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1. Do not misrepresent your company.

Important part of the interview is when you ask the candidate about his expectations of the new job and give him the overall idea about the work processes in your company. One of the points here is to make sure that your company doesn't, by any chance, have the same traits that were getting on candidate's nerves at his last workplace. Because if it does - the candidate would find that out the day he joins in, and he would certainly be unhappy about not knowing that up front. While you (and your team, and your company) want a happy colleague who wouldn't think that he's been tricked. Hence, put the facts plain and square, neither concealing them, nor decorating nor disfiguring your company. It is the right thing on many levels: making sure that the prospective candidate would stay; maintaining honest company profile; identifying weak points of your company and bringing them to the management.

2. Protective advices are for close friends.

To begin with, taking a personal advice requires trust. Are you sure he trusts you enough to take such advice from an interviewer?
The second reason is that once he has all the facts he would make his own conclusions and wouldn't need that advice anyway.

3. Let him have his opinion and be his own master.

People who has left (or are going to leave) often tend to paint the things more grim than they appear to an uninvolved person. It's not about being dishonest, it's more about accumulated dissatisfaction. His opinion may vary. If he thinks that those facts are a molehill - so be it. Perhaps, he values that particular job higher then possible long hours. If after a few years he changes his mind - so be it, too.

4. Speak only for yourself.

Don't speak for other people. Statement like "we all think that ..." sounds like you're striving to give your claim all the weight it may get, while at the same time excusing yourself of sole responsibility for such opinion. Sorry, that just wouldn't smell good.

Edit:
At the current stage, when your communication with the candidate is over, I wouldn't advice you to contact him behind the company's back. The best thing (in terms of honour) I can think of is to persuade the HR person to give the prospective candidate the key facts about the job. On the ground of representing the company in a fair way and hiring a consciously willing candidate.

Can you? Yes. There is nothing stopping you, physically or legally. There are a variety of options on how to do this, if you choose to do it.

Possible consequences of telling him? If you tell him, and the word gets back to the company that it was you, you are reasonably likely to get fired before you can get a new job. The company would be correct to do it - you're being pretty blatantly disloyal - but that doesn't mean that it's the wrong decision, morally speaking. If the company finds out that someone warned him away, but doesn't find out who, then they might not fire you all, but it's likely that your relationship with your bosses will get even more toxic before you flee. If the company finds out from this that you're all planning on leaving, that could have similar results, but at the end of the day, the worst they can do to you is either fire you without severance or make your work life suck more.

You can control for this somewhat by reducing the information you provide to the potential new hire, and asking him to keep quiet on it. Make a throwaway email account, and give him a warning about the troubles with the company that doesn't directly say "and we're all leaving". It'll make it notably less likely that he'll say anything about his reasons, and even if he does, he won't know that it's you, and he won't know that you're all planning on leaving. It won't be as compelling as you telling him directly, but if he's uncertain, then it should be enough to ward him off.

If it's not him, another soul will get into the same problem. You cannot prevent everyone to join your team, and only giving heads up to the people you like would also be wrong.
As long as you are part of the team, you should stay out of this, if you are asked to be part of the interview process either you decline or make sure you are not screwing it up.
After you leave if someone ask you about the company you can say whatever you want.
If you screw your company because they are screwing you, you are not much better than them. Just do your job well till the las day and move on when you can.

It wouldn't be in your or his interest to reach out to him to speak badly of the company. However, there is nothing stopping you from creating a friendship if you enjoy his company, and anything that is said would be... circumstantial. Or more like, you should make sure it is. When talking about the company, open it with a white card instead of a red one. Instead of saying

You shouldn't work this company because of [so and so]

Say

I recommend that you request a higher pay for the job; your responsibilities will definitely go beyond what they want to pay you.

Some people are better at dealing with stress and 'toxic' environments. He may as well get financial advantage.

Whether the above will lead onto him asking you the question you want to answer for him, such as whether it is a good workplace, is not something I'll know, but it changes facts from "our employee went out of his way to discredit us" to "our employee didn't find it his moral duty to lie about how he felt about this company." Should you be found out, that is, which I doubt you will be.

I'd say, stay within a proper employer (you are interviewing) and employee (the prospective candidate) relationship.

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  If, during the scheduled discussion, they ask

  
  
  

  
  

  If selected, are we going to work together?

  
  

  
  
  

  You can respond

  
  
  

  
  

  Most likely not, I will be leaving the organization soon.

  
  

  
  
  

  If they ask

  
  
  

  
  

  Why?

  
  

  
  
  

  Say

  
  
  

  
  

  I have my personal reasons.

  
  

  
  
  

  and leave it there.

  
  



• No, you don't need to discuss / inform about others, staying or leaving.




• You MUST NOT try to solicit them in any other ways/ channel apart of the official channel through which you're supposed to communicate. Remember, the candidate is not communicating with you in some personal capacity, they will be communicating with you in a professional capacity. I understand your feelings, but that said, there's professionalism. It's not about being loyal, it's about being ethical and legal.

I would say no, do not warn your potential employee away.

Try not to take this the wrong way, but it's possible the toxic environment you are describing might leave along with your team.

Or, maybe all of you quitting might be the wake-up call that your management needs to fire a bad manager.

Or, maybe what you don't like about your current job the new guy would find exciting and a rewarding challenge.

In any of those cases (or others) you would be doing him or her a disservice by tainting their opinion about the company. If you have interaction with them during the hiring process, absolutely answer their questions honestly. I wouldn't mention that you are leaving, unless it is already public knowledge; you wouldn't want your manager or coworkers to find that out that way.

I agree that someone who's reasonably happy in their current job should not be deceived into taking a new one that sounds like it has little chance of turning out well. If he was desperate it'd be different, but allowing someone to come in these circumstances is not morally justifiable.

However you should also cover yourself. So I wouldn't badmouth the company directly or extensively, and certainly not say anything about anyone's plans for leaving as that is too fraught with potential repercussions. I don't see anything wrong with sending him a friend request on LinkedIn, and reaching out in a friendly-like way 'hey, interviews are limited, I just wanted to make sure you could get answers if anything's occurred to you since'.

Hopefully he'd have some questions, or you could get into a friendly conversation (coffee after work?) where you could let slip some honest info ('boss is a psychopath', 'releases are catastrophically buggy', 'no raise in 3 years'). I like the advice to do that on the phone or in person so there's no written trail. But you know, whatever is in the flow of the conversation,casually mentioned, without getting into a real bitch session about it. More like 'why are you thinking of leaving your current position?', with a side serving of how it's worse at yours. If he's perceptive, you won't need to let slip more than one of those and he'll realize that he should bail. If he's not, then, well, you'll have done your best.

Based on my own Personal Opinion I would say, contact him via phone after work and clue him in. Again this is my own personal opinion. But I were to looking to join a new team, and I was running blindly into a toxic, unstable environment I would really appreciate a heads up from someone on the inside.

However, that being said. If your current office got wind of your warning that would prove most difficult for you including you getting fired. So be prepared for that.

As a side note, I suggested calling him vs an email to not leave any kind of paper trail.
if the candidate were to tell HR someone called him and warned him you could deny deny deny deny. But if the candidate were to forward an email he received to your HR it would be hard to deny.

As others have already said, don't colour things with your own opinion of the company, you could find yourself in trouble. Just answer any questions as honestly as you can.

In the mean time it is the job of the potential-hire to decide for themselves whether they want to take the job - that should include things like looking at the Glassdoor website for employee ratings - as such, you could fill out the form on Glassdoor.com and hope that the potential-employee comes across it in his due-diligence

If you are part of interview process I don't think you should say or do anything that makes him reconsider. If it is tracked back to you, then it will make you look unprofessional. Like you wasted or sabotaged a potential hire for the company.

But maybe other people not part of interviewing can give him some signs for him that things are not as good at this place as he thinks?