The Job Posting Red Flag Decoder

Job postings are marketing documents, not job descriptions — and reading them at face value is how candidates end up three interview rounds deep into a role with no defined scope, a salary band that doesn't match the requirements list, or a reporting structure nobody can actually explain. This prompt turns a job posting into a structured risk analysis before you spend a single hour applying or interviewing.

Why each section of the prompt exists

Role: The prompt assigns the AI the perspective of a career coach who has reviewed thousands of job postings and watched which ones correlated with bad hiring outcomes. This framing matters — a generic assistant will summarize the posting neutrally; a career-coach persona is primed to be skeptical and specific about what doesn't add up.

Context: The prompt asks for the candidate's current situation (actively searching vs. passively browsing, risk tolerance) because the same red flag means different things depending on how much leverage the candidate has. A "wear many hats" phrase is a bigger risk for someone leaving a stable job than for someone who's unemployed and needs income now.

Task: The core task is broken into three checks — scope realism (does the requirements list match the seniority and salary signals), compensation transparency (is pay disclosed, and does it align with what's being asked), and process signals (interview round count, clarity of who you'd report to) — because bundling all red flags into one vague "this seems risky" response isn't actionable.

Constraints: The prompt explicitly tells the model not to be reflexively negative about every posting — most postings have some imperfect phrasing that isn't actually a red flag, and a tool that flags everything is as useless as one that flags nothing.

Output Format: The output is a flagged list (not a paragraph) specifically so a candidate can scan it in under a minute before deciding whether to apply, followed by a short list of interview questions engineered to surface the truth behind each flag without sounding confrontational.

The prompt

Act as a career coach who has reviewed thousands of job postings and tracked which red flags actually predicted bad hiring outcomes for candidates.

CONTEXT:
- My current situation: [ACTIVELY SEARCHING / PASSIVELY BROWSING / URGENTLY NEED A JOB]
- My risk tolerance for an imperfect role right now: [LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH]
- The job posting text: [PASTE FULL JOB POSTING HERE]

TASK:
Analyze this posting across three dimensions:
1. Scope realism — does the requirements list match the seniority level and stated salary (if given)? Flag phrases like "wear many hats," "other duties as assigned," or skill lists that don't match the title.
2. Compensation transparency — is a salary range disclosed? If disclosed, does it plausibly match the requirements list? If undisclosed, note that as a flag.
3. Process and structure signals — anything indicating an unclear reporting line, an unusually high number of interview rounds for the seniority level, or vague team/role descriptions.

CONSTRAINTS:
- Do not flag normal, boilerplate job-posting language as a red flag — only flag things with a specific, plausible negative interpretation.
- For every flag raised, note how serious it is given my stated risk tolerance.
- Do not recommend whether to apply — only surface the risks so I can decide.

OUTPUT FORMAT:
1. Flagged Issues (bulleted, one line each: [flag] — [why it matters] — [severity: low/medium/high given my risk tolerance])
2. Clean Signals (2-3 things about this posting that are actually reassuring, if any)
3. Interview Questions to Ask (3-5 specific, non-confrontational questions designed to get honest answers about the flagged issues)

What the output actually looks like

For a posting describing a "Senior Marketing Manager" role at a Series B startup listing a $70K-$85K salary range but requiring "10+ years experience, budget ownership up to $2M, and direct P&L accountability," a typical output would read:

Actionable takeaways

• Run this on every posting before applying, not just ones that already feel off — the value is catching subtle scope-salary mismatches you'd otherwise only discover in week three of the job.
• Use the generated interview questions verbatim in your first screening call — they're phrased to sound like genuine curiosity, not an interrogation, which gets more honest answers from hiring managers.
• If three or more high-severity flags come back for your stated risk tolerance, treat that as a signal to deprioritize the application rather than a hard stop — sometimes the flags are worth the tradeoff.
• Re-run the prompt after your first interview with any new information you learned — red flags often get confirmed or resolved in that first real conversation.