I just got accepted into a part-time job after an extremely thorough and concerning interview process, in a country I just moved to. They've been increasingly showing major red flags, but I need an income, and it's the furthest I've gotten with an application since moving here five months ago. This will be a long one, and me really just hoping for some support with this… mods, if this isn't allowed, please feel free to remove.
I'm living in the country I have citizenship in for the first time; I grew up and spent my life in another country, it's home to me, and I found work there quite easily – or, well, at least I knew how to find work that paid enough to get by on and save. My resume and portfolio was all I ever needed.
I won't get into it as it's upsetting, but I had to leave after something an abusive parent did that jeopardized my ability to live there, so I went to work abroad for a year. I quit that job too because management straight up lied about my role, visa status, and pay, and my physical health was suffering, but that meant I had to leave that country too. So I moved to my country of citizenship, which is basically a foreign country to me, and I don't know how things work here, but thought I'd be able to get by on freelance remote work, but Internet sucks in my area so that's not a possibility with the jobs I was hoping to do.
So I spent the next five months since arriving here looking for work and that did a number on my mental health, when I'm already in a dark place as is. Multiple employers who initially showed interest even after interviews ended up ghosting me, which I didn't know employers could do.
A couple months ago, I started interviewing with this one company for a part-time job and after passing the screening, they did an extremely thorough background check on me, which was kind of overwhelming. They sent my previous bosses questionnaires basically, to check my strengths and weaknesses. (One of them told me that I “seemed to change jobs without good reason” which was “deemed a weakness”, when I only ever left work because of abuse or shady things – things I'd never bring up in an interview if I want it to go well.) I don't have a uni degree (familial abuse and poverty), so they asked me to provide transcripts within a few days, which… I went to high school in another country, close to two decades prior, it would have taken weeks to get that, so I explained this to them and had to write a formal letter as to why I couldn't produce it. Then I had to get a full health checkup, which felt extremely invasive. It's a translation job, and I more than proved in my portfolio and interviews that I was proficient enough to do the job, and I could see that they were desperate by how many times they were posting on job listings.
Meanwhile, another employer from that company found my files and contacted me about another job, which I said okay to. They said they'd be setting up interviews and language tests for me (in lieu of certification, which I never needed as I grew up in the country where that language was spoken), so I gave them my availability. They set up those tests outside of the dates and times I gave, which was a major red flag for me so I pulled out of that and focused on the other application. The people I was dealing with there seemed at least more reasonable.
With the other job, I went to a virtual onboarding session where they explained we'd be doing ten days of training before starting working remotely – but that we either pass or fail training. And that we'd be doing only a handful of days of work per month with no opportunity to do more, when the job description or interviewers never mentioned this. So another red flag for transparency there. We were then instructed to pick up materials from the office prior to training, and I was assigned a specific day for the pickup and planned my week accordingly.
Then yesterday, my manager-to-be texts me that my things would be ready by Monday, and if I could come pick it up then instead, to which I said I was not available, and would be coming in on Wednesday as previously instructed. Today, I got a message asking that I give a proper explanation why I couldn't come pick it up on Monday. I explained that I had already arranged my week according to the schedule given to me, esp since this is a job I would be working on for just a few days per month.
I really need the job since I have no money, the job seeking has left me dry, and I need it desperately for life but also to move somewhere else where I have a support system and better chances for a decent life. But this company has been giving me quite a few red flags out of nowhere. I have no choice but to go through with this and hope for the best because I don't have any alternatives yet. But this has been fucking up my mental health and I've already been in rock bottom for the past few months. And I'm worried that with my experience job searching here, I won't be able to find work that won't fuck me up any further one way or another.
I'd appreciate either any moral support or ideas on how to earn some money on the side to supplement.