Checklist
The Job Posting Red Flags Checklist
Twelve checks, sixty seconds, four groups. Run any posting through this before you spend an hour on it - and a simple scoring rule for what your total actually means.
How to use this
Read the posting once, check off what you see, add up the score. The whole thing takes about a minute once you've done it twice.
The scoring rule
- 0–1 checks: Proceed. Normal posting, normal imperfections.
- 2–3 checks: Caution. Worth applying, but verify the specific things you flagged before investing real effort — and keep your expectations calibrated.
- 4+ checks: Walk away. The pattern is the point: this posting is consistently vague, consistently demanding, or consistently routing around anything verifiable.
One signal is noise. Four is a pattern. That's the entire philosophy — the checklist just makes it fast.
Comp
1. No salary range, and no legal reason for it
Plenty of states now require pay transparency, and plenty of legitimate companies still omit the range out of habit. But a posting with no number and no explanation is keeping its options open at your expense — it wants you to anchor high and negotiate down from your own guess.
2. The range is absurdly wide
A $70k–$180k range for a single role usually means the req covers multiple levels — or multiple hypothetical futures. You won't know which candidate they're actually hiring until an offer appears, which means you can't evaluate whether the role is worth your time.
3. "Competitive salary" doing all the work
Vague comp adjectives — competitive, commensurate, attractive — without a number attached are filler. Real ranges have numbers. Everything else is marketing copy where a fact should be.
Scope
4. The title doesn't match the requirements
"Junior" or "Associate" asking for 5+ years across four tools isn't a junior role with generous requirements — it's a mid-level role posted at a junior title to justify a lower offer. The inverse happens too: a senior title with a requirements list a new grad could clear, usually paired with comp that's senior in title only.
5. The "fast-paced environment" bingo card
Fast-paced, wear many hats, self-starter, other duties as assigned — any one of these is fine. All of them together is the posting pre-excusing understaffing, unclear ownership, and the expectation that you'll regularly do someone else's job.
6. The responsibilities read like two or three jobs
Backend plus frontend plus DevOps plus technical writing plus mentoring interns. A real hiring manager writes a req for the person they need. A req that accumulates everyone's wishlist was written by committee — or for a role nobody urgently needs to fill.
Process
7. The apply flow routes around the company
A personal Gmail address, a Telegram handle, a form on a domain with no trace of the company anywhere else online. This is the single strongest signal on the entire list — real companies hire through their own site or a real ATS (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable). Full stop. If you only remember one check, remember this one.
8. No named team, no hiring manager, no start date
"Join our world-class team" and "work on exciting initiatives" are what postings say when there is no specific team waiting. Real openings name the team, the manager, or at minimum the actual work.
9. Manufactured urgency
"Apply immediately." "Only accepting applications for 48 hours." A posting re-listed three times in two months. Real urgency exists, but stacked on top of other checks on this list, urgency stops being a coincidence and starts being pressure — apply before you look too closely.
Company
10. No verifiable footprint
No employee reviews anywhere, no LinkedIn presence beyond a logo, a website that looks like a template with the serial numbers filed off. A real company leaves a trail. Check this one before you send anyone your personal data.
11. Layoffs in the same function they're hiring for
Companies rarely announce hiring freezes with the enthusiasm of funding rounds. If the news says they cut 15% of support last quarter and the posting is for a support lead, some skepticism is warranted.
12. The posting keeps coming back
Same text, fresh date, third time in two months. Either they're impossibly picky or the role isn't real. Search the exact title in quotes — if it's been circulating since spring, you have your answer. This one overlaps with ghost jobs, which deserve their own checklist.
What your score actually means
The score isn't a verdict on any single check — most of these are weak signals individually, and honest postings trip one or two out of sloppy writing. The score measures consistency. A company that's vague about comp and vague about the team and vague about the process isn't being sloppy three times. It's being vague as a policy.
That's also why the checklist beats gut feel: gut feel latches onto whichever check annoyed you most. The total forces you to see the pattern.
The automated version
This checklist is roughly what Scoura runs on every posting you paste in — the same twelve categories, checked in seconds, folded into a fit score with the specific lines quoted back at you. The difference between the manual version and the automated one is about fifty-nine seconds and a tired Tuesday night. Check your next listing free.
FAQ
The checklist, answered.
Isn't this overly cynical? Plenty of good jobs have a red flag or two.
Yes — and the scoring accounts for that. Zero to one checks is "proceed." The checklist only tells you to walk away at four or more, which is well past "sloppy writing" territory and into "consistent pattern" territory.
What's the single most important check?
Number seven — the apply flow routing around the company. It's the strongest individual signal on the list and the one most correlated with outright scams, not just bad jobs.
How is this different from your red flags guide?
"How to Tell If a Job Posting Is a Red Flag" goes deep on five signals with full analysis. This is the sixty-second scan version — twelve checks, a score, and a decision rule. Use the checklist first, read the deep version when something scores in the caution zone.
Can a posting pass all twelve checks and still be a bad job?
Of course. The checklist catches bad postings — vague, deceptive, or scammy listings. A perfectly written posting for a miserable job is a different problem, and honestly a harder one. That's what interviews are for.
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