Copywriter Job Search Advice: How To Spot And Reject Bad Employers

We've all been there, especially straight out of uni, made to feel desperate for a job, any job (not just a copywriter job), sending badly written CVs indiscriminately for vacancies that don't even match our profile, only to get 1 humiliating interview for every 100 applications, which ends up with the frustrating "we'll be in touch" rejection statement.

You deserve better!
Indiscriminately applying, and the frame of desperation that job candidates tend to project, may actually be the exact reason why we are not treated as well as we'd like. This is because a perceived oversupply of applicants gives employers the false impression that they can hire anyone, anytime, at any rate.
So, my advice to job applicants is to stop wasting your time (and stop artificially inflating labor supply against your best interests) by only applying to employers you would actually LOVE to work with.
But how do you choose a GOOD employer when most of the information about them you have as a job applicant comes from a mere job ad?
With so many job openings out there, it would be extremely useful to be able to spot red flags and filter employers according to your preferences and expectations, assuming of course that you value your work and time, and that you do have expectations when negotiating a job.
Well, I've put together a list to help guide you on how you can vet employers. Save some time when looking through job ads by filtering them (and the employers behind them) based on the following red flags:
(Caveat: these are my personal opinions. Treat them as such.)

1. Stay away from job ads that list a bunch of demands but never bother to mention the slightest about what they're willing to offer in return. This means that the employer goes by the presumption that their employees are desperate and that they need the employer more than the employer needs them. The frame of this interaction is that the job is a favor to the employee, and that the employer is more valuable than the candidates. However, top employees can see through this counterproductive and deluded mindset and stay away from such employers. This means that employers who don't bother listing what they are willing to offer in their job ad will only get desperate people with few options to work for them, and then they’ll wonder why they’re not hitting their targets. You wouldn't want to work for such an employer, and those who do should start looking elsewhere, fast! You'll find that such employers tend to have high employee turnover, and that they post an ad for the same job over and over.
2. Ignore job ads that conveniently place the word "junior" before the job title but also requiring 5 years of experience. If you have such experience in your specialty, you're definitely not a "junior", you have much to bring to the organization, and you should acknowledge that about yourself. And so should everyone else. Demanding experience but then calling you "junior" is a dishonest tactic to rob you of your negotiating power and deserving remuneration. It shows that they don't value their peoples' work and that they have no moral hindrance in exploiting humans in disingenuous ways. Don't bother applying.
3. Never ever send a CV to recruiters who don't clearly identify who they are. Yes, I've seen job ads that request people to work for them and they don't even bother to mention a company name, or even a phone number with a full name attached to it. This also applies to cases when the employer doesn't have an online presence. If they don't show their face to you, why should you?
4. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Job ads that make grandiose claims about what a great opportunity it is and they seem to be practically "begging" anyone with no specialty to jump on board are clearly compensating for something. These "jobs" are either a scam or a fake posting aiming to hoard your data. In an age where an oversupply of labor (due to growth-crippling government interventionism) is the norm, no employer is that desperate for anyone, especially not for candidates with no clear specialization.
5. If you are asked for an interview but the employer shows extreme inflexibility and entitlement when arranging a meeting, you should decline the interview. You don't want to work with someone so inconsiderate and so rigid, because the inflexibility they display early on can only get worse if you end up working with them. How understanding and empathic do you expect your employer to be if they display irrationality, pigheadedness and an attitude of entitlement from the very beginning of your interaction?
6. If you do go through the interview process and the employer doesn't give you an opportunity to state your remuneration expectations, but instead drags you from interview to interview and expects you to blindly play along without any indication as to what you're being interviewed for, this is probably not an employer you want to work with, regardless of their perceived success in their field. This betrays a bad attitude on the employer's part, one of entitled superiority over their employees. This means that you will likely have little mentorship or advancement opportunities, you'll experience daily crippling micromanagement, and neither you nor your work will be valued as much as they could be by other employers.
7. Today's oversaturation of content due to a vastly interconnected society has made formal writing obsolete in most communication channels. The best way to communicate and relate in text is to write as if you're talking to someone. In job ads, attitude in the writing is key. Try to discern what the employer's attitude is regarding their employees. Look for clues that betray an impersonal and entitled attitude in the employer's writing. Labor is a voluntary exchange, and there's a difference between epmployers wanting people to work FOR them and wanting people to work WITH them. Sure, employers have a negotiating advantage in the labor market due to unemployment-induced labor oversupply caused by government interventionism (in case I didn't make that clear earlier), but employers should at least maintain some level of consideration for you. It's in their interest too, because happy employees mean happy customers. If a job ad is written in a cold inhumane authoritative tone, it probably means that the employer is not empathetic enough to realize that people are people, not machines.
8. Avoid jobs that require you to fill in an application form instead of just sending your CV and cover letter and present yourself the way you know best. This means that the employer is too big and full of themselves, and you'll never be yourself there. They receive thousands upon thousands of applications annually, so they don't value any single one. The application form is essentially there to standardize humans into form fields and numbers. This shows a lack of empathy, not to mention extreme entitlement and inflexibility. You’re just a statistic for them that they'll run through on an Excel sheet or some other tool that will decide your future based on cold algorithms. There's zero human element there, and you might not want to work in such an inhumane environment where nobody bothers to hear what you have to say coming from you the way you are. Entitled employers really don’t care about you, and don’t even understand that caring about you is in their best interest. This is not bright, especially in the age of access to information. You wouldn’t want to work for someone like that, no matter how big they think they are. How much longer can they expect to stay big if they lose top talent to better employers? Next job, please!
9. Say no to job ads that list a combination of a myriad of overspecific qualifications that are astronomically improbably for one person to possess. These jobs are either tailored for a specific person who isn't you (and they post an ad to fake fair employment opportunities) or they are incredibly inflexible with what they are looking for. The latter means that they are not willing to develop their people. In either case, you don't need to bother applying.
10. This one goes without saying, but you should probably stay away from an employer whose contact email address is hosted by a free domain (i.e. gmail, hotmail, etc.). If they can't afford a domain email for their business, I don't think they can afford you either.
11. Occasional typos and grammar mistakes are understandable. Even the biggest companies make them (yes, I've spotted a few typos on microsoft.com). But consistent bad grammar and typos, that are not oversights but instead a sign of illiteracy, are a huge flag about an employer who posts an ad without bothering to proofread it properly. Would you want to work with someone like that?
12. Reject employers whose staff tend to be unhappy. Do some research on social media and in real life. See if you can find people who work for an employer posting a job ad you're interested in. Look at their attitudes, behavior, energy. Work is the biggest part of your life. It affects your happiness and the quality of your life more than any other part of it. So it's safe to say that an employer whose members of staff tend to consistently we unhappy is a truly bad employer. No matter how good you think an employer is from their branding and PR, staff smiles never lie.
13. Learn about overtime norms at the employer you're looking into. If people stay after hours (and let's face it, few get paid overtime these days), this means something. Overtime is 99% due to poor time management from top executives who don't consider people's schedules when requesting tasks, when planning a meeting, or when they themselves decide to show up to work. Top talent doesn't tolerate this because they can easily find alternative employment elsewhere. Overtime doesn't necessarily mean you care about your work and that you're more hardworking than others. If you don't rest well, and you don't balance your work and your life, you're definitely not being productive, and your outcomes are sure to be questionable. Employers should recognize this. Alternatively, employers who think that their employees should stay extra when they should never be a single minute late, have made a choice: they are not looking for top talent or quality work because they don't treat their people as top talent, nor do they expect them to produce quality work, just quantity. And if their people stay long under such conditions, guess what, they are not really top talent, because if they were they'd be working under better circumstances elsewhere for their time and effort. The best employers (and they tend to be the most successful leaders) practically beg their employees to leave work on time. Yes, sometimes emergencies happen and you need to stay extra hours because of external factors. It's understandable. But if overtime is consistently required because of internal factors (due to poor leadership, inconsiderate management, inefficient planning and a sense of inhumane entitlement by the employer), you are not doing anyone any favors by working overtime. If you know you deserve better, stay away.

Did I miss any red flags? Do you agree or disagree with anything? Let's discuss!