A few months ago, the founder of a start-up company interviewed me for a job. During the interview I asked him several questions about the company, their product, the market they were aiming etc. None of the answers he gave me were completely satisfactory. But then again, I knew almost nothing about start-ups and I thought that I wasn't asking the right questions (or rather, I wasn't asking the questions right).
The second part of the interview consisted of a programming as well as a logic reasoning test. I noticed that the logic problem he proposed was very poorly specified and, the more I asked him to explain it, the muddier it became and after a few minutes I was completely confused and gave up.
Eventually, he offered me the job and I accepted it. That interviewer is now my boss and I have come to realize that those communication problems were not accidents. The guy is the poorest communicator I have ever worked with!. All his answers are evasive, he often contradicts himself, overreacts to annoying -- but nevertheless necessary -- questions, hides information and so on. In retrospect, I can see that there were a lot of red flags in that interview, signaling what was expecting me if I accepted the job. But I was not astute enough to interpret them.
So how can I avoid falling into a similar trap in the future? Which signs are clear indicators that your potential boss is a lousy communicator? After all, interviews are stressful (and quite artificial) situations. So, problems of that kind during the interview may not reflect the actual daily routine of the job.