3 Bad Employees To Avoid

It’s unfortunate, but in a bad economy, there always seems to be a rise in employment "bad boys" who are hiring. By that I mean companies who take on the persona of those guys us girls learn the hard way NOT to date. These employment bad boys steal your professional heart only to show their ugly side after we get hired. It often ends in a terrible break-up (i.e. getting laid-off, fired unfairly or even having to quit on our own because we just can’t take it anymore). Here are the three types of bad employees to avoid at all costs:

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1. The Sweet-Talker

This is the company that tells us how great we are and that they can’t believe how lucky they were to find us. C’mon now! While it’s nice to hear, who are we kidding? There’s plenty of talent out there, we just aren’t that special. But, we love the praise and can’t help but be drawn in to the job where everyone thinks we are the Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt of our profession. However, once we get there, we find out the job isn’t anything like it was described. And those sweet-talking folks who hired us? Turn out to mean and conniving. They figure now that we are on-board, they can show their true selves and save the sappy talk for the next unsuspecting victim.

2. The Aloof Rebel

This is the company that seems almost secretive about what they do. From our very first encounter, we feel like we are pulling teeth to get answers in the interview. Yet something is so mysterious about the environment we feel compelled to take the job to just learn what it is. Sadly, we quickly realize within two weeks on the job that the lack of conversation was just as it appeared - a group of sour people who drone through their work and clearly hate being there. They just knew if they told us the truth we’d run for the hills – so they kept their mouths shut in the interview process in order to get us on board and figured they'd get whatever they could out of us until we finally left... or turned into one of them.

3. The Loveable Dreamer

This company appears full of fun, passionate idea-people. They are all smiles and make it seem like every day is full of birthday parties and intramural Nerf games. They tell us work should be a blast 24/7 – and we believe it. Until we get there and realize the company is financially and organizationally broke, going no-where and full of pretend professionals who are just making the rules up as they go along. We quickly see nothing productive is being accomplished – other than making sure everyone is having a good time. Meanwhile, our paycheck bounces every other week until we finally get a text message one Tuesday letting us know we are out of a job. Any of us who have been working for 20+ years has encountered one or more of these employment bad boys. And I’m sure we could add a few employment "bad girls" to the mix, too. So, share them below! Tell us, what types of companies should job seekers run from? What are the signs that a company is part of the "bad" club? Photo credit: Shutterstock