Smoke Signals: Spot Potential Burnout Before You Apply
Many professionals have had the experience of reading a job description and thinking, this sounds exciting! But once you’ve gotten established in that new role, you may find that this excitement gives way to chaos, disequilibrium, and overwhelm.
Having seen more than a few job postings – and hearing about the experiences of other neurodivergent professionals – I’ve noticed a sneaky pattern. There are certain phrases that tend to appear frequently in descriptions of roles that ultimately become difficult to sustain for non-neurotypical brains. In other words, a set of indicators that foretell a risk of burnout.
None of these phrases are inherently bad, but if you happen to see them in a cluster, proceed with caution. Here are a few signals to notice, and some clarifying questions that can help you extract signals from noise.
Five Flags
🚩“Fast-paced environment”
Will this job be fun, or frantic? Many job descriptions use the phrase “fast-paced” to indicate that the work is dynamic and interesting. Unfortunately, this can also be code for frequently changing or poorly communicated priorities, an unpredictable pile-on of projects, or the need for rapid context-switching. For professionals who do their best work with clearly defined priorities, or who experience frequent task-switching as a major cognitive drain, this can quickly become exhausting.
What to ask
“How are priorities established and communicated? When priorities shift, how is that communicated to the team?”
👉 What this reveals:
Whether to expect structure and clarity, or ad hoc Slack chaos
Who controls priorities and how effectively they do it
Leadership discipline
How often priorities shift
“How many projects does someone in this role typically own at once?”
👉 What this reveals:
Cognitive load
Whether “fast-paced” means overextended
🚩“Wears many hats”
“But I like hats,” you might say! I do, too. That being said, there’s a difference between complementary, thoughtfully assigned responsibilities, and an unpredictable hat tornado.
This phrase often appears in startups or rapidly growing organizations. It can mean a collaborative environment with opportunities to contribute in a variety of ways. It can also mean that roles overlap or that work lanes and responsibilities are ill-defined. At worst, it can signal that employees are regularly expected to handle tasks that are a mismatch for their skills or bandwidth, and that the employer does not provide resources or structures to manage that mismatch.
What to ask
“Can you share examples of the different ‘hats’ someone in this role has worn recently?”
👉 What this reveals:
Clear lanes vs everyone doing everything
Whether the hats will fit you
“Are there areas where the team is still building coverage or capacity?”
👉 What this reveals:
Hidden gaps you’ll be expected to fill
Whether “many hats” means they’re understaffed
🚩Heavy emphasis on “resilience”
When a job description emphasizes resilience, the ability to handle pressure, “scrappiness,” or having a “thick skin,” proceed with caution.
If you do proceed to the interview stage, be sure to clarify what the employer anticipates will come flying at you. If the role involves rapid response, traumatic scenarios, frequent rejections, or inherent conflict mediation responsibilities, it’s reasonable for an employer to look for a new hire that is prepared for that level of intensity! But outside of those contexts, it may very well mean that you’ll be expected to perform while withstanding a barrage of ego-bruising criticism, an environment where poor planning creates “emergencies,” or a steady stream of high-pressure demands that doesn’t match staff’s actual capacity.
What to ask
“What kinds of challenges does someone typically encounter in this role?”
👉 What this reveals:
Actual stressors (Clients? Leadership? Office politics? Ransom demands? Life-or-death situations?)
Whether pressure is situational or constant
“What support systems are in place to support staff resilience when work becomes particularly demanding?”
👉 What this reveals:
Supportive leadership vs “figure it out” or “sink or swim”
Whether resilience is shared or individual
🚩Ambiguous role or responsibility descriptions
This is adjacent to the “many hats” question. Phrases like “support various initiatives” or “work across multiple priorities” can signal flexibility, variety, or novelty – all things that many neurodivergent brains enjoy! But this vagueness may also indicate that expectations for this role are not clearly structured. Most neurodivergent professionals perform best when goals responsibilities are clearly defined.
What to ask:
“How are responsibilities divided across the team?”
👉 What this reveals:
Clear structure vs overlap/confusion
“When new needs come up, how do you decide who takes them on?”
👉 What this reveals:
Thoughtful allocation vs “whoever is available”
Whether workload is managed intentionally
🚩“High visibility” 🫣
High visibility roles can be rewarding. It can mean strategic importance and meaningful, high-stakes work. It can also mean you are “always on,” barraged with notifications, required to attend and contribute to meeting after meeting, or frequently expected to perform on the spot. An overloaded calendar can deprive neurodivergent brains of much-needed “deep work” blocks of time (to say nothing of actual off-the-clock downtime to rest and recharge). For some neurodivergent professionals, formulating a response (that they’re happy with) can take time, and an environment where performance is constantly observed and evaluated can be highly stressful.
What to ask
“What does ‘visibility’ look like in this role?”
👉 What this reveals:
Visibility as influence vs. visibility as performance
Whether you’ll be expected to be available outside of work hours or highly responsive to ad-hoc taskings
Meeting-heavy vs. time for deep work
“How often would this role interact with senior leadership, and in what format?”
👉 What this reveals:
How (and how often) you’ll be expected to interact and/or present
Live performance vs asynchronous communication.
🚩Bonus flag: emphasis on “communication skills”
Every role requires communication. That being said, this may indicate an environment where success depends heavily on informal expectations, constant meetings/updates, challenging office politics, or unspoken social dynamics. Depending on your neurotype, this could prove difficult to navigate.
What to ask
“What types of communication are most important in this role?”
👉 What this reveals:
Communication as clarity, or as a constant performance of perception management
Structured communication systems vs. nebulous, subjective expectations
“Who are the primary stakeholders this role interacts with?”
👉 What this reveals:
How many different “audiences” you’ll have
What degree of communication complexity to expect
No job description can tell you everything about a workplace, but they often contain clues about how work actually happens inside an organization. For neurodivergent professionals in particular, recognizing these signals early can make it easier to land in a role that suits your strengths.
Many professionals only recognize these signals in hindsight, after they’ve spent months or years adapting to a role that was never designed to work well for them – and likely after spending most of that time blaming themselves for the struggle. A few well-placed questions can make those patterns visible much earlier.
