If it's the latter, this raises a warning sign that could mean both low psychological safety and a highly segmented organization.

According to research, if you take part in a panel interview with two or more interviewers, it's an excellent chance to watch how the panelists interact with one another. How do they communicate with one another? Do they frequently interrupt one another? Is there a dominant voice in the conversation?

• Conflicts of values

A serious warning sign is a values conflict. Before you begin the interview process, make sure to identify your core values. Have ready questions that will help you gauge the culture of the firm, the degree to which it shares your beliefs, and your ability to communicate your principles in the workplace.

What are they doing to make sure the workplace is truly inclusive, for instance, if you have the value of inclusion and the firm you are interviewing with states they are dedicated to this principle? How is it being measured? The company talks the talk, but does it really mean what it says? "You need to be vigilant about the values element if you really want to find a solid, strong environment to commit to for the next few years," Stokes said.

Similar to this, if autonomy is something you value, you may ask your supervisor, "Which decisions would you expect me to make and which decisions would you want me to escalate to you?" Even if they tell you what you want to hear, use caution and double-check everything. Inquire of the people who report to this leader about their experiences with autonomy and the degree to which they have been granted power to make decisions. A warning sign is when replies are not compelling.

• The responses to your questions are not clear or consistent.

How clear or precise are the responses you receive when you ask questions throughout the interview process? Does the interviewer provide specific examples that match what they would anticipate from you, or do you only get vague or generic responses? According to Peppercorn, "a red flag" is when you don't feel like you're getting clear-cut answers. When you don't feel like you've gotten the necessary specificity, keep asking more in-depth inquiries.

You will meet with a variety of stakeholders who are crucial to your success in this role throughout the interview process. Use a standard set of questions to probe each person's perspective and identify areas of agreement and, perhaps more crucially, inconsistency in their responses. You should check to make sure that the responses are generally consistent from one person to the next. A differing response from one individual could nonetheless be consistent and support other people's answers, giving you a more complete picture of the circumstance, role, or environment.

A little variation is acceptable and expected. It's a warning sign when you hear responses to the same topic that are directly at odds with — or inconsistent with — those of others.

• The bait-and-switch

It's a warning sign when the position you're interviewing for starts to sound very different from the initial job description that motivated your application. Undoubtedly, change is a constant. However, if the recruiting manager doesn't specifically mention or call out the change, it may be a sign that they struggle to effectively communicate or manage change with important internal and external stakeholders.

Likewise, it is important to take note if the job suddenly loses its appeal to you due to the shift in the role's scope. In order to effectively communicate to job prospects that "Yes, we mentioned this in our job description, but during the past 30 days, our needs have changed...so we really need the person to focus in this area instead of that area," Peppercorn said, it may be that they are moving too quickly. "That [lack of communication] would raise the question of whether the organization is competent" in my mind.

• Unsuitable queries or remarks

It comes as no surprise to anyone that Travis Kalanick's opening question during the limited Showtime series Super Pumped, "Are you an a**hole?" immediately revealed the hubris-filled "bro-culture" at Uber during that time. If you wanted a job there at the time, there was only one correct response to this question: "Yes." That specific red flag is the brightest shade of scarlet there is. It's possible that you won't be asked a question or make a comment that is as obscene or crude as this one, but it's also perfectly possible that the interviewer will.

If someone asks you a question or makes a comment that is ageist, sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive, it is a clear sign that the organization either lacks adequate training, tolerates inappropriate behavior, or, even worse, has not addressed unconscious bias in its talent management strategies, which include recruiting.

• A link is missing

A successful interview is a lively two-way discussion that leaves both parties energized and enthusiastic about the potential for collaboration. It's not a good sign when there is a lack of enthusiasm or connection when the interviewer doesn't appear interested, doesn't smile, seems preoccupied, and/or asks questions robotically as if following a script rather than genuinely attempting to get to know you. "If you see that the individuals you are speaking with don't appear interested... It's possible that they're acting as though they have someone else lined up for the role.

The intensity or participation level can also abruptly change from one round of interviews to the next. After a second round of interviews, a client of Stokes's remarked, "The first interview was extremely wonderful. There was excellent chemistry, you know. Not so well on the second interview. No chemistry existed there. Nothing was warm. Yes, since they like someone else, she instantly reasoned. The abrupt change in attitude, was a warning sign that they had identified a different candidate they preferred, but they didn't want to call off the interview because they wanted to confirm that their suspicions were accurate. It's also a symptom that they are unable to effectively communicate.

• *A refusal to adapt (even if they say they want change)

An organization has open positions because it requires someone to improve the situation – to develop better goods, increase operational efficiency, draw in new customers, enhance departmental performance, and so forth. Change is necessary for the business to improve. "David," a client of mine, was employed by his previous employer to enhance the company's customer care division. His boss' boss initially didn't want change and felt threatened by it, despite the fact that he had been hired to turn around the department and bring about change.

• Too many interviews or a protracted interview procedure

In a perfect world, the interviewing process itself would be quick, effective, and maximize (as opposed to maximize) stakeholder involvement and alignment. When the process continues on for a long time and there are too many interviews, this raises a red signal. These two things can indicate that the team or organization is unduly reliant on consensus, unable to make decisions, or incapable of getting things done.

Although the number of interviews and length of the interview process are probably positively correlated with the position's level (for example, a C-suite interview process may take longer than one for a more junior position because the stakes are higher and the rest of the C-suite and board members will be involved),10 to 12 interviews are excessive. For a candidate at the C-level, having this many interviews would make sense, but not for a director. Why do you have to have 14 interviews, she questioned? "That decision should be made by the recruiting manager. What does that tell about the company's effectiveness in completing tasks? In order to be more competitive in the race for talent, some businesses, like Google, are actively adopting steps to cut down on time-consuming interview procedures.

• Explosive deals

Job offers that have an expiration date that is set with absolute certainty (sometimes on a very short timescale) are known as exploding offers. These are uncommon, but they do occasionally happen. On a Friday afternoon, one of my clients received an offer from one employer, with instructions to make a decision by Monday. He gave up on to the pressure from the first company and the security of having an offer of employment rather than tolerating the uncertainty that remained with his ideal company (which incidentally backfired for the company whose offer he had accepted). He was still interviewing with his dream employer.

An ultimatum is essentially what an exploding offer is. Ultimatums are uncomfortable and don't respect a person's need to consider all of their options before making a decision that will impact their career and way of life for years to come. It displays the employer's rigidity, insecurity, and even bullying behavior (not to mention a big blind spot in their awareness of how the company will be perceived in the talent market).

Do you want to work for a corporation because you genuinely want to or because you are being forced to? Believe people (or organizations) when they disclose their identities to you. Exploding offer companies are unlikely to respect your needs and wants once you're on the market and are probably to be rigid, abusive, and autocratic.

Keeping an eye out for the potential red flags indicated above throughout the interview process can help weed out less than ideal employment opportunities, even if no one can accurately foresee how a new job will turn out.

Making sure you pay attention during interviews and are aware of how the process is run, asking insightful follow-up questions, and conducting thorough research can all reduce the likelihood that you will make a poor choice.