Two interviews into an operations coordinator role at a family-owned food distributor, the owner invited him to come in next week and shadow the woman currently doing the job.
Then the owner added the condition. He should introduce himself as someone from a software company reviewing their processes. The woman doing the job had no idea she was being replaced. She had been there eleven years, and the company did not want her finding out until they had hired someone.
The salary was a meaningful step up from what he was making. The role was real. The shadow day was real. The only invented part was him — the company he would claim to work for, the review he would claim to be conducting, the reason he would be standing next to her while she showed him how the job worked.
He is asking whether that is the kind of red flag you do not ignore. The owner has already answered what kind of employer this is.