Red flags I’ve come to learn over the years.

2023/03/06

During my career. I’ve had the pleasure of working for and with some great companies and clients. While on the flipside. I’ve worked with some companies and clients that weren’t so great and, over the years, there are a few patterns that I’ve come to notice that can be red flags of if someone, or company, won’t be so easy to work with.

Never receiving emails during business hours

When you consistently receive emails, messages or calls from someone after hours, whether it’s during the evening or the weekend. This is more than likely a clear sign that the project they have slated you for isn’t a high priority for them and the project they want you to work on is more of an afterthought. If you are in this position. Watch out for the project to come in hot and heavy with the client wanting you to complete the project in a rather unreasonable deadline.

Always seeming to be reactive vs proactive on projects

While you can’t always be proactive on every single thing that walks in the door, stuff happens. Being more proactive than not is a benefit to any project and a client that isn’t proactive, even when you bring items that will more than likely prove road blocks in advance, is a red flag and you can expect them only to handle things when any issue in question becomes more urgent than it needed to be.

Not having a set workflow or best practices

Having a set workflow and best practices for your main workflow is a must. Now will you have a perfectly defined workflow for every project you work on. No, but being a freelancer. I typically look to the client to work within their workflow because I’m in their house and I prefer to work in their flow, not mine, as it makes things easier. Now if you start a project and they don’t have any form of workflow or best practices around the project you are on. Expect things to get a little bumpy because the client either doesn’t have much experience of doing said project and/or they have already disregarded making some important decisions in regards to said project.

In the end

Always try to see the best in people, especially if it’s your first project together. The first project is always a little bumpy as you get to know one another and while I have run into all these issues above. I have run into them on fewer projects than not. So don’t come to conclusions too quickly. Just keep an eye out for the things above and that should help mitigate any headaches they may bring along.