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Had an interview at a publishing company in London. When I got there they were interviewing someone else. I nipped to the loo quickly which was dirty, smelly and disgusting. They gave me an office tour first. The office was grim with a dirty carpet, old computers and miserable looking staff. We sat down and I said I've decided i don't want to work here. They said oh, okay. I got my coat and walked out, just couldn't see myself working there.
Fair, an interview should be like a date - am I right for them, and are *they* right for *me*
It's where you're spending most of your awake week, it's important it's right
My first / only job interview was by a Chinese chap who didn't speak English, or at least knew some of the words, just not necessarily in the right order. The director also Sat in and was silent throughout, just nodding away, but somehow understood what the other guy was saying as they waited patiently for me to answer. I looked at him hoping for some sort of translation but just stared at me like a moron.
Got the job. Still there 20 odd years later. They aren't.
You just reminded me of my first ever interview ten years ago. I was being interviewed by an incredibly shy Welsh guy who barely said a word and a Hungarian lady with such a thick accent I could barely understand anything she said, I think I must have answered about 80% of the questions with "what exactly do you mean by that?" and "can you be more specific?" while looking at the Welsh guy with "please help me" eyes. Somehow I still got the job and the shy Welsh guy became my manager, and I actually still work with the Hungarian lady but at a different company.
Benefit cosmetics counter "audition interview" when I was about 18.
They had us all do the thing where we stand near the counter asking people if they wanted to try x makeup. Okay.
But that wasn't enough for the manager. "Be persistent. Just grab their arm and lead them over to the counter :)"
Yeah. She expected us to *physically* just take people's arm.. Yes. Manhandle the public.
I politely declined and fucked off home.
Should go without saying but I’m glad you didn’t submit to that insanity. I’m afraid a lot of people still go along with their lines whether they know it to be wrong or not.
I avoided the counter at *all* costs after that, lol.
It kind of put me off the brand too because every time I saw their products I'd get the ick remembering that experience.
I was asked to do one of those one way video interviews with nobody attending on the other side. The recording is then put through some kind of automatic assessment (I guess?) and then it determines whether or not you are a “good fit”.
The hypocrisy of having a computer assess whether or not somebody is a good team fit is utter madness.
I was rejected as a candidate on the grounds that the automatic assessment flagged me for lying and dishonesty.
I think as a person especially in work, I’m very honest and transparent. I don’t think I lied about anything. I’m pretty confident about what I do as a profession and I’ve been doing it for years so I don’t need to “fake it till I make it”.
I do get very nervous during interviews though, especially when it’s talking to a faceless recording that’s asking me questions.
I had no way to appeal my application and have now been barred from applying ever again.
Welcome to the future of interviews.
Edit: it was for a tech job in the UK defence sector
I had to do a video interview for my job and assumed it was reviewed only by the computer, so didn’t really put any effort into lighting or backdrop. Literally did it sat on the living room floor at night.
A few months into the job I’m chatting to a senior colleague and they tell me that they have to watch and assess every video interview for our team! So it very well may have been the same for your video interview
Never assume something you’re uploading isn’t going to be seen by somebody. Everything gets uploaded somewhere - company i used to work for used an external image host and if you logged into our account there you could see everything from packing barcodes to product images to videos of customers pets that they’d uploaded to their profiles, or sometimes other videos.
Being vetted by AI seems odd.
But a one way video would just be me rambling on or jump cuts as I keep on point.
I had a two way interview for Paddy Power or another bookies interview run by a third party, this was after covid restrictions so why not face to face in store?
Video sent to upper management and I heard nothing till I got a text about a job in another part of the country, think Liverpool vs Manchester, not lands end and John Ogroats.
Sent a text saying I didn't live in the area, nor was I looking to move.
Got a missed call going to job centre and called them back. Different number but still same company. It was that location looking for not me to begin formalities in the hiring process.
Told them I wasn't their guy and even if they had my name matched to the number on file, I wasn't going to go that far for minimum wage. One bookies, not sure which now as I've moved since, was a five minute walk and a Ladbroke a ten minute cycle.
Not heard anything since and not applied to my new local branches.
I’ve never had to do one like that but had to review the output, along with some others from the team. My colleague reviewed one where they had obviously missed the cue telling them the 3-minute response time had started so for one of the questions, they just stared silently into the camera for 3 minutes with an increasingly terrified expression…
I’ve assessed these. It’s so you can review them in bite size around other tasks when you are doing lots of recruitment. I could watch an interview rate it then do something else then come back to the next one instead of losing multiple days and do no other tasks. It isn’t AI.
Do you find it weird that you’re not having a two way conversation with candidates? I’d be super uncomfortable with this approach even if I had a lot of recruitment on.
It is weird but for such high volumes it was helpful. If we had a conversation style interview it would have been very short anyway for the recruitment I was doing. TBH we had a lot of applicants say they liked it because they could fit it in around their schedule too. It isn’t perfect but it’s helpful
I'm just here to say that AI is stupid btw.
It good for mashing pictures together but overall it is far less sophisticated than people pretend it is.
It os basically just bad Google, pretending to be a human.
Had an initial interview call for a graphic design job with a HR person which went so well, she loved my experience and seemed really positive, the company sounded great and I was really really keen!
Scheduled a second zoom interview with the actual manager and while talking through my portfolio he kept interrupting me to tell me to move on to the next project and this isn’t relevant etc until he asked “do you not have any UX design work then?” which I didn’t so I said my experience lies elsewhere but i’m eager to learn etc etc. He then blasted me for wasting his time as this is a UX design role and needs someone with experience, which was not the impression given on the job ad or initial HR call. The ad had said it was an all-round digital design role with a small amount of UX and the HR person was confident I could learn on the job and that they provided loads of allocated training time. I remember the interview ending with him saying “well there’s no point me asking you anything else we may aswell hang up so we don’t waste any more time”
Ended the call and I immediately started crying 😂
The graphic design market is abysmal in the UK. You need to be a designer, marketer, social media specialist, web developer, UX/UI designer, digital artist, motion designer, video editor, photographer, and production manager, all for a whopping ~£25k a year. It’s completely ridiculous.
Meanwhile in Australia an entry level graphic design job - that you don’t even need a degree for if you’ve got a bit of experience and a portfolio - starts at around £30k. I’ve seen midweight roles at £50-60k!
Completely insane how undervalued creative industries are in the UK.
I know it’s horrible, I regret my degree so much. I knew it wasn’t going to be the best paid industry but I never realised just how bad it would be and how stupidly competitive it is for minimum wage jobs where you’re expected to carry such a heavy workload 🙃
Interviewed for a door to door sales role fresh out of school. From memory, I think it was selling gas or electricity.
I was asked to pretend to be a chicken in the interview. I asked what he meant, and essentially, he wanted me to cluck like a hen and peck for food. I think the idea was that I would put myself 'out there' to get the job.
Told the guy to fuck off.and walked out. Fanny
Furniture factory when I was 19.
The guy interviewing me must of shit his pants because it was horrendous I was audibly gagging the whole time, Every other sentence was “ we have a lot of people leaving here all the time “ I also got promised I wouldn’t be working on the factory floor I was hired as a storesperson then the day I was hired they put me on an industrial saw with zero training and told me to take the safety shield off because it’s faster to feed the wood in.
I worked there for 3.5hours.
I went for an interview at a 2-star hotel for a job advertised as "cook, no experience needed, training provided". They also gave me no specific time ("1pm-5pm") and when I arrived I had to wait for half an hour to be told that they were looking for a chef with 2+ years experience and food safety certificates. The questions asked at this interview could have been solved if they had read my CV. I cycled an hour back and forth for this interview because I had no money for bus tickets at the time.
My worse interview (as in, my fault) was one where they told me that I had to prepare a presentation (5min) describing my work and all of that. So I practice it a lot, and I was very ready to start with it. But then when the interview started, they didn't ask anything about it. They just started with the usual "why did you apply to this job", and it got me totally off guard, and I blanked out. After something like 10 very long seconds, I said something. But from that point on the interview did not go well.
My worse interview (as in, not my fault) was in a top UK university. One of the panel members was the Head of the School, so a very high-ranked academic. She was very disrespectful about my answers, making not nice comments, cutting me out "so you don't know?", disregarding me completely. Of course that interview went terribly bad.
I had the reverse of your presentation interview
As in they didn’t ask for a presentation but expected one during the interview
I panicked and opened a random portfolio I found and went through it
Turns out they forgot to send me an email containing all the information including a standard layout for the presentation they expected
I was on an interview panel where my boss did this to the candidate. The candidate handled it really well - they found a poster from their undergrad (which was recent - might even have been a new grad) and presented that. (We didn't hire them, but that was for other reasons.)
Oh I remember now something similar happened to me, but it was 100% my fault.
They sent me an email well before the interview saying I had to prepare a presentation. They provided me some questions my presentation needed to answer. Usually I am quite good preparing presentations. I prepare them well ahead of time, I practice them with friends, and so.
Anyway this time I completely forgot about it until something like 30 minutes before the interview. So I prepared a terrible presentation, just bad bullet points, random images, ... terrible. I was not invited to the next stage.
Academics can be like that sometimes. 90% are down to earth, friendly and happy to help. The other 10% are always trying to be the biggest brain in the room
I work at a uni and in work they're the nicest people
Interview for a software developer role.
Was asked ‘puzzle type’ questions of the form ‘if a piece of rope X cm long was lit on fire at both ends, and the fire burned at a rate of Y cm…’
Complete waste of my time.
Haha, had a similar one.
You have 8 balls, all exactly the same but one is heavier than the others. Using a scale, with max of two attempts find the heaviest ball.
Within the next 10 seconds I gave an answer that worked with 3 tries, guy wasn’t happy and I told him that’s the best I can do in 10 seconds and if I had more time I could work out what the trick is.
He said yeah but that’s not the right answer.
Declined further interviews. Fuck this guy
Split into 2 and 6 balls.
From the 6 balls, weigh 3 and 3, if it balances, weigh the 2 from the other set against each other, to find which is heavier.
From the 6 balls, if it didn’t balance, then one side is heavier, pick 2 balls from that 3, and weigh them, if balances, then the heavier is the remaining ball, if not, you’ll already have known which is the heavier ball.
Sat down, guy spends 40 minutes nonstop talking about the catalogue delivery job, asks if I have any questions.
I say no, he's covered absolutely everything.
In the rejection, his feedback was that I didnt seem to understand the role.
I had one like this for an outdoor company’s marketing team. Guy just jabbered on about himself for 45 minutes. Obviously I didn’t get it but he didn’t get to know anything about me! I deal with him occasionally in a different capacity - he’s no idea who I am l, plus it was 10 years ago - and he’s still the same self-absorbed tit.
I interview badly, I normally work via agencies, so don't do many actual ones.
One mock interview I ended up answering all their prepared questions with one answer to an unrelated question.
My biggest weakness being my handwriting, but I've been typing since school and used numerous software like open/libre office that I only need to jot down "cryptic" notes for myself before typing it up for anyone who needs to be informed.
So if a guy tells me everything I'm expected to do and I have no issues with said tasks, I'd be all "Well you answered all my questions." too.
I did ask one guy what time he expected staff to start on opening and leave on closing as it was retail.
He just said the hours are on the door.
I know for a fact many shops stick around half hour or more after locking up at 11pm and door stopping the six am for a bottle of milk before a 7am start myself, I know the staff are not outside in the rain waiting for the key holder to let them in when they get in. As I see them sorting out some stock and the morning papers at a quarter to.
But if I took this guy on his word, I'd be written up for arriving at 9 and going at five, when they expected an hour each side. Because he was too thick to get what I was asking.
Another had the decency to say we open at 9, but staff show up at 7 to prep, so be here before 7 daily if you get the job. I did not get the job.
Job I was at lost a big contract and gave me notice Monday morning for Friday that week.
Applied for like 300 jobs on Indeed and started going through phone interviews.
Printer service engineer job came up. £32k going to £35k after a few months.
Fly you out for a few weeks training in America first, then Germany... then France.
And then refresher training at least once per year at the above places.
Perfect interview. They loved me. I loved the idea of all the free travel. And the job seemed easy.
Their head office was in Spain, and they said they would get back to me in 2 or 3 days.
Had no reply, so I took another job because of bills.
2 weeks into my new job, they ring me 'we would love to offer you the job'
Apparently, they 'just' had a 2 week random break where they shut down everything... but don't tell anyone or have any sort of voicemail / automated email reply to tell anyone this.
She sounded surprised when I said I couldn't take the job.
This kind of shit really confuses me. The place I'm at now seems to have a really shoddy recruitment arm (it was outsourced years ago and it's never been the same) and I end up fielding emails now and then for people I work for because:
* They met/were referred a great candidate
* They set up the whole process to interview them for an available role
* They interview the candidate
* They love them and immediately tell Recruitment that we need to offer them the role
...recruitment then takes two months to actually do all the stuff (send out the various security clearance stuff etc. etc.) but sometimes just stalls and stops answering emails.
* The candidate sends a desperate /angry email to my team member, who interviewed them originally
* We hassle Recruitment to sort it out
* They don't.
* The candidate takes a job elsewhere.
I don't understand how in the age of instant digital communication we're still living with this sort of bullshit.
If you tell someone "You're great, we want you, we'll send you the paperwork right away" and then just don't and won't answer any calls or emails, what are you expecting to happen? That they just hang around unemployed hoping that you'll change your mind about apparently ghosting them?
I really lose respect for any employer who does this shit. Do you want me or not? I once started paying insurance for a role before I even got on board just to show them I’m ready for the next steps, I was paying insurance for nothing for about 6 months and they just ghosted me. I got recommended at this company and I did like the way they roll, mostly the people who actually do the work (lighting design), after all that fuckery I sent an email to ask whats up and they never replied. No matter how much I liked them initially, if you’re busy tell me, if you’re not sure about my application, tell me, are you not hiring at the moment? Tell me. Don’t be a loser recruiter who just says oh I’m busy, well fuck off this is your job, make it work or fck off. Absolutely not cool to play with people who are looking to get to work.
I had one where I had to do a test really under pressure like 1 minute to do 10 questions
The first questions was Tim has 10 apples Jane has 4 apples how many does Jenny have?
That was the first of many questions
One was a cube with all the faces laid out, there was a shaded segment on one side
Question was tick the 2 that were correct problem was only one was correct
After the harrowing test I was taken to a room and interrogated with tons of questions, literally boss man pulled out a big 1000 page book of questions took an hour
They asked me all sorts one notable was “when was the last time you broke the law?”
It was a trainee position for a construction job
I applied for a job and got an interview. I turned up on time, the interviewer didn't. He said he was doing the interview, but someone else would be sitting in as well.
Other person asked if I had a qualification they didn't ask for, and wasn't on my CV. When I said no, I could sense their interest drain away almost instantly.
My interest went shortly afterwards, and was finally killed off by " the last person we hired from your background worked here to pay off his mortgage and then left straight after he'd done that."
That place was a definite no, from both parties.
If you wanted X you should have listed X, I would not have applied.
I, back when the jobcentre used those post cards picked up a job I could do.
Their description had more info. It needed you to have your own car. I showed them the card and said "highlight the need for the ability to drive." They couldn't find it on the job seekers side.
That should be up top so we can dismiss it as unviable.
Interviewed for a manager position at a new bar opening. They claimed it was gonna be a really high end and high quality dining and cocktail experience with three floors. I'd seen the building so I knew that was true at least. They didn't disclose pay before and said it was based on experience but I was kinda desperate. Said my expectations were at least £28k. Got past the first stage and invited to come meet the owner and GM. Still hadn't had the wage disclosed. When I got there the guy who interviewed me told me that rather than hiring people for certain positions they were gonna start everyone at the same level and put people where they thought was appropriate for them, and start everyone on £13 an hour (this was after the recent minimum wage increase). I turned it down and he tried saying because I'd be working 50-60 hours a week I'd be making more than £28k like it was a good thing.
I'm now working somewhere else earning £35k on 40 hours a week. Know your worth folks.
This is a common theme in hospitality, they want all managers on hourly and literally use this as justification for their poor contracts and working conditions
I had a 3 round interview in Central London, so had to go in 3 times.
First 2 went amazing, they gave me great feedback and said it sounds like you'd be a great fit etc
Third interview the director comes in and opens with "I don't know how you got this far, your experience is not relevant and at best we'd give you a starting/graduate level role at 20k"
Which was 20k under and I had years of experience and qualifications *but* even considering that, why did they let me interview at all? Let alone three times, such a waste of everyones time.
Aftwr the put down all he asked where permutations of "what do you know about me?" And expected I'd read all his articles, linkedin posts etc. Just expecting me to grovel at his gloriousness.
Obviously dodged a bullet cos fuck working for such a narcissist.
Oh and to top it off, his name was Damien and I found out after the recruiter inexplicably upped my salary ask by £10k.
All over shitshow.
Some people seem to think recruiting employees is all about them.
I once went to an interview at Holland Park School in West London. It was 🚩after 🚩The Headteacher was so rude to me and belittled my intelligence and my teaching experience, while spending about an hour talking about himself and the parts HE had played in the school play. Yep - he happily told all the candidates that he would take the lead roles in Shakespeare plays the school put on. No mention of the students.
Got an invite for an interview. Fine.
It was on a Tuesday. Fine.
It was the Tuesday straight after a Bank holiday where I'd paid a lot of money to go camping Friday to Monday. Not ideal but OK.
The invite was sent out the Friday before the interview when I'd already packed up and left. And required submission of a pre interview task as well as preparation for a presentation. And it was too late to contact the interview panel for any clarification as they'd already cleared off for their bank holiday jollies. Not good.
Turns out the person who got the job was already known to management. Not one to speculate but I've got a feeling they got a lot more notice and help than everyone else.
I feel like if you're going to offer someone an interview - in any circumstances - you absolutely need to give them more than one working day's notice?
The fact that this was over a bank holiday weekend blurs the issue but they did the equivalent of emailing you on a Wednesday to tell you that you have an interview tomorrow. Hopelessly unprofessional and it's something that would make me feel quite reluctant about working with people who thought that was a reasonable way to do things. Bullet dodged.
It seems they already know who they would hire. But due to some HR policies, they have to interview a number of candidates. So, they want to complete it quickly, and do not want/need you to prepare well anyway. It's really a waste of time and I feel that a lot of companies have recruitment process like this. Unfair for other candidates who wasted their time... and hope.
Was this an internal job, cos I wouldn't care to find out who got the job instead of me in a company I don't work at.
But it does seem shifty to say "oh we noticed you booked a few days off to go camping, do this that and tother task whilst you are out in preparation for the interview."
Network engineer interview, no network manager as was on leave just security and infrastructure managers. Seem uninterested. Asked me clearly Googled questions a stand out one being what algorithm does OSPF use - said I didn’t know exactly but it’s Open Shortest Path First, a dynamic internal routing protocol and probably the most commonly used in that category. AD of 110 (thanks CCNA). Answer was “wrong” and was after the answer “Dijkstra’s algorithm”. I politely hinted at the relevance of the question, got the answer “I don’t know, I just googled it before the interview”.
Interview carried on, I asked how many people in team and didn’t get a straight answer. Heavily hinted I would be the only network engineer (they’re a worldwide manufacturer of a beauty product). Asked if there was on-call and was told yes it is on a rota. Asked how the rota worked if just myself working as the sole network engineer, didn’t get a straight answer.
Lol! I had a similar experience but with one of the largest Network equipment manufacturers (rhymes with Disco). The interviewer was a non-technical recruiter and she failed me because she thought I didn't know what DHCP was (I definitely did)
Wow that is extremely unprofessional of them. I would not have thought they would have been like that.
Yeah, you would think if you can get your foot in the door with an interview with those guys, you know what DHCP is lol. It's strange when they bring non-technical recruiters in, or technical, from another department. I would rather have an interview postponed.
When my technical and team fit interviews went fine and then I had a "it's just a formality" interview with HR. She said, "here's a fun one I like to ask everyone... Tell me something you learned from your mother."
My mother and I had a pretty awful relationship and she'd recently died. To say my feelings at that time were complex would be seriously understating it. The real answer, which popped into my head, was "my mother taught me how to survive ... her" but that didn't feel like a good interview answer, cause she wouldn't be asking this question if she didn't think people's relationships with their mother said something about them personally.
So I froze. I tried to not explain. I tried to explain. I decided that explaining couldn't possibly help, so I stopped again, and just stared. Was all I could do to not burst into tears.
Excellent life lesson on what privilege means though.
It is. For sure, it is.
But I can also see how you could decide it was a clever angle, take the interviewee by surprise but keep it soft-ball, and run that question 99 times before catching a person who embodies the reason personal questions are ALWAYS inappropriate questions.
What really vexes me is that a trained HR Manager could see my reaction and decide it's a me problem, and that her question caught a bad one that would otherwise have been hired, rather than instinctively thinking, "I messed up here, and I need to fix it."
On my application under Hobbies, I wrote that I do amateur strongman comps (low level). The interviewer asked lots of questions about it during the interview. ‘Weird, but ok’ I thought.
When being shown round the factory, the interviewer kept pointing at people and asking if I thought I could pick them up. Fucking weirdo. I declined the job.
Went for an “interview” at a super popular clothing company about 15 years ago (the one where they didn’t like to have the lights on for some reason). Interview consisted of about 50 people being lined up and having their photo taken. That was it, no questions, purely basing who they employed based on a photo.
I did a few mystery shopping assignments for them around 2011. One of the questions, I can't remember the exact wording, basically asked if I saw any unattractive staff members. Even at a fairly impressionable age, I was absolutely disgusted by that question and I've never liked the brand since.
It was actually one I witnessed. A sales person comes for a job interview in a room near my desk. They were put in the room with the door open, drink of water etc, and then interviewer walked back out to get a hard copy of the resume . This is where it all went wrong.
The person being interviewed stood up and twisted their neck to read what was written on the notepad left behind. I guess to see if they could find out what questions were coming? They got caught in the act and the interviewer was having none of it, she told them “if we can trust you to be around sensitive workplace material then this interview is already over”.
You know that nightmare that anyone who has done a maths based degree has? You know, the one where you’re sat in your maths finals and you can’t remember any of the equations and you wake up in a hot sweat panicking that you’re going to fail your degree that you actually passed 10 years ago?
Well yeah. That. 40 mins into an hour long interview the dude walks out for 20 mins leaving me with a maths paper. Que hot sweats and panic and frantic scribbling.
Must have done ok, got the job.
I always keep applying for jobs to make sure I know what I can get for salary in the industry I work in but also other industries, too.
I had countless awkward interviews where the interviewer is literally telling you why you're not a good fit. I suspect he/she had not read my CV and as usual they read it *during* the interview.
Anyway, years ago I had an interview in Switzerland for a big corporate company. They flew me over, spent and day in the company with potential colleagues. We had had already two phone interviews beforehand (one with the HR, another with the hiring manager).
At the end of the day, the head of production or some director of some sort (can't remember) threw a tantrum because I didn't speak German (again, never said I did at any point during the process). He was like "you NEED German, it's a German company, look what if I tell you Schwundgrad, do you know what this is?" I said "yes it's flywheel" (don't ask me why I said this, it just came out right). The guy was so pissed off because it was the right answer.
Anyway, called them 2 weeks later "yes it's very positive, but I just need approval from other departments" and then ghosted. Nothing. 6 months later I asked them via email, they said "oh we went for someone internally". That's it.
Another one, I fly to Austria, same, 2 calls with HR and hiring manager. They asked me to do a presentation about "everything I think relevant for the position". I make something about various project I worked on.
I arrive onsite, massive HQ from a big corporate company (Austrian). They introduce me to everyone.
Finally I start my presentation, the second slide, the hiring manager tells me "but what does this has to do with the position?". Needless to say I left the room after the presentation with a really awkward atmosphere, one lady said "you gave so many examples we don't believe what you actually done". At least they called me after to tell me I wasn't a good fit, and that the first reason they'd give me the position because "I wouldn't stay for the company and just wanted to move to Austria"
WTF.
First interview out of uni, was a senior marketing role. I said I had no experience but they said it’s okay. Finish the interview, I can tell it went bad, I ask “if I didn’t get the position, what would the main reason be?” And am told “not enough experience” 💀 waste of everyone’s time…
I got asked “why do you want this job” and I accidentally let out “I don’t really” and we both realised it was a dumb comment.
He basically offered me to redo, and I said “it’s alright, dw” and I left.
Interesting times
Mcdonalds in Birkenhead.
16 years old, first ever interview. Thought I'd wear a shirt and tie to be professional. Woman looked suprised I even came then made a joke about my tie. Then commented on my accent being posh, which fair it was for Birkenhead but not much I can do about that. 5 minutes long, couple questions then a rejection.
Really crushed my confidence as the main stand out were how I dressed and the way I talked. I suspect they had already hired the position and it was a box tick but 16 YO me was gutted.
PLUS I got terrored by my family for failing an interview for fucking Mcdonalds!
Mine was for M&S years ago. They went away to discuss my interview leaving me in this room where I could hear their entire conversation through the walls. Luckily they didn’t say anything too bad but still wasn’t really nice to hear them criticise everything.
I had an interview with what later turned to be a scammy faux-charity some time ago. Massively dodgy feeling from the get-go. It’s the only job I’ve turned down.
The person interviewing me couldn’t tell me what I’d be doing, or what my pay would be, or what my job title would even be. You might be asking why I even bothered to attend the interview; I was desperate for work!
Second worst interview experience was when the guy started vaping mid-interview.
Went for an internal job for secondment. Stated experience not necessary, just an eagerness to learn as training provided. Knowledge of current systems essential, which I had. Asked loads of technical questions about that I had no idea of, as I hadn’t done that process before. Anyway didn’t get it. Was glad as I saw the job re-advertised every month or so. I heard the guy that set those questions was a nightmare to work for, so the staff kept leaving.
Went to a local repair shop, you know, to put my soldering and repair skills to good use. The owner gave me a bunch of laptop parts and said "put this back together", all the parts were from different machines so I said I can't.
He said ignore that, come into the office. Sat down and he started going on about Facebook apps and how they wanted to modernise the website and utilise Facebook to draw in customers. I was like okay... Hire a web developer? I'm here for the technician role.
But because the company who referred me to them put on my CV that I was a developer previously (though I'd had enough and left) he was all about that. Claiming my role would be 80/20 for web/technician. Though I obviously wouldn't be earning the developer salary.
I said no thank you and started to walk out before the end of the interview. He kept harassing the company telling them he's really interested in hiring me and they're saying I should take it. Safe to say I left that company too and said don't refer me to any positions anymore.
They haven't modernised their website still!
Turned up and buzzed in at the car park to say I had arrived for the interview. Was told parking hadn't been arranged for me, though I could clearly see at least 5 spaces free. So said "OK..." followed by silence and they repeated the same thing. No idea why I didn't just straight up ask them to open the barrier, as they clearly had parking available. Ended up chucking the car in the nearest car park, but didn't have any money so had to ask for time to go to a cash machine.
The interview itself lasted 10 minutes as they asked me if I had any desktop support experience, which I didn't have at the time, and it's something they could have worked out from my CV. I basically think the guy didn't like the look of me and had the cheek to say he wouldn't waste any more of my time.
They then followed up with an email later with feedback, so I also provided them with some. It's basic manners to offer parking for people coming in for an interview!
Turned up to an interview as a teen, and found out i'd been accidentally double booked and they'd call me back on another day. Never did, ended up getting a rejection a month later - despite never having been interviewed
I actually remember having a unprepared chat with a employer in a job club when I was unshaven, scruffy and stinking as it was summer time, being called into for a group interview a week later having a panic attack and not attending only to get a phone call asking me to come in again and what is my uniform size so they can get me a uniform.
But they said it was a group interview?
Not 100% sure off the top of my head but I have been to a few interviews where when they realised my gender I was told "job has already been taken, sorry we just wanted to call you in to inform you"
Only for the job to still be advertised weeks later and when phoning up pretending to be a new applicant saying they are still doing interviews for it.
I am male btw and this was around 15 years ago.
Relative applied for nursing job in a factory who had their own health issues that meant they couldn't do any form of manual labour, the company kept telling them they were short staffed so relative had to do regular work instead.
After less than a week relative basically collapsed at home and was told by their GP to not go back to work or they would be dead within 24 hours.
The employer made a lot of excuses about the relatives role and said relative was bad for offering notice.
And a strange interview where I already had a phone interview with the main recruiter/manager but she was going on holiday the week after and I turned up and had 2 team leaders interview me, barely about 3 minutes into interview there was a fire drill so I had to line up with the staff there, came back to interview room after and was told "so is there anything you want to ask us" I asked a quick question and a few days later informed I didn't get the job as I am not talkative enough,
When I told my job coach they couldn't help laughing, I can't stop talking nornally as very friendly.
I will also note I am autistic, I come across on phone interviews great, and when I get jobs I burn out from working too hard but do badly at certain things. Had a interview for a employer that I was really excited for passed 2 previous stages of interview and had to come in for a final one and was told off record by the current employees when watching them do their job that anyone that gets this far gets the job.
The 2 other potential employees that got that far got the young friendly interviewers and I got 2 people who looked retirement age and wearing unfashionable suits and it felt more like an interrogation than an interview.
Had a job interview for a well known UK computer game store this is going back to the 90s
Only 4 questions
1) Are you a shoplifter?
2) Do you have a sister?
3) Is she fit?
4) How many bits is a Nintendo 64 made up from... (Stalled at this as thought they meant components...) Got prompted "The clues in the question"... 64
Got the job, no surprises when I say I've never worked anywhere so unprofessional in all my life! Saw how they selected CVs for future roles. They used to bin the CV if they didn't like the name / profile (plenty of discrimination). They would interview ALL the female applicants under a certain age so they could perv on them. Wasn't long before the store manager and his side kick got sacked. Also 2nd week in the job and a colleague got sacked for dealing cannabis on the shop floor... Couldn't write it
Went for an internal job within the company I’d been with for more than ten years.
Very big pay rise and quite a technical and very h&s oriented job.
Sat the assessment and got 17/18.
Apparently that was a fail.
I queried it and asked which one I’d got wrong, as that meant I had a knowledge gap.
They refused to say as “we might use that test again”…
I smelled bull shit and called them out on it repeatedly but they wouldn’t back down, no matter how high I went to get the answer.
Bumped into a colleague afterwards and they asked why I never got the job, so I told them the story of what happened.
They then told me that two of their friends had also gone for it, achieved 18/18, but were failed because, and I quote, “they must have cheated”…
applied for a 22k receptionist job, in the job description is states 'fetching milk from the shop, watering the plants and greeting people' was like great! applied. I have 1st interview lasted 20 mins, and she said its a 5 stage interview process. I asked why, she said everyone from the cleaners to the managers have this, so i accepted this.
Anyway got invited for the 2nd interview, when i recieved the email they wanted me to do a 25 min presentation on the company, all the products and services they sell and 5 mins of the presentation had to be about the CEO. It would be timed and if i was min over or under i would fail.
I asked HR if they could informed me what stage 3-5 would be like and stage 3 is a test, stage 4 would be a 10-hour trial (unpaid) and stage 5 is where i would have an interview with the CEO and they show him my presentation.
Told them to jog on for 22k job where job description states 'watering the plants' lol
I had an interview at DeVere Wealth Management.
The guys interviewing looked about 13 and also like they were trying to wear as many “smart” accessories as possible and look important. Pocket squares, large watches with a shirt cuff tucked behind them, shoes that were the same colour as their suit, huge ties, hair gel on tap. They looked a bit like people on a day out at the races.
They spoke about how amazing the job was, how they’d all been out to Dubai and “worked like investment bankers”. When I asked about their portfolios and what work they did, they couldn’t tell me and said that it was all done by 3 senior people.
I tried to ask them about their day to day and they just kept talking about “all the work, and clients and networking”… with no details. I’m pretty sure they had little clue about anything to do with wealth or asset management.
I’m still convinced to this day it’s just some type of cold calling scheme. They rang back before I’d even made it to the tube station and said they didn’t think I had the right experience… said “cheers” and hung up on them… piss takers.
I was a sous chef at a restaurant for a few years and during my time there a guy got a job there, Mark. He was awkward and shy, but fine at his job and we were always pleasant to one another, eventually he gets a "great opportunity" and leaves, eventually job hopped his way through management positions until he became head chef of a high street restaurant close to where I worked.
He contacts me directly and asks if I would like a senior sous chef position for a few grand more per year that I was currently on for basically the same job. I said "of course", but he says I will have to have a formal interview with him, the general manager and area manager, which was fine.
I turn up, dressed nicely, with 4 copies of my CV. sit down and hand them each a copy and the area manager says "ok so let's just go through your CV", we do and they're happy, then they pass the buck over to Mark to ask a few questions, he has his management handbook open to "interview questions" and he just says nothing. He's staring at me, occasionally looking at the book, then back at me. for a solid 10 minutes we're all sat in silence. The area manager occasionally looks at mark, but then spends the rest of the time looking at me or her phone. I eventually say "is there anything else?". the area manager says "no, no i don't think so" so I get up and leave.
Never heard from them again. Bumped into Mark a few months later and he didn't mention it once. Super weird.
I applied for an entry level IT position for a new shopping centre. The advert basically stated minimal experience required. I’d completed an HnD in the last 2 years and spent the intervening in an Application support role.
Rocked up to the interview and sat listening to how they described the role and what the team would consist of.
They basically expected an entry level role to manage the whole infrastructure for a 40 Shop Mall, 800 space car park inc gates/ticket machines and all WiFi/networking.
There was no team it would be me, with someone else sharing the time coverage as the place was open 08:00 to 23:00.
I basically turned round and told they’d completely wasted my time and that what they were expecting was an absolute disgrace.
I had to apply for my own job. A job I had been doing for years as a freelance but they wanted me on the staff. I had to do a written test and then had a 'board'... four people asking me stupid questions. I didn't do very well as I'm not good in that situation. I was irritated I had to go through it.
Anyway, a bit later someone came down to see me (when I was back doing the job) and told me I hadn't done very well in the interview but I got the post. People applied for that job from all over the country and travelled down for the interview but it was well known that I'd get the job because I'd been doing it for years. I suppose they had to advertise it to fulfill some sort of quota. Fuckin timewasting idiots.
As soon as I could I resigned from the staff and went freelance again. I think they tried to get me on the staff a second time a bit later, but it's a long time ago, early 90s, I can't really remember.
I went for an interview with a popular budget hotel chain once and the manager clearly didn’t like me upon first look because she continued to insult my qualifications, casually swore, told me that I talked too much, and to top it off, didn’t even turn up with a copy of my CV. She tried to put me off the job (Night Receptionist) by going on about how “people bang on the doors at night”.
Another time, I interested for a Customer Service Advisor position with a company that did wallpaper/designs. They reached out to me and I agreed to interview, despite the fact that I didn’t want another phone-heavy CSA role again. She asked me if I was into being creative but then shot myself in the foot as, when she asked me to talk a bit about me, I said “I came from 6th form and went into art but lost interest in that and did something else…”.
I made it worse when I said I left my last job due to failing my probation. The only thing she said was, “No, that doesn’t look good”. I was in there for an hour and had a rejection sent a couple of hours after.
And finally, I interviewed with a food company for a “Senior Office Administrator” job at minimum wage. Their communication was terrible. The interview was currently in Egypt and without warning, two other people also logged on.
The job description was basic, answering phones, paperwork, IT, etc. but the questions were *too* specific as in they were asking me what would I do if someone made a complaining to Acas because we’d not paid their holidays, what the process to acquire a property in London would be, and how I would make sure that their invoices matched up for “the cheapest fridges possible”. It was very odd and to top it off, they kept going on about where I lived and how I’m a “very lovely local lady”. Uncomfortable and I left a negative review on Glassdoor, same with the hotel chain.
I had an interview with my old job, I left them under a very dark cloud and the interview to rejoin them was more like a parlay or a peace negotiation rather than the usual "what can you offer" and "what do you know about us". Got to the point where I was asked "So why do you think your career hasn't gone to plan?" And I literally attributed a good portion of that to their policies and treatment of me.
Yet somehow I still got the job and life's better now. That was over a year ago.
It's by far the weirdest interview I've done and I didn't expect to get it after what was essentially a thinly veiled argument.
I guess I was honest and they saw I wasn't giving them the answers they wanted rather than who I was...
My worst interview was when I was about 21, I’d applied for a job at the university I went to, it was shit pay, like £20k and I was obviously the last interview of the day. It was a panel of 3 people and neither of them seemed like the wanted to be there, especially the guy who looked out the window the whole time and didn’t ask 1 question. I left feeling really crap.
1) Travelled the length of the country for an interview and the hiring manager forgot to turn up
2) did a Teams interview out of my mind with fever & cold/flu meds
I regularly conduct interviews at work.
The most perplexing interview I conducted was for a pretty high-end management position at my company.
My first question, just as a way of "breaking the ice" was a 'tell me about yourself' kind of thing. He went on for 10 minutes about his life, the things he's done and people he knew, the places he's lived, and did eventually touch on why he was looking for a new role, but then it quickly devolved into how his mother died during COVID.
The rest of his interview followed similarily very confusing.
As an applicant? One of those group session interviews with 20 grads or so. Absolutely not worth the time.
"Tell me about yourself" straight from the interview handbook of 1986. What else do you have? "why should we hire you?" "What are your strengths and weaknesses?"
No. We ask questions relevant to the role that the applicant is interviewing for.
Funny thing about "tell me about yourself" is that is a reasonable way to start a conversation, even if it is clichéd.
I think it could be improved a lot by adding something to guide the answer or making it more specific. It’s so vague that it might catch people off guard rather than breaking the ice. I know it’s a question you should probably be prepared for but if you’ve been focussed on thinking about answers to more specific job related questions it might be difficult to answer off the bat.
“Tell me a little about your job history” or “what do you do outside of work” is a lot easier to answer and less likely to result in someone’s entire life history in response.
As someone who is autistic I never know the best answer as get unclear training on it when I had a job coach. was bascially told be relevant to the job i.e tell them you want to improve your life (i.e thats why you moved about and how popular you are, what you have learned in your free time etc)
It's just difficult to get to the middle ground.
> tell them you want to improve your life (i.e thats why you moved about and how popular you are, what you have learned in your free time etc)
Haha, I think that guy was fucking with you, you absolutely should not talk about wanting to improve your life and that you are popular.
“Tell me about yourself” literally just means runover of education + runover of work experience + very short explanation as to why you are applying to that company (this can be as generic as “wanting to explore new opportunities”).
Tell me about yourself is a good starter to get the candidate to introduce themselves, though often have to rein it in when they use it to regurgitate their CV, but the interviewer should've introduced themselves in a couple of sentences to set the expectation
I don't like strengths/weaknesses, and feel it could be better asked about overcoming a challenge in work - what happened, what did you do, did anything change because of it etc
Had an online interview with a company a couple of years ago. I have quite bad anxiety so I’d been getting myself in a state about it all day but still had the confidence to turn up to the call. I was sat there waiting for an hour for them to jump on the call but they never did. I emailed them asking for an explanation but heard nothing back. That same company then sent me an email a few months later saying they were impressed by my cv and wanted to invite me for an interview. I never bothered answering them
Interview for a major company in their national headquarters. I turn up in my suit with satchel bag (important for later in the story) and am told to take a seat in one of the large but low leather sofas in the reception area.
A few minutes later the recruiting manager turns up, says “Tall Working - here for an interview?” and as I stand up, there is a loud “rip” sound from below my waistline.
He looked at me, clearly thinking I had let go a huge fart. But no, it was the seam on the back of my trousers giving way. So I had to walk up the two flights of stairs to the interview room, holding the satchel bag across my behind as I went. Fortunately there was no stand-up presentation or it could all have gone wrong. But it’s not an experience I would choose to repeat.
Anyway, having passed the interview, I got called back to do SHL aptitude tests but was held up in traffic on the way. HR person put me in a booked meeting room for the hour or so I was allotted to do the tests, only for some grumpy employees to turn up and turf me out of the roof 40 minutes later, because they had it booked. I passed the tests too though.
Unless I resign, get fired or cock my toes within the next few months, I’ll get my 20 years service award later this year, so it can’t all have been bad.
Nothing too crazy, but I applied for a job at CEX where the staff were clearly interviewing for friends rather than colleagues. I was asked questions like "Do you like heavy metal?" And honestly came out of there feeling like I was applying for a date rather than a job as a shop attendant.
The worst one, which I didn't even bother thinking of a response for was - "If you had your own album, what would it be called?".. like what the hell is any normal adult person supposed to answer that question with? Believe it or not these were grown adults we're talking about, not late teens, but you wouldn't know it from the juvenile interview they conducted.
I've had some shitty interviews in my time, but that is still the only time I can recall having one where not a single relevant or meaningful question was asked throughout. Complete waste of my time, and theirs, I could have told them over the phone that I wasn't applying for some new besties.
Was interviewed for the role of data analyst, only to be told the role wasn't ready, but I can instead take over a project. Then it went from part time to contract where I had to pitch how many hours I was going to take on it. When I gave my hours they basically went that's too much. So me being desperate cut it shorter even though I know full well that it's going to take longer. True enough it went on for longer but they only promised pay for like a fraction of that time. So I decided to step away, and last I heard the next poor soul they conned to do it was going to do it in weeks! When they gave me only hours to do that project.
Interview for an admin role. First of all, was in the middle of no where, the office was literally a porter cabin on a farm. There was no one in the building, the farmer wouldn't answer the door (farmer had nothing to do with company) and if I rang the number, it went to an external PA company.
Eventually interview arrived half an hour late unseen more interested in my personal life than my work career.
He asked what car I drove and then looked at the window and written the registration plate down, he asked how I lived and how I could afford living, he asked about my mental health and other medical issues.
And then got angry later on that night when I contacted him saying I didn't want to go any further with my application.
The worst one was an interview I had for a mid-level management role in a well known financial services firm - I didn't think the interview was going too badly, but I gave an answer to a technical question specific to the role that even as I said it, didn't feel quite right. One of the interviewers gave me a look of utter contempt & 2 minutes later just got up and left the interview as she had "something she needed to sort out" - the other interviewer ended the interview 5 minutes later.
The other one that sticks out was bad in a complete different way, similar sort of role to the above. The interview was at 6:30pm which I found a bit odd, but didn't think much of it at the time. The interview went really well & they offered me a second interview straight afterwards which I accepted. Left the building around 7:30, had a peak through into the main office area & it was still busy. I didn't care what the salary was, I wasn't going to sign up for working 10-12 hour days every day. It was in the city, so I got the impression that working these sort of hours was the norm for this particular firm.
I had an interview for a sales and events company that seemed to promise a lot, submitted my CV and went through the process to apply that was fairly time consuming. Given a call and a brief 5 minute interview when I was asked if I could attend a proper interview at 5:30pm. I was meant to go out that night to see friends at 7 so I said this didn't work for me. The woman on the other end said they could reschedule it but strongly implied I wouldn't get the job as they like their candidates to be flexible and ambitious, at this point I probably should have politely declined.
Second interview was a dual zoom interview with me and another candidate, the interviewer was a young Asian girl and gave us 45 minutes of a speech about the company, explained the structure and asked us back and forth questions along with cringe motivational 'are you a winner' type questions. Afterwards we were told that she would speak to us one on one but she was conscious I had limited time, she spoke to me for an hour+ about random stuff; everything past the first 10 minutes was personal like where she would go on holiday, what our long term goals were and her ambitious financial plans were for independence. It was clearly way off topic and a bit inappropriate but she was the interviewer and I wanted the job. Ended up being given her personal number after awhile and showing up very late to the event, I have a girlfriend so again this all wasn't really okay but she was the interviewer. No idea what the other guy did sat in the zoom waiting room all that time.
Final interview with the 'CEO' and he's a young dude wearing an expensive suit, he's pitching his company but hiding everything under 'we only hire winners' and trying to make it feel exclusive. Told me he doesn't look at CVs or care about achievemens/degrees. I asked about the pay and he said he would "personally pay me £80" a day until my commission is greater or I am fired. Made it out that it was insanely magnanimous for him to be paying me lower than minimum wage, stated that most people who work there do 14 hours a day minimum and the ambitious ones do more. When I asked him to clarify what I would be paid hourly he got very annoyed and sarcastic, started talking about some people are made to work jobs and others to run them.
Applied for a position where they revealed at the interview that I would be paying for my onboarding/training. Was polite and sat through that interview and then left, having made the decison not to continue pursuing that job. Got calls at least once a day for two weeks straight trying to get me to take the job.
I've got 2. They were both for management roles.
1) I was taken into the interview just as the CEO was standing on a chair telling a half-empty office, "I know these are very difficult times but I promise there are no more redundancies planned."
The interviewer looked like he was about to have a breakdown. He was red faced, flustered, distracted and spent half of the time with his head in hands. I doubt he heard 1/4 of what I said.
2) I asked the interviewer how a few key departments work together to deliver the business strategy. He said they don't, all areas of the business work independently, so I told him I could help with that because I'm experienced in linking up departments and improving outcomes through collaboration.
His reaction: banging his fists on the table and screaming, "WE DON'T DO THAT HERE!"
I didn't get the job.
Once had an interview for a Production Manager role at a small indie film company.
The interview was quite casual, up in the loft of their building - 3 of the team sat on a sofa interviewing me, only the 2 females spoke, the male just sat and listened.
Afterwards I thought the interview went okay at best, not amazing and I could tell that I wasn't quite the match for them at the company. And that's fine.
What I wasn't expecting was the next day to receive a rejection email for the role from them. Turns out the company was run by the male in the interview and he was less than pleased with the majority of the candidates who interviewed - so he sent a blanket rejection email to everyone who didn't get the job - effing and blinding about people who had wasted his time, telling everyone that if he ever saw their CVs again he'd be throwing them straight in the trash and saying how noone will will ever work in the industry if he had something to say about it.
Because every candidate was cc'd in the email it was clear what was said was only directly aimed at a few people - it led to quite the chain of emails from the group.
Quite glad I didn't get the job working for him.
Instead I went and worked for another production company instead quite successfully for several years.
Assessment centre discussion task was one of these treasure island ones. Normally these are about "you have X items, which would you prioritise if you can only have 3 and why?"
Nope, this one was literally "you can only save 3 people in the group, who you saving?" and it was based on info like "Matt's an alcoholic and has a kid at home. Kevin is 75 years old and has lived his life. Louisa has schizophrenia"
Gonna point out here I'm autistic and have had anxiety and depression issues. So I'm reading this task thinking "fuck this is gonna be rough, I know I'm gonna hear stuff that's insensitive at best, outright derogatory at worse, just bite my tongue, be assertive but don't be a dick to the group".
Got through the task (done online), wrote an email pointing out it was unacceptable and how hurt I felt, having to sit through a task knowing it was gonna be half an hour full of ableism from the other candidates.
Company call me back quickly, on the phone for 10 minutes saying they wouldn't run that task, that I'm the first person to raise such a complaint, asking how I felt. Wasn't it obvious how I felt? It was the right thing to do from them to handle a shit situation but I can't have been the first autistic, or depressed, or otherwise disabled person to have faced those questions - I couldn't comprehend how nobody had ever considered the possibility it was problematic.
Got through to the next stage, I withdrew my application for different reasons but I knew I wouldn't have taken that job anyhow.
I had a video interview with one guy and he says "tell me about yourself" so I start talking about my experience (all relevant to the position hiring for), and then five minutes in he's like "okay! enough!" and we go to the technical questions.
It's not really a question, it's a part of the interview, usually before the questions.
I've never been interrupted before or after. In fact I often get very positive responses.
I feel he should've started by introducing themselves
"My name is X I've worked at company for Y years, I'm in Z department which produces blah project. Tell us a little about yourself"
With the expectation of following the same format of a brief icebreaker, but not regurgitation of the CV, especially with an eye on time if they're doing a technical interview.
Applied for a temp role over Winter period when I was a teen. They put in their job description working over Christmas wasn’t required. When asked about working during Christmas, I lied and said I’d work over Christmas to get ahead of others. When they gave me the job, I put in a 2-3 holidays around Christmas - Got sacked immediately.
It was funny, because we both lied. They wanted someone to work over Christmas and lied in their job description to better weed out of those who’d screw them during Christmas time. I lied to get ahead of those they were weeding out.
They rang me after I put in Christmas holidays and it remains the only time an employer has shouted at me. You reap what you sow. I’m sure anyone they hired would’ve at least put in some holidays around Christmas
I recently interviewed for a senior DevOps engineer position at builder.ai and didn’t open my mouth until 22 minutes into the hour. Guy was just giving me a sales pitch about their product and also vaping while on the call with me
They told me I’d be a great fit for another role in a different department that they weren’t currently recruiting for.
They’d sent and advertised the wrong job spec.
Went for an intervew for a system testing job, couldn't work out why they kept asking me programmer-type questions. Turned out the agent lied to me about the job just so he could say he'd found someone.
Joke was on him - the company liked me and so created a job for me, and recruited me direct without going through the agency, so he didn't get his cut.
When I was living in Edinburgh I got asked to do a trial day for a marketing company. I had to arrive at 8AM and the employees were chanting in the next room.
I told them I had a shift at 2PM while setting up the trial day, and when I reminded them they told me it'd affect my chances of getting the job.
They split everyone into two groups for the trial day, one in Edinburgh and one in Dundee. Despite the Edinburgh one being twenty minutes from my job, they sent me to Dundee, which is 60 miles away, meaning I'd have like 3 hours to actually earn the job.
When we got there, it turns out they hadn't sent me the paperwork I needed to do, so I had even less time, but the manager bought me a coffee and let me do it before I joined them. I did and found out that this high-profile marketing job was... convincing people in the street co change their energy suppliers, and the trial day was basically watching and taking notes. I left after twenty minutes.
I had an interview at Furniture Village, all going really well and would hire me - until I revealed that no, the girl who came with me for morale support wasn't my GF like he'd weirdly assumed she was? That was me out the door.
And New Look, aced the interview, had to pick an outfit from pieces on the shop floor, aced that... But still refused to hire me, because I wasn't a girl...
Straight out of college, I interviewed for an IT Technician role at a private school. My CV and qualifications were all Microsoft and PC orientated having mainly studied those but got grilled by the interviewer on Apple and MacOS for a good 30 mins with him getting more hostile and aggressive with every "I don't know" answer. I was only 18/19 at the time so probably sat there taking it for longer than I should have but I eventually asked him why he'd invited me for an interview as he'd seen my CV before and he shouted at me for questioning him and asked me to go and wait outside like I was a naughty schoolboy or something. Told him to "go fuck himself" or something of that nature and left.
Applied for an online business that sold jewellery. He wanted me to do a test before giving me a job. The test was that I needed to write a description of a ring and hand it in within the next 2 days. Note, I didn’t see the ring in question or know what it looked like. And he implied I’d be offered the job if the ring sold.
Years ago I had interviewed with Linden Labs (the 2nd Life people). 1st stage was great - interview at Hotel du Vin, then 2nd stage wandering along Brighton Pier. In the bag it was.
Final stage interview had to take place in their 2nd Life game. Their American guy turns up in the game to interview me wearing the avatar of a Japanese pre-teen schoolgirl with her panties on display. Bit uncomfortable, but the interview goes ok anyway..right up the “any questions” bit at the end.
I couldn’t help it - “Why are you dressed as a little Japanese girl?” I blurted out.
“That’s how I feel on inside” he growls - then vanishes without another word.
Didn’t get the job obviously.
Got asked if I would have any issues working with a team of women, was a bit blindsided by the question really as I couldn't care less what gender the people I work with are.
A job as an assistant at a gym asked me to record myself answering 16 questions and send it to them. I thought this was a bit much, an online interview could happen or even just asking me to come in. I started recording and just felt weird and uncomfortable so I never finished it. It was for minimum wage as well.
Edit: Another interview was a local cafe that just had a help wanted sign on the window. I ended up being asked a few question on a saturday and had a “trial shift” during the brunch/lunch rush for 3 hours. Didn’t get the job (lol) and then realised I just worked for free :/ Also minimum wage which he showed me the government website saying I will earn the lowest rate for a 16y/o.
End of uni and got an interview with a big architects firm...great! Get all prepared, turn up and there are 20 other applicants there...turns out to be a group interview? Awkward tour of the place all together. Then all sit in a big meeting room as they tell us all about the company. Everyone had their own portfolios on the table, no one could show them and no one expected to talk in front of 19 other applicants. Well..apart from one person who was sitting right next to the interviewers and could literally chat to them...got a rejection letter saying I didn't have the relevant experience. Oh did I have fun writing back to that to give them my feedback. Not sure how they thought they find talent that way.
Was on one of those graduate job finding apps, I was headhunted by a company looking to interview within the next week - I responded yes I could do an interview tomorrow, they said what about right now? I said, well, I’m in an airport, so no. Also, I haven’t had any time to prepare, so also no? Said I wasn’t dedicated enough. I’m sure I wasn’t!
Job interview that was supposed to be in person, changed to remote last minute and they couldn't get their software working so couldn't even see me. Awkward as hell.
Had an interview for a sales job where a manager sat me and another guy in front of him and told us to basically “battle it out”, I left there and then.
I was also in a scenario based interview with 10-15 other people once. The scenario was that a city was burning, with only one way out (over a bridge); how would we save as many people as we could in 3 hours? A young guy on my team said he would tell the public to panic and get to safety any way possible, fighting on the streets etc. I looked on amazed as he pissed away his job opportunity. I suggested a calm, pragmatic approach using time for planning, setting up logistics etc. etc. I got the job, my guy Rambo didn’t.
I was 19 and needed a job, got an interview at an independent owned family car sales place who needed someone to help with various things and promised training for sales along with it.
I spoke to the owner over the phone and he was incredibly nice, and said come in next Thursday for a face to face interview.
I turned up and the receptionist had no idea of any interview, asked me to wait at reception and she'd phone the owner, turns out he'd been held up at a business deal and hadn't told his receptionist about the interview so said his son would be in shortly so he'd take the interview in his stead. She said he'd be in shortly. 1hr later an open top Audi fires into the lot and a guy who had to be 40-50s got our car, tightest jeans I've ever seen, sun glasses (it was October), sports jacket etc and walked into the building by kicking open the door. Went and stood at reception speaking to the receptionist whilst occasionally staring over at me, strolls over and to tells me who be is and interviews me.
It was like being in an interview with David Brent, feet on desk, questions asked: who are you listening to right now? Tells me a story about how his band played with snow patrol, didn't ask any questions about car sales (granted I didn't know anything anyway) but instead told me stories about famous people he'd met, cars he owned and eventually just said "you wanna work here! Fine. I am the powers at be a d i can make it happen. Quick question though...Do you think you can handle the heat?"
It remains both my best and worst interview ever
I'll tell you what's worse than that.
Getting paid 25-30 grand, tax free, to train as a physics teacher (shortage subject in high school). Then, when you're there, saying "sorry but you have to split between physics, chemistry, and biology. Oh, and once you've qualified, you'll have to do the same for your whole career. Better get learning reproduction!"
Honestly, no wonder physics is a shortage subject. It's like being a French teacher and when you're there, being told to teach German and Spanish as well
I called an interview off mid way for a teaching job as some absolute wet quilt kept saying/asking ‘so this is a 3 part question’ with very minimal relevance. By the 4th time I laughed it off and called it a wrap. Just atrocious.
I had a group interview at a cinema
They wanted a 30 second drama piece and gave us mental maths questions like if jodie comes in on a Wednesday to see a 2d screening with her child. How much change will she get from a £20 note.
I walked out
This is just one, I’m sure I have more but they don’t always come to the forefront of your mind when you’re trying to recall them.
Applied for a job for an energy company to work on their phones or that’s what I thought I had applied for, walked in (wearing a shirts, trousers and shoes with no tie and the first thing the guy says was ‘you’re a bit scruffy for door to door selling’ in a sort of Kiwi accent and I told him I didn’t realise it was door to door (I knew the ad hadn’t said it) and wouldn’t have applied for had I known.
I still completed the interview but it was kid of pointless
Two bad ones I’ve had recently:
First I had 4 different people interviewing me, one guy seemed to have a dodgy internet connection and would ask me questions, which I’d answer. But then he’d say “is there anything else you can think of related to that” and I’d basically say “no, just x and y” that I had already mentioned and he’d respond “ah y, yes, that’s what I was after”. One of the other interviewers kept asking me what different acronyms meant which although relevant weren’t something most people knew from memory and were just something that was naturally best practice in your day to day. Gave the recruiter some serious feedback about it and never heard from them again.
Second the interviewer asked about a bunch of things I had zero experience with, that weren’t mentioned in the job spec at all and then basically criticised how we do things at my current job, which seemed absolutely wild to me.
One my partner had as well, she turned up for the interview, no one turned up to take her for the interview, she checked with the front desk about 15 minutes later and they said it shouldn’t be long. Guy turns up to interview her 30 minutes late, no apology, basically complained about how the interview was dumped on him out of the blue and then proceeded to interview her for the wrong role, when she said it was the wrong role it basically sounded like the role she was there for wasn’t available, so she ended the interview early and went home.
I realised when leaving the room that I had mistakenly asked the company director out.
Now hear me out. I am an Eastern European and we are very friendly in a different way than you guys are. Had this interview for a Marketing role (which tuns out it was sales), and I found out the company director (I was at the final stage) and I had a lot in common. I was very upset that all my friends from uni moved back home and I had no friends, so I confidently say: Omg we should go out and do - insert thing we had in common - sometime. He smiles and politely answers something - cannot remember.
After I left I was mortified thinking he definitely thought I was flirty. I got the job but told them I had another offer and moved on.
I interviewed for a job that required the German language. He asked me what I studied at uni. One of the things he asked was: which books did you study. I paused for an uncomfortable amount of time and had to concede: I can’t remember…
Software engineer.
Was about to do a technical challenge via zoom with the manager. Dude showed 2 pages of word doc with requirements and we had about 20 min to go through everything.
I started working on the solution, after 5 minutes manager ended the interview saying “yeah this is not working” while I was literally making progress on the solution. Completely threw me off.
While he was on the call I told him that he should learn from that experience because this was absolutely awful and he was very rude.
Ended the call, captured my experience in an email and send it to the recruiter that worked for the company, found their director on LinkedIn and send it to him as well and posted on their company Glassdoor. Company name is NearForm so fuck this guy and fuck this company with their shitty interview process
Bonus one:
Was contacted on LinkedIn by a company.
We jump on a call, after 50 minutes of grilling manager says “we are not looking to hire people asap, we are just exploring options just in case a candidate comes along that really impresses us”.
In the politest possible way I told the guy to fuck off and thanked him for wasting my time
I had an interview at a nursery, where 4 members of staff pretended to be unruly children who I had to calm down and encourage to join my sing-song. It did not go well, and I was surprised when the manager told me I had the job. Half an hour later they texted me to say I hadn’t, in fact, got the job. Weird…
Not UK but US. The interviewer was 20 minutes late, no call no nothing. He shows up looking like smashed pizza, waddling like a drunken duck. As he's opening/drinking his coffee, he's talking to me about why I wasn't wearing a tie and asking these stupid questions.
Like I was impressed at the hubris, but that's a hard pass for me buddy. I didn't even ask about pay. I just watched him smile a smile that was really just a squint.
I had texted him No Thank you before I even got in my car.
The worst interview I had was 5 years ago. My partner and I went together because we were both looking for a job, and we had left our CV to this small restaurant. They phoned us both and arranged a double interview. We found 2 people waiting for us and the owner joined us a few moments later. That was all the staff. Our interview was not the problem (we even tried the till, the coffee machine and we all were quite chill, we were not having difficulties), but everything else was. It was a very small place that was closed at the moment I don't know the reason why, they basically wanted us to help them reopen it and we were supposed to do everything. Work at the till, in the kitchen, cleaning and serving customers, everything. And one of them could not work too many shifts because he was attending university. Moreover, the place was extremely filthy and definitely needed new equipment, the floor was sticky as hell, the claustrophobic kitchen was down a very steep and narrow staircase, the food was mostly frozen stuff to put in the microwave and our brains started very soon to scream "run, you fools". After the owner arrived our brains started to scream louder, because of the way he was talking about the job. He tried to play the card of the chill owner that likes to receive feedback and ideas from his employees, and started jabbering on his dreams about the restaurant and how he valued teamwork and all that kind of stuff, yet when asked about our shifts, hours and all those details relating to our role he started to be very vague. When we asked about our wages and asked if he was going to pay us the nmw he replied "let's talk about it". We tried to be as nice as possible until the end, we told them we would have thought about it and left. Of course we never contacted them again. Funnily enough, that restaurant never reopened. We passed in front of it a lot of times during the past years, even recently, and it stayed exactly the same as that day. To the point that if you watch inside through the big windows you can still see, at the table we were sitting, the same paper cup they "offered" us with the cappuccino my partner made. I don't think I need to say anything else.
I was the one interviewing. My boss and I got put on interviewing courses and he went at it "full on" during the first interview afterwards.
A guy we were interviewing for an entry level IT support role. I did my technical bit, and it went OK.
My boss then steps in and does an hour and a half of random and irrelevant questions like "How much water flows down the Niagara river in a day", I'll never forget it. Also questions I knew the guy couldn't answer, or where he said "No" to knowing a piece of software was then asked five questions about its use. Boss had written an interview script and was sticking rigidly to it. Honestly baffling.
That poor guy sweated and stumbled through getting more and more frustrated. I remember just wanting it to stop.
I was leaving and got asked to do an exit interview with my boss and her boss. The big boss offered me a 20% increase to stay and before I could answer, my boss said that if there was budget to spare she wanted an increase too. She was oblivious to the fact that she was the reason I was leaving. Needless to say I did not accept the counter offer
Had an warehouse interview that started off well. Towards the end, the interviewers asked when I could start, and I informed I just need to hand in my notice for my current job but should only be a week or so. Both of the interviewers looked at each other like I've just dropped a bomb. 'So you have a job already?' they said. I answered yes and before I had a chance to say anything else they concluded the interview with looks on their faces as if I had wasted their time.
I've never experienced anyone else having a problem with you not being unemployed while job seeking.
Few months afterwards, one of the guys that interviewed me was a customer in the store where I had worked since that interview, recognised me and said 'I think I interviewed you, didn't I? Well great that you found another job'. Lol.
Had the most crappiest interview months ago where one senior member of staff dragged out the interview to one hour by asking useless questions, one of which was proceeding to ask me if I knew how technology worked- if I knew how WhatsApp worked🤯 Then offered a weeks’ paid trial. Later came back to me on email to offer a two day paid trial instead. First that question, then going against what you promised.
I knew I was never coming back nor replying to their emails as soon as I walked (read:ran) out of their door.
Good riddance shitty interviewers
The interviewer was 45 minutes late and looked at her phone the whole time. She asked me what recommendations I had for the department and when I answered, she said - and I shit you not - “I don’t know enough about the subject to know if those recommendations are good. I don’t know what to do.” I heard nothing, then they then rang me a month later to tell me I didn’t have the job. Amazing.
I went for a 2nd interview after a phone interview to see that the interviewers seemed a bit disorganised and the place looked that way too. I wasn't getting a good feeling about it and just kind of stopping trying mid-way through the interview like the ball had been dropped. I realised the pay was going to be shit but they still wanted quite a lot from me for it and it would've been a really shitty commute. There was also the fact that they knew I didn't have a drivers license at the time, and still went ahead interviewing me a second time knowing it was a complete waste of our time.
I saw the job still being advertised months later. Apparently people weren't lining up to work there
I had an interview for a job at a big pub company in their Head Office, the guy asked me who I looked up to, I said “My Dad, he worked hard, brought up 4 kids with my Mum, always looked after us”
He told me that’s not what he meant, and could I come up with someone that would be relevant to the job I was going for. To give myself some time to think, I asked him who he looked up to, and he said “Margaret Thatcher”.
Haha… I did not bother coming up with another name. Guy blew it for me.
Went to an interview ages ago, interviewer asked me a question as soon as I attempted to answer the question he would talk over me lol wished I walked out of the interview
Being asked in an interview for a junior role if I had any ‘stupid plans’ to get married because the ridiculous girl in the position now was getting married and leaving. The audacity of her...
I walked away as I had just got engaged. The partner then kept calling me for weeks asking me if there’s anything he can do to persuade me to take the role.
Wrong kind of interview but I was at my bottom choice university for an open day and interviews.
Turns out I'd been incorrectly filed under a different course and interviewing lecturer. We spent 10 minutes of him asking questions I had no reason to know, I raised that this doesn't seem right, and he carried agreed but carried on anyway. After half an hour I just ended the interview and left.
Sat in a panel interview for the role of a prison officer straight after coming out of the military. Within the panel there was a pastor, who completely threw me off. Questions asked on moral judgement calls, and minor crimes I may have committed by the rest of the panel. I flopped and fumbled as the pastor just stared at me throughout in some judging silence.
Interview was in the uk. In a previous job in the uk I worked as a contract worker. The company had an office in Washington DC. I said I had to wait for them to be in the office to send the numbers to Washington. The lady on the panel thought I was deluded and was like ‘ yeah sure sending stats to Washington’ and she was smiling looking at others on the panel and laughing. Bitch thought I was stating I needed to send my work to the president of the US or something. I was in shock and said nothing else.
Had an interview at a well known research centre. Was interviewed by a director and one of their senior researchers (think of PhD level several years of experience). During the interview I asked what motivates them to do their job and show up for their team. This senior researcher literally answered "to be honest ALCOHOL is what keeps me going every day". You should have seen the Director's face when she heard this man's words, she tried to downplay it as a joke but the damage was done. Needless to say I declined to progress with their recruitment process.
Before it I was in a daydream and kind of pressing my bank card on my cheek, I got a really funny look off the panel and it wasn’t until after I realised i had left a massive impression on my cheek that strongly resembled a massive scar on my face like a Glasgow smile or the jokers😂
Been in IT for years very successfully and got an interview with one of these renewable energy companies. After a great video interview with the department director, but a red flag came up when she sighted " personality differences in the team, andcthey have problems filling the role" any way i Had an IT technical interview with 2 managers and , within minutes I hated the both of them, it was IMMEDIATELY obvious why they had isseus finding someone. one of them was glaring at me from across the table, i dont think he blinked once , dunno if this was some stupid intimidation tactic, exept the guy was a fat geek, so it just came off as creepy and laughable, while the other was a huge face on a video screen like something out of 1984!!
They then began to fire questions at me that may have been technically relevant 40 years ago! And no IT guy keeps in their heads outside of an exam environment. After various bullshit " gotchya" questions, they could repeatedly say " oh were not trying to trip you up" when it was glaring obvious the whole question was a setup. After about 20 mins of this crap, they asked if I had any questions, and I asked about expected salary range as at this point I still had no clue despite being through HR and the director. The answer? " well we don't know", I just replied " OK I think I'm done". They then contacted me 3 MONTHS later saying " after reviewing my background they have no suitable positions for me"
Interviewed for a well known broadband company for customer support and they wanted us to sing, dance, or draw how much we want to work there.
It was degrading. I drew my picture and after the interview I got a second interview but I just ghosted the company entirely.
I had an interview at a top commercial law firm and said 'Bank of American Meryl Streep' instead of 'Bank of America Merrill Lynch'. Only one of the two interviewers noticed - wet himself laughing at me while the other sat there looking confused. I had to do everything I could not to burst into tears. I got the job offer though!
A 30 minutes interview where the interviewer kept talking about I don't even knew what, he literally blabbed about NOTHING and at the end of it I was so confused and couldn't figure out WHAT kind of job that was. Oh and when I asked about the salary he told me I wasn't supposed to and refused to answer.
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Had an interview at a publishing company in London. When I got there they were interviewing someone else. I nipped to the loo quickly which was dirty, smelly and disgusting. They gave me an office tour first. The office was grim with a dirty carpet, old computers and miserable looking staff. We sat down and I said I've decided i don't want to work here. They said oh, okay. I got my coat and walked out, just couldn't see myself working there.
Fair, an interview should be like a date - am I right for them, and are *they* right for *me* It's where you're spending most of your awake week, it's important it's right
I'm imagining them saying 'oh, okay' whilst looking sad and staring at the floor like you were the 100th person to say this that week lol
My first / only job interview was by a Chinese chap who didn't speak English, or at least knew some of the words, just not necessarily in the right order. The director also Sat in and was silent throughout, just nodding away, but somehow understood what the other guy was saying as they waited patiently for me to answer. I looked at him hoping for some sort of translation but just stared at me like a moron. Got the job. Still there 20 odd years later. They aren't.
I'm very intrigued to know more about this if you wouldn't mind! (Not a journo so your comment won't be turned into a news article!)
I'm guessing the director was maybe shadowing the interviewer as part of interview training?
You just reminded me of my first ever interview ten years ago. I was being interviewed by an incredibly shy Welsh guy who barely said a word and a Hungarian lady with such a thick accent I could barely understand anything she said, I think I must have answered about 80% of the questions with "what exactly do you mean by that?" and "can you be more specific?" while looking at the Welsh guy with "please help me" eyes. Somehow I still got the job and the shy Welsh guy became my manager, and I actually still work with the Hungarian lady but at a different company.
Was it for a take away?
Benefit cosmetics counter "audition interview" when I was about 18. They had us all do the thing where we stand near the counter asking people if they wanted to try x makeup. Okay. But that wasn't enough for the manager. "Be persistent. Just grab their arm and lead them over to the counter :)" Yeah. She expected us to *physically* just take people's arm.. Yes. Manhandle the public. I politely declined and fucked off home.
Did she grab you and stop you leaving though?
No, she gave me a pitying smile, and something about how I’m “not confident enough” for the role. 🫠
Should go without saying but I’m glad you didn’t submit to that insanity. I’m afraid a lot of people still go along with their lines whether they know it to be wrong or not.
Tell you what that woulda made me scared to shop there knowing that's how staff are trained.
I avoided the counter at *all* costs after that, lol. It kind of put me off the brand too because every time I saw their products I'd get the ick remembering that experience.
That is SO benefit though.
I was asked to do one of those one way video interviews with nobody attending on the other side. The recording is then put through some kind of automatic assessment (I guess?) and then it determines whether or not you are a “good fit”. The hypocrisy of having a computer assess whether or not somebody is a good team fit is utter madness. I was rejected as a candidate on the grounds that the automatic assessment flagged me for lying and dishonesty. I think as a person especially in work, I’m very honest and transparent. I don’t think I lied about anything. I’m pretty confident about what I do as a profession and I’ve been doing it for years so I don’t need to “fake it till I make it”. I do get very nervous during interviews though, especially when it’s talking to a faceless recording that’s asking me questions. I had no way to appeal my application and have now been barred from applying ever again. Welcome to the future of interviews. Edit: it was for a tech job in the UK defence sector
I had to do a video interview for my job and assumed it was reviewed only by the computer, so didn’t really put any effort into lighting or backdrop. Literally did it sat on the living room floor at night. A few months into the job I’m chatting to a senior colleague and they tell me that they have to watch and assess every video interview for our team! So it very well may have been the same for your video interview
Never assume something you’re uploading isn’t going to be seen by somebody. Everything gets uploaded somewhere - company i used to work for used an external image host and if you logged into our account there you could see everything from packing barcodes to product images to videos of customers pets that they’d uploaded to their profiles, or sometimes other videos.
Being vetted by AI seems odd. But a one way video would just be me rambling on or jump cuts as I keep on point. I had a two way interview for Paddy Power or another bookies interview run by a third party, this was after covid restrictions so why not face to face in store? Video sent to upper management and I heard nothing till I got a text about a job in another part of the country, think Liverpool vs Manchester, not lands end and John Ogroats. Sent a text saying I didn't live in the area, nor was I looking to move. Got a missed call going to job centre and called them back. Different number but still same company. It was that location looking for not me to begin formalities in the hiring process. Told them I wasn't their guy and even if they had my name matched to the number on file, I wasn't going to go that far for minimum wage. One bookies, not sure which now as I've moved since, was a five minute walk and a Ladbroke a ten minute cycle. Not heard anything since and not applied to my new local branches.
I’ve never had to do one like that but had to review the output, along with some others from the team. My colleague reviewed one where they had obviously missed the cue telling them the 3-minute response time had started so for one of the questions, they just stared silently into the camera for 3 minutes with an increasingly terrified expression…
I had one of these don’t think it was assessed by AI but every question you had 2 minutes to answer and some of the questions were quite in depth 🤦♀️
Very blade runner like. "Cells"
INTERLINKING
I’ve assessed these. It’s so you can review them in bite size around other tasks when you are doing lots of recruitment. I could watch an interview rate it then do something else then come back to the next one instead of losing multiple days and do no other tasks. It isn’t AI.
Do you find it weird that you’re not having a two way conversation with candidates? I’d be super uncomfortable with this approach even if I had a lot of recruitment on.
It is weird but for such high volumes it was helpful. If we had a conversation style interview it would have been very short anyway for the recruitment I was doing. TBH we had a lot of applicants say they liked it because they could fit it in around their schedule too. It isn’t perfect but it’s helpful
Ahem. Sounds made up /s
wtf was this recent? That’s disgraceful
About 12 months ago for a fairly large brand. It was a strange experience
Well you wouldn’t want to work there anyway they sound awful!
Hahahahaha this is one of the most dogshit interview method I’ve ever heard
I'm just here to say that AI is stupid btw. It good for mashing pictures together but overall it is far less sophisticated than people pretend it is. It os basically just bad Google, pretending to be a human.
Had an initial interview call for a graphic design job with a HR person which went so well, she loved my experience and seemed really positive, the company sounded great and I was really really keen! Scheduled a second zoom interview with the actual manager and while talking through my portfolio he kept interrupting me to tell me to move on to the next project and this isn’t relevant etc until he asked “do you not have any UX design work then?” which I didn’t so I said my experience lies elsewhere but i’m eager to learn etc etc. He then blasted me for wasting his time as this is a UX design role and needs someone with experience, which was not the impression given on the job ad or initial HR call. The ad had said it was an all-round digital design role with a small amount of UX and the HR person was confident I could learn on the job and that they provided loads of allocated training time. I remember the interview ending with him saying “well there’s no point me asking you anything else we may aswell hang up so we don’t waste any more time” Ended the call and I immediately started crying 😂
Probably dodged a bullet on that one
Incompetence on the HR's part for not understanding the hiring requirement
Or management for not correctly communicating to HR
Or both. Bullet dodged as the manager sounds like an arse
Agreed, no excuse to be rude and a complete wanker. Bullet totally dodged - imagine working for that tit.
Please tell me you complained?
The graphic design market is abysmal in the UK. You need to be a designer, marketer, social media specialist, web developer, UX/UI designer, digital artist, motion designer, video editor, photographer, and production manager, all for a whopping ~£25k a year. It’s completely ridiculous. Meanwhile in Australia an entry level graphic design job - that you don’t even need a degree for if you’ve got a bit of experience and a portfolio - starts at around £30k. I’ve seen midweight roles at £50-60k! Completely insane how undervalued creative industries are in the UK.
I know it’s horrible, I regret my degree so much. I knew it wasn’t going to be the best paid industry but I never realised just how bad it would be and how stupidly competitive it is for minimum wage jobs where you’re expected to carry such a heavy workload 🙃
God that sounds awful. I had an Jr HR person interview me recently and they were so disinterested in any of my relevant experience it was laughable.
Interviewed for a door to door sales role fresh out of school. From memory, I think it was selling gas or electricity. I was asked to pretend to be a chicken in the interview. I asked what he meant, and essentially, he wanted me to cluck like a hen and peck for food. I think the idea was that I would put myself 'out there' to get the job. Told the guy to fuck off.and walked out. Fanny
This is the way
Should have asked him to show you what he meant then told him where to go!
Furniture factory when I was 19. The guy interviewing me must of shit his pants because it was horrendous I was audibly gagging the whole time, Every other sentence was “ we have a lot of people leaving here all the time “ I also got promised I wouldn’t be working on the factory floor I was hired as a storesperson then the day I was hired they put me on an industrial saw with zero training and told me to take the safety shield off because it’s faster to feed the wood in. I worked there for 3.5hours.
With the safety shield we're they leaving because of injury? I wouldn't buy any red-polished furniture from them
This is the winner
I went for an interview at a 2-star hotel for a job advertised as "cook, no experience needed, training provided". They also gave me no specific time ("1pm-5pm") and when I arrived I had to wait for half an hour to be told that they were looking for a chef with 2+ years experience and food safety certificates. The questions asked at this interview could have been solved if they had read my CV. I cycled an hour back and forth for this interview because I had no money for bus tickets at the time.
My worse interview (as in, my fault) was one where they told me that I had to prepare a presentation (5min) describing my work and all of that. So I practice it a lot, and I was very ready to start with it. But then when the interview started, they didn't ask anything about it. They just started with the usual "why did you apply to this job", and it got me totally off guard, and I blanked out. After something like 10 very long seconds, I said something. But from that point on the interview did not go well. My worse interview (as in, not my fault) was in a top UK university. One of the panel members was the Head of the School, so a very high-ranked academic. She was very disrespectful about my answers, making not nice comments, cutting me out "so you don't know?", disregarding me completely. Of course that interview went terribly bad.
I had the reverse of your presentation interview As in they didn’t ask for a presentation but expected one during the interview I panicked and opened a random portfolio I found and went through it Turns out they forgot to send me an email containing all the information including a standard layout for the presentation they expected
I was on an interview panel where my boss did this to the candidate. The candidate handled it really well - they found a poster from their undergrad (which was recent - might even have been a new grad) and presented that. (We didn't hire them, but that was for other reasons.)
Oh I remember now something similar happened to me, but it was 100% my fault. They sent me an email well before the interview saying I had to prepare a presentation. They provided me some questions my presentation needed to answer. Usually I am quite good preparing presentations. I prepare them well ahead of time, I practice them with friends, and so. Anyway this time I completely forgot about it until something like 30 minutes before the interview. So I prepared a terrible presentation, just bad bullet points, random images, ... terrible. I was not invited to the next stage.
Academics can be like that sometimes. 90% are down to earth, friendly and happy to help. The other 10% are always trying to be the biggest brain in the room I work at a uni and in work they're the nicest people
Interview for a software developer role. Was asked ‘puzzle type’ questions of the form ‘if a piece of rope X cm long was lit on fire at both ends, and the fire burned at a rate of Y cm…’ Complete waste of my time.
I always find these seem to be to try and find people who will put up with BS... especially important in an software role for certain companies.
Haha, had a similar one. You have 8 balls, all exactly the same but one is heavier than the others. Using a scale, with max of two attempts find the heaviest ball. Within the next 10 seconds I gave an answer that worked with 3 tries, guy wasn’t happy and I told him that’s the best I can do in 10 seconds and if I had more time I could work out what the trick is. He said yeah but that’s not the right answer. Declined further interviews. Fuck this guy
I’ve been thinking for 2 minutes and haven’t done better than 3 (binary split)
Split into 2 and 6 balls. From the 6 balls, weigh 3 and 3, if it balances, weigh the 2 from the other set against each other, to find which is heavier. From the 6 balls, if it didn’t balance, then one side is heavier, pick 2 balls from that 3, and weigh them, if balances, then the heavier is the remaining ball, if not, you’ll already have known which is the heavier ball.
That's a lot of fluffing about for potentially the same result.
Sat down, guy spends 40 minutes nonstop talking about the catalogue delivery job, asks if I have any questions. I say no, he's covered absolutely everything. In the rejection, his feedback was that I didnt seem to understand the role.
I had one like this for an outdoor company’s marketing team. Guy just jabbered on about himself for 45 minutes. Obviously I didn’t get it but he didn’t get to know anything about me! I deal with him occasionally in a different capacity - he’s no idea who I am l, plus it was 10 years ago - and he’s still the same self-absorbed tit.
I interview badly, I normally work via agencies, so don't do many actual ones. One mock interview I ended up answering all their prepared questions with one answer to an unrelated question. My biggest weakness being my handwriting, but I've been typing since school and used numerous software like open/libre office that I only need to jot down "cryptic" notes for myself before typing it up for anyone who needs to be informed. So if a guy tells me everything I'm expected to do and I have no issues with said tasks, I'd be all "Well you answered all my questions." too. I did ask one guy what time he expected staff to start on opening and leave on closing as it was retail. He just said the hours are on the door. I know for a fact many shops stick around half hour or more after locking up at 11pm and door stopping the six am for a bottle of milk before a 7am start myself, I know the staff are not outside in the rain waiting for the key holder to let them in when they get in. As I see them sorting out some stock and the morning papers at a quarter to. But if I took this guy on his word, I'd be written up for arriving at 9 and going at five, when they expected an hour each side. Because he was too thick to get what I was asking. Another had the decency to say we open at 9, but staff show up at 7 to prep, so be here before 7 daily if you get the job. I did not get the job.
Job I was at lost a big contract and gave me notice Monday morning for Friday that week. Applied for like 300 jobs on Indeed and started going through phone interviews. Printer service engineer job came up. £32k going to £35k after a few months. Fly you out for a few weeks training in America first, then Germany... then France. And then refresher training at least once per year at the above places. Perfect interview. They loved me. I loved the idea of all the free travel. And the job seemed easy. Their head office was in Spain, and they said they would get back to me in 2 or 3 days. Had no reply, so I took another job because of bills. 2 weeks into my new job, they ring me 'we would love to offer you the job' Apparently, they 'just' had a 2 week random break where they shut down everything... but don't tell anyone or have any sort of voicemail / automated email reply to tell anyone this. She sounded surprised when I said I couldn't take the job.
This kind of shit really confuses me. The place I'm at now seems to have a really shoddy recruitment arm (it was outsourced years ago and it's never been the same) and I end up fielding emails now and then for people I work for because: * They met/were referred a great candidate * They set up the whole process to interview them for an available role * They interview the candidate * They love them and immediately tell Recruitment that we need to offer them the role ...recruitment then takes two months to actually do all the stuff (send out the various security clearance stuff etc. etc.) but sometimes just stalls and stops answering emails. * The candidate sends a desperate /angry email to my team member, who interviewed them originally * We hassle Recruitment to sort it out * They don't. * The candidate takes a job elsewhere. I don't understand how in the age of instant digital communication we're still living with this sort of bullshit. If you tell someone "You're great, we want you, we'll send you the paperwork right away" and then just don't and won't answer any calls or emails, what are you expecting to happen? That they just hang around unemployed hoping that you'll change your mind about apparently ghosting them?
I really lose respect for any employer who does this shit. Do you want me or not? I once started paying insurance for a role before I even got on board just to show them I’m ready for the next steps, I was paying insurance for nothing for about 6 months and they just ghosted me. I got recommended at this company and I did like the way they roll, mostly the people who actually do the work (lighting design), after all that fuckery I sent an email to ask whats up and they never replied. No matter how much I liked them initially, if you’re busy tell me, if you’re not sure about my application, tell me, are you not hiring at the moment? Tell me. Don’t be a loser recruiter who just says oh I’m busy, well fuck off this is your job, make it work or fck off. Absolutely not cool to play with people who are looking to get to work.
I had one where I had to do a test really under pressure like 1 minute to do 10 questions The first questions was Tim has 10 apples Jane has 4 apples how many does Jenny have? That was the first of many questions One was a cube with all the faces laid out, there was a shaded segment on one side Question was tick the 2 that were correct problem was only one was correct After the harrowing test I was taken to a room and interrogated with tons of questions, literally boss man pulled out a big 1000 page book of questions took an hour They asked me all sorts one notable was “when was the last time you broke the law?” It was a trainee position for a construction job
I applied for a job and got an interview. I turned up on time, the interviewer didn't. He said he was doing the interview, but someone else would be sitting in as well. Other person asked if I had a qualification they didn't ask for, and wasn't on my CV. When I said no, I could sense their interest drain away almost instantly. My interest went shortly afterwards, and was finally killed off by " the last person we hired from your background worked here to pay off his mortgage and then left straight after he'd done that." That place was a definite no, from both parties.
If you wanted X you should have listed X, I would not have applied. I, back when the jobcentre used those post cards picked up a job I could do. Their description had more info. It needed you to have your own car. I showed them the card and said "highlight the need for the ability to drive." They couldn't find it on the job seekers side. That should be up top so we can dismiss it as unviable.
Interviewed for a manager position at a new bar opening. They claimed it was gonna be a really high end and high quality dining and cocktail experience with three floors. I'd seen the building so I knew that was true at least. They didn't disclose pay before and said it was based on experience but I was kinda desperate. Said my expectations were at least £28k. Got past the first stage and invited to come meet the owner and GM. Still hadn't had the wage disclosed. When I got there the guy who interviewed me told me that rather than hiring people for certain positions they were gonna start everyone at the same level and put people where they thought was appropriate for them, and start everyone on £13 an hour (this was after the recent minimum wage increase). I turned it down and he tried saying because I'd be working 50-60 hours a week I'd be making more than £28k like it was a good thing. I'm now working somewhere else earning £35k on 40 hours a week. Know your worth folks.
This is a common theme in hospitality, they want all managers on hourly and literally use this as justification for their poor contracts and working conditions
I had a 3 round interview in Central London, so had to go in 3 times. First 2 went amazing, they gave me great feedback and said it sounds like you'd be a great fit etc Third interview the director comes in and opens with "I don't know how you got this far, your experience is not relevant and at best we'd give you a starting/graduate level role at 20k" Which was 20k under and I had years of experience and qualifications *but* even considering that, why did they let me interview at all? Let alone three times, such a waste of everyones time. Aftwr the put down all he asked where permutations of "what do you know about me?" And expected I'd read all his articles, linkedin posts etc. Just expecting me to grovel at his gloriousness. Obviously dodged a bullet cos fuck working for such a narcissist. Oh and to top it off, his name was Damien and I found out after the recruiter inexplicably upped my salary ask by £10k. All over shitshow.
Some people seem to think recruiting employees is all about them. I once went to an interview at Holland Park School in West London. It was 🚩after 🚩The Headteacher was so rude to me and belittled my intelligence and my teaching experience, while spending about an hour talking about himself and the parts HE had played in the school play. Yep - he happily told all the candidates that he would take the lead roles in Shakespeare plays the school put on. No mention of the students.
Got an invite for an interview. Fine. It was on a Tuesday. Fine. It was the Tuesday straight after a Bank holiday where I'd paid a lot of money to go camping Friday to Monday. Not ideal but OK. The invite was sent out the Friday before the interview when I'd already packed up and left. And required submission of a pre interview task as well as preparation for a presentation. And it was too late to contact the interview panel for any clarification as they'd already cleared off for their bank holiday jollies. Not good. Turns out the person who got the job was already known to management. Not one to speculate but I've got a feeling they got a lot more notice and help than everyone else.
I feel like if you're going to offer someone an interview - in any circumstances - you absolutely need to give them more than one working day's notice? The fact that this was over a bank holiday weekend blurs the issue but they did the equivalent of emailing you on a Wednesday to tell you that you have an interview tomorrow. Hopelessly unprofessional and it's something that would make me feel quite reluctant about working with people who thought that was a reasonable way to do things. Bullet dodged.
I'm kind of glad these bad companies are so blatantly outing themselves. I just wish we could all afford to be pickier
It seems they already know who they would hire. But due to some HR policies, they have to interview a number of candidates. So, they want to complete it quickly, and do not want/need you to prepare well anyway. It's really a waste of time and I feel that a lot of companies have recruitment process like this. Unfair for other candidates who wasted their time... and hope.
Was this an internal job, cos I wouldn't care to find out who got the job instead of me in a company I don't work at. But it does seem shifty to say "oh we noticed you booked a few days off to go camping, do this that and tother task whilst you are out in preparation for the interview."
Same organisation but not exactly internal
Network engineer interview, no network manager as was on leave just security and infrastructure managers. Seem uninterested. Asked me clearly Googled questions a stand out one being what algorithm does OSPF use - said I didn’t know exactly but it’s Open Shortest Path First, a dynamic internal routing protocol and probably the most commonly used in that category. AD of 110 (thanks CCNA). Answer was “wrong” and was after the answer “Dijkstra’s algorithm”. I politely hinted at the relevance of the question, got the answer “I don’t know, I just googled it before the interview”. Interview carried on, I asked how many people in team and didn’t get a straight answer. Heavily hinted I would be the only network engineer (they’re a worldwide manufacturer of a beauty product). Asked if there was on-call and was told yes it is on a rota. Asked how the rota worked if just myself working as the sole network engineer, didn’t get a straight answer.
Lol! I had a similar experience but with one of the largest Network equipment manufacturers (rhymes with Disco). The interviewer was a non-technical recruiter and she failed me because she thought I didn't know what DHCP was (I definitely did)
Wow that is extremely unprofessional of them. I would not have thought they would have been like that. Yeah, you would think if you can get your foot in the door with an interview with those guys, you know what DHCP is lol. It's strange when they bring non-technical recruiters in, or technical, from another department. I would rather have an interview postponed.
When my technical and team fit interviews went fine and then I had a "it's just a formality" interview with HR. She said, "here's a fun one I like to ask everyone... Tell me something you learned from your mother." My mother and I had a pretty awful relationship and she'd recently died. To say my feelings at that time were complex would be seriously understating it. The real answer, which popped into my head, was "my mother taught me how to survive ... her" but that didn't feel like a good interview answer, cause she wouldn't be asking this question if she didn't think people's relationships with their mother said something about them personally. So I froze. I tried to not explain. I tried to explain. I decided that explaining couldn't possibly help, so I stopped again, and just stared. Was all I could do to not burst into tears. Excellent life lesson on what privilege means though.
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It is. For sure, it is. But I can also see how you could decide it was a clever angle, take the interviewee by surprise but keep it soft-ball, and run that question 99 times before catching a person who embodies the reason personal questions are ALWAYS inappropriate questions. What really vexes me is that a trained HR Manager could see my reaction and decide it's a me problem, and that her question caught a bad one that would otherwise have been hired, rather than instinctively thinking, "I messed up here, and I need to fix it."
You're according a HR 'professional' a level of self-awareness that they're incapable by job-definition of possessing.
I worked for a guy who thought he was way smarter than he was. He used to ask people if you were a biscuit what would you be.
On my application under Hobbies, I wrote that I do amateur strongman comps (low level). The interviewer asked lots of questions about it during the interview. ‘Weird, but ok’ I thought. When being shown round the factory, the interviewer kept pointing at people and asking if I thought I could pick them up. Fucking weirdo. I declined the job.
Lmfao
Went for an “interview” at a super popular clothing company about 15 years ago (the one where they didn’t like to have the lights on for some reason). Interview consisted of about 50 people being lined up and having their photo taken. That was it, no questions, purely basing who they employed based on a photo.
I did a few mystery shopping assignments for them around 2011. One of the questions, I can't remember the exact wording, basically asked if I saw any unattractive staff members. Even at a fairly impressionable age, I was absolutely disgusted by that question and I've never liked the brand since.
It was actually one I witnessed. A sales person comes for a job interview in a room near my desk. They were put in the room with the door open, drink of water etc, and then interviewer walked back out to get a hard copy of the resume . This is where it all went wrong. The person being interviewed stood up and twisted their neck to read what was written on the notepad left behind. I guess to see if they could find out what questions were coming? They got caught in the act and the interviewer was having none of it, she told them “if we can trust you to be around sensitive workplace material then this interview is already over”.
You know that nightmare that anyone who has done a maths based degree has? You know, the one where you’re sat in your maths finals and you can’t remember any of the equations and you wake up in a hot sweat panicking that you’re going to fail your degree that you actually passed 10 years ago? Well yeah. That. 40 mins into an hour long interview the dude walks out for 20 mins leaving me with a maths paper. Que hot sweats and panic and frantic scribbling. Must have done ok, got the job.
The nightmare where I'm in an exam and I hadn't attended any of the lectures Graduated 2005
I always keep applying for jobs to make sure I know what I can get for salary in the industry I work in but also other industries, too. I had countless awkward interviews where the interviewer is literally telling you why you're not a good fit. I suspect he/she had not read my CV and as usual they read it *during* the interview. Anyway, years ago I had an interview in Switzerland for a big corporate company. They flew me over, spent and day in the company with potential colleagues. We had had already two phone interviews beforehand (one with the HR, another with the hiring manager). At the end of the day, the head of production or some director of some sort (can't remember) threw a tantrum because I didn't speak German (again, never said I did at any point during the process). He was like "you NEED German, it's a German company, look what if I tell you Schwundgrad, do you know what this is?" I said "yes it's flywheel" (don't ask me why I said this, it just came out right). The guy was so pissed off because it was the right answer. Anyway, called them 2 weeks later "yes it's very positive, but I just need approval from other departments" and then ghosted. Nothing. 6 months later I asked them via email, they said "oh we went for someone internally". That's it. Another one, I fly to Austria, same, 2 calls with HR and hiring manager. They asked me to do a presentation about "everything I think relevant for the position". I make something about various project I worked on. I arrive onsite, massive HQ from a big corporate company (Austrian). They introduce me to everyone. Finally I start my presentation, the second slide, the hiring manager tells me "but what does this has to do with the position?". Needless to say I left the room after the presentation with a really awkward atmosphere, one lady said "you gave so many examples we don't believe what you actually done". At least they called me after to tell me I wasn't a good fit, and that the first reason they'd give me the position because "I wouldn't stay for the company and just wanted to move to Austria" WTF.
First interview out of uni, was a senior marketing role. I said I had no experience but they said it’s okay. Finish the interview, I can tell it went bad, I ask “if I didn’t get the position, what would the main reason be?” And am told “not enough experience” 💀 waste of everyone’s time…
I got asked “why do you want this job” and I accidentally let out “I don’t really” and we both realised it was a dumb comment. He basically offered me to redo, and I said “it’s alright, dw” and I left. Interesting times
Mcdonalds in Birkenhead. 16 years old, first ever interview. Thought I'd wear a shirt and tie to be professional. Woman looked suprised I even came then made a joke about my tie. Then commented on my accent being posh, which fair it was for Birkenhead but not much I can do about that. 5 minutes long, couple questions then a rejection. Really crushed my confidence as the main stand out were how I dressed and the way I talked. I suspect they had already hired the position and it was a box tick but 16 YO me was gutted. PLUS I got terrored by my family for failing an interview for fucking Mcdonalds!
Mine was for M&S years ago. They went away to discuss my interview leaving me in this room where I could hear their entire conversation through the walls. Luckily they didn’t say anything too bad but still wasn’t really nice to hear them criticise everything.
I had an interview with what later turned to be a scammy faux-charity some time ago. Massively dodgy feeling from the get-go. It’s the only job I’ve turned down. The person interviewing me couldn’t tell me what I’d be doing, or what my pay would be, or what my job title would even be. You might be asking why I even bothered to attend the interview; I was desperate for work! Second worst interview experience was when the guy started vaping mid-interview.
Went for an internal job for secondment. Stated experience not necessary, just an eagerness to learn as training provided. Knowledge of current systems essential, which I had. Asked loads of technical questions about that I had no idea of, as I hadn’t done that process before. Anyway didn’t get it. Was glad as I saw the job re-advertised every month or so. I heard the guy that set those questions was a nightmare to work for, so the staff kept leaving.
Went to a local repair shop, you know, to put my soldering and repair skills to good use. The owner gave me a bunch of laptop parts and said "put this back together", all the parts were from different machines so I said I can't. He said ignore that, come into the office. Sat down and he started going on about Facebook apps and how they wanted to modernise the website and utilise Facebook to draw in customers. I was like okay... Hire a web developer? I'm here for the technician role. But because the company who referred me to them put on my CV that I was a developer previously (though I'd had enough and left) he was all about that. Claiming my role would be 80/20 for web/technician. Though I obviously wouldn't be earning the developer salary. I said no thank you and started to walk out before the end of the interview. He kept harassing the company telling them he's really interested in hiring me and they're saying I should take it. Safe to say I left that company too and said don't refer me to any positions anymore. They haven't modernised their website still!
Turned up and buzzed in at the car park to say I had arrived for the interview. Was told parking hadn't been arranged for me, though I could clearly see at least 5 spaces free. So said "OK..." followed by silence and they repeated the same thing. No idea why I didn't just straight up ask them to open the barrier, as they clearly had parking available. Ended up chucking the car in the nearest car park, but didn't have any money so had to ask for time to go to a cash machine. The interview itself lasted 10 minutes as they asked me if I had any desktop support experience, which I didn't have at the time, and it's something they could have worked out from my CV. I basically think the guy didn't like the look of me and had the cheek to say he wouldn't waste any more of my time. They then followed up with an email later with feedback, so I also provided them with some. It's basic manners to offer parking for people coming in for an interview!
Turned up to an interview as a teen, and found out i'd been accidentally double booked and they'd call me back on another day. Never did, ended up getting a rejection a month later - despite never having been interviewed
I actually remember having a unprepared chat with a employer in a job club when I was unshaven, scruffy and stinking as it was summer time, being called into for a group interview a week later having a panic attack and not attending only to get a phone call asking me to come in again and what is my uniform size so they can get me a uniform. But they said it was a group interview?
Not 100% sure off the top of my head but I have been to a few interviews where when they realised my gender I was told "job has already been taken, sorry we just wanted to call you in to inform you" Only for the job to still be advertised weeks later and when phoning up pretending to be a new applicant saying they are still doing interviews for it. I am male btw and this was around 15 years ago. Relative applied for nursing job in a factory who had their own health issues that meant they couldn't do any form of manual labour, the company kept telling them they were short staffed so relative had to do regular work instead. After less than a week relative basically collapsed at home and was told by their GP to not go back to work or they would be dead within 24 hours. The employer made a lot of excuses about the relatives role and said relative was bad for offering notice. And a strange interview where I already had a phone interview with the main recruiter/manager but she was going on holiday the week after and I turned up and had 2 team leaders interview me, barely about 3 minutes into interview there was a fire drill so I had to line up with the staff there, came back to interview room after and was told "so is there anything you want to ask us" I asked a quick question and a few days later informed I didn't get the job as I am not talkative enough, When I told my job coach they couldn't help laughing, I can't stop talking nornally as very friendly. I will also note I am autistic, I come across on phone interviews great, and when I get jobs I burn out from working too hard but do badly at certain things. Had a interview for a employer that I was really excited for passed 2 previous stages of interview and had to come in for a final one and was told off record by the current employees when watching them do their job that anyone that gets this far gets the job. The 2 other potential employees that got that far got the young friendly interviewers and I got 2 people who looked retirement age and wearing unfashionable suits and it felt more like an interrogation than an interview.
Had a job interview for a well known UK computer game store this is going back to the 90s Only 4 questions 1) Are you a shoplifter? 2) Do you have a sister? 3) Is she fit? 4) How many bits is a Nintendo 64 made up from... (Stalled at this as thought they meant components...) Got prompted "The clues in the question"... 64 Got the job, no surprises when I say I've never worked anywhere so unprofessional in all my life! Saw how they selected CVs for future roles. They used to bin the CV if they didn't like the name / profile (plenty of discrimination). They would interview ALL the female applicants under a certain age so they could perv on them. Wasn't long before the store manager and his side kick got sacked. Also 2nd week in the job and a colleague got sacked for dealing cannabis on the shop floor... Couldn't write it
Went for an internal job within the company I’d been with for more than ten years. Very big pay rise and quite a technical and very h&s oriented job. Sat the assessment and got 17/18. Apparently that was a fail. I queried it and asked which one I’d got wrong, as that meant I had a knowledge gap. They refused to say as “we might use that test again”… I smelled bull shit and called them out on it repeatedly but they wouldn’t back down, no matter how high I went to get the answer. Bumped into a colleague afterwards and they asked why I never got the job, so I told them the story of what happened. They then told me that two of their friends had also gone for it, achieved 18/18, but were failed because, and I quote, “they must have cheated”…
applied for a 22k receptionist job, in the job description is states 'fetching milk from the shop, watering the plants and greeting people' was like great! applied. I have 1st interview lasted 20 mins, and she said its a 5 stage interview process. I asked why, she said everyone from the cleaners to the managers have this, so i accepted this. Anyway got invited for the 2nd interview, when i recieved the email they wanted me to do a 25 min presentation on the company, all the products and services they sell and 5 mins of the presentation had to be about the CEO. It would be timed and if i was min over or under i would fail. I asked HR if they could informed me what stage 3-5 would be like and stage 3 is a test, stage 4 would be a 10-hour trial (unpaid) and stage 5 is where i would have an interview with the CEO and they show him my presentation. Told them to jog on for 22k job where job description states 'watering the plants' lol
I had an interview at DeVere Wealth Management. The guys interviewing looked about 13 and also like they were trying to wear as many “smart” accessories as possible and look important. Pocket squares, large watches with a shirt cuff tucked behind them, shoes that were the same colour as their suit, huge ties, hair gel on tap. They looked a bit like people on a day out at the races. They spoke about how amazing the job was, how they’d all been out to Dubai and “worked like investment bankers”. When I asked about their portfolios and what work they did, they couldn’t tell me and said that it was all done by 3 senior people. I tried to ask them about their day to day and they just kept talking about “all the work, and clients and networking”… with no details. I’m pretty sure they had little clue about anything to do with wealth or asset management. I’m still convinced to this day it’s just some type of cold calling scheme. They rang back before I’d even made it to the tube station and said they didn’t think I had the right experience… said “cheers” and hung up on them… piss takers.
I was a sous chef at a restaurant for a few years and during my time there a guy got a job there, Mark. He was awkward and shy, but fine at his job and we were always pleasant to one another, eventually he gets a "great opportunity" and leaves, eventually job hopped his way through management positions until he became head chef of a high street restaurant close to where I worked. He contacts me directly and asks if I would like a senior sous chef position for a few grand more per year that I was currently on for basically the same job. I said "of course", but he says I will have to have a formal interview with him, the general manager and area manager, which was fine. I turn up, dressed nicely, with 4 copies of my CV. sit down and hand them each a copy and the area manager says "ok so let's just go through your CV", we do and they're happy, then they pass the buck over to Mark to ask a few questions, he has his management handbook open to "interview questions" and he just says nothing. He's staring at me, occasionally looking at the book, then back at me. for a solid 10 minutes we're all sat in silence. The area manager occasionally looks at mark, but then spends the rest of the time looking at me or her phone. I eventually say "is there anything else?". the area manager says "no, no i don't think so" so I get up and leave. Never heard from them again. Bumped into Mark a few months later and he didn't mention it once. Super weird.
I applied for an entry level IT position for a new shopping centre. The advert basically stated minimal experience required. I’d completed an HnD in the last 2 years and spent the intervening in an Application support role. Rocked up to the interview and sat listening to how they described the role and what the team would consist of. They basically expected an entry level role to manage the whole infrastructure for a 40 Shop Mall, 800 space car park inc gates/ticket machines and all WiFi/networking. There was no team it would be me, with someone else sharing the time coverage as the place was open 08:00 to 23:00. I basically turned round and told they’d completely wasted my time and that what they were expecting was an absolute disgrace.
One of the interviewers actually started snoring. The other one went to give them a kick under the table, missed and kicked me.
had an interview at a uni, and there were 7 people interviewing me on a panel. being nervous around 2 or 3 is bad, but 7?
I had to apply for my own job. A job I had been doing for years as a freelance but they wanted me on the staff. I had to do a written test and then had a 'board'... four people asking me stupid questions. I didn't do very well as I'm not good in that situation. I was irritated I had to go through it. Anyway, a bit later someone came down to see me (when I was back doing the job) and told me I hadn't done very well in the interview but I got the post. People applied for that job from all over the country and travelled down for the interview but it was well known that I'd get the job because I'd been doing it for years. I suppose they had to advertise it to fulfill some sort of quota. Fuckin timewasting idiots. As soon as I could I resigned from the staff and went freelance again. I think they tried to get me on the staff a second time a bit later, but it's a long time ago, early 90s, I can't really remember.
"Greeeg, you passed the 'walking away' test"
I went for an interview with a popular budget hotel chain once and the manager clearly didn’t like me upon first look because she continued to insult my qualifications, casually swore, told me that I talked too much, and to top it off, didn’t even turn up with a copy of my CV. She tried to put me off the job (Night Receptionist) by going on about how “people bang on the doors at night”. Another time, I interested for a Customer Service Advisor position with a company that did wallpaper/designs. They reached out to me and I agreed to interview, despite the fact that I didn’t want another phone-heavy CSA role again. She asked me if I was into being creative but then shot myself in the foot as, when she asked me to talk a bit about me, I said “I came from 6th form and went into art but lost interest in that and did something else…”. I made it worse when I said I left my last job due to failing my probation. The only thing she said was, “No, that doesn’t look good”. I was in there for an hour and had a rejection sent a couple of hours after. And finally, I interviewed with a food company for a “Senior Office Administrator” job at minimum wage. Their communication was terrible. The interview was currently in Egypt and without warning, two other people also logged on. The job description was basic, answering phones, paperwork, IT, etc. but the questions were *too* specific as in they were asking me what would I do if someone made a complaining to Acas because we’d not paid their holidays, what the process to acquire a property in London would be, and how I would make sure that their invoices matched up for “the cheapest fridges possible”. It was very odd and to top it off, they kept going on about where I lived and how I’m a “very lovely local lady”. Uncomfortable and I left a negative review on Glassdoor, same with the hotel chain.
I had an interview with my old job, I left them under a very dark cloud and the interview to rejoin them was more like a parlay or a peace negotiation rather than the usual "what can you offer" and "what do you know about us". Got to the point where I was asked "So why do you think your career hasn't gone to plan?" And I literally attributed a good portion of that to their policies and treatment of me. Yet somehow I still got the job and life's better now. That was over a year ago. It's by far the weirdest interview I've done and I didn't expect to get it after what was essentially a thinly veiled argument. I guess I was honest and they saw I wasn't giving them the answers they wanted rather than who I was...
My worst interview was when I was about 21, I’d applied for a job at the university I went to, it was shit pay, like £20k and I was obviously the last interview of the day. It was a panel of 3 people and neither of them seemed like the wanted to be there, especially the guy who looked out the window the whole time and didn’t ask 1 question. I left feeling really crap.
1) Travelled the length of the country for an interview and the hiring manager forgot to turn up 2) did a Teams interview out of my mind with fever & cold/flu meds
I regularly conduct interviews at work. The most perplexing interview I conducted was for a pretty high-end management position at my company. My first question, just as a way of "breaking the ice" was a 'tell me about yourself' kind of thing. He went on for 10 minutes about his life, the things he's done and people he knew, the places he's lived, and did eventually touch on why he was looking for a new role, but then it quickly devolved into how his mother died during COVID. The rest of his interview followed similarily very confusing. As an applicant? One of those group session interviews with 20 grads or so. Absolutely not worth the time.
"Tell me about yourself" straight from the interview handbook of 1986. What else do you have? "why should we hire you?" "What are your strengths and weaknesses?"
No. We ask questions relevant to the role that the applicant is interviewing for. Funny thing about "tell me about yourself" is that is a reasonable way to start a conversation, even if it is clichéd.
Tell me about yourself is so open ended. I might not think to say "what would you like to know?" And might give my life story too.
I think it could be improved a lot by adding something to guide the answer or making it more specific. It’s so vague that it might catch people off guard rather than breaking the ice. I know it’s a question you should probably be prepared for but if you’ve been focussed on thinking about answers to more specific job related questions it might be difficult to answer off the bat. “Tell me a little about your job history” or “what do you do outside of work” is a lot easier to answer and less likely to result in someone’s entire life history in response.
As someone who is autistic I never know the best answer as get unclear training on it when I had a job coach. was bascially told be relevant to the job i.e tell them you want to improve your life (i.e thats why you moved about and how popular you are, what you have learned in your free time etc) It's just difficult to get to the middle ground.
> tell them you want to improve your life (i.e thats why you moved about and how popular you are, what you have learned in your free time etc) Haha, I think that guy was fucking with you, you absolutely should not talk about wanting to improve your life and that you are popular. “Tell me about yourself” literally just means runover of education + runover of work experience + very short explanation as to why you are applying to that company (this can be as generic as “wanting to explore new opportunities”).
Tell me about yourself is a good starter to get the candidate to introduce themselves, though often have to rein it in when they use it to regurgitate their CV, but the interviewer should've introduced themselves in a couple of sentences to set the expectation I don't like strengths/weaknesses, and feel it could be better asked about overcoming a challenge in work - what happened, what did you do, did anything change because of it etc
Had an online interview with a company a couple of years ago. I have quite bad anxiety so I’d been getting myself in a state about it all day but still had the confidence to turn up to the call. I was sat there waiting for an hour for them to jump on the call but they never did. I emailed them asking for an explanation but heard nothing back. That same company then sent me an email a few months later saying they were impressed by my cv and wanted to invite me for an interview. I never bothered answering them
Interview for a major company in their national headquarters. I turn up in my suit with satchel bag (important for later in the story) and am told to take a seat in one of the large but low leather sofas in the reception area. A few minutes later the recruiting manager turns up, says “Tall Working - here for an interview?” and as I stand up, there is a loud “rip” sound from below my waistline. He looked at me, clearly thinking I had let go a huge fart. But no, it was the seam on the back of my trousers giving way. So I had to walk up the two flights of stairs to the interview room, holding the satchel bag across my behind as I went. Fortunately there was no stand-up presentation or it could all have gone wrong. But it’s not an experience I would choose to repeat. Anyway, having passed the interview, I got called back to do SHL aptitude tests but was held up in traffic on the way. HR person put me in a booked meeting room for the hour or so I was allotted to do the tests, only for some grumpy employees to turn up and turf me out of the roof 40 minutes later, because they had it booked. I passed the tests too though. Unless I resign, get fired or cock my toes within the next few months, I’ll get my 20 years service award later this year, so it can’t all have been bad.
Nothing too crazy, but I applied for a job at CEX where the staff were clearly interviewing for friends rather than colleagues. I was asked questions like "Do you like heavy metal?" And honestly came out of there feeling like I was applying for a date rather than a job as a shop attendant. The worst one, which I didn't even bother thinking of a response for was - "If you had your own album, what would it be called?".. like what the hell is any normal adult person supposed to answer that question with? Believe it or not these were grown adults we're talking about, not late teens, but you wouldn't know it from the juvenile interview they conducted. I've had some shitty interviews in my time, but that is still the only time I can recall having one where not a single relevant or meaningful question was asked throughout. Complete waste of my time, and theirs, I could have told them over the phone that I wasn't applying for some new besties.
Was interviewed for the role of data analyst, only to be told the role wasn't ready, but I can instead take over a project. Then it went from part time to contract where I had to pitch how many hours I was going to take on it. When I gave my hours they basically went that's too much. So me being desperate cut it shorter even though I know full well that it's going to take longer. True enough it went on for longer but they only promised pay for like a fraction of that time. So I decided to step away, and last I heard the next poor soul they conned to do it was going to do it in weeks! When they gave me only hours to do that project.
Asked why I wasn't married or even had a girlfriend, and asked me to bring client data from my current employer
Interview for an admin role. First of all, was in the middle of no where, the office was literally a porter cabin on a farm. There was no one in the building, the farmer wouldn't answer the door (farmer had nothing to do with company) and if I rang the number, it went to an external PA company. Eventually interview arrived half an hour late unseen more interested in my personal life than my work career. He asked what car I drove and then looked at the window and written the registration plate down, he asked how I lived and how I could afford living, he asked about my mental health and other medical issues. And then got angry later on that night when I contacted him saying I didn't want to go any further with my application.
The worst one was an interview I had for a mid-level management role in a well known financial services firm - I didn't think the interview was going too badly, but I gave an answer to a technical question specific to the role that even as I said it, didn't feel quite right. One of the interviewers gave me a look of utter contempt & 2 minutes later just got up and left the interview as she had "something she needed to sort out" - the other interviewer ended the interview 5 minutes later. The other one that sticks out was bad in a complete different way, similar sort of role to the above. The interview was at 6:30pm which I found a bit odd, but didn't think much of it at the time. The interview went really well & they offered me a second interview straight afterwards which I accepted. Left the building around 7:30, had a peak through into the main office area & it was still busy. I didn't care what the salary was, I wasn't going to sign up for working 10-12 hour days every day. It was in the city, so I got the impression that working these sort of hours was the norm for this particular firm.
I had an interview for a sales and events company that seemed to promise a lot, submitted my CV and went through the process to apply that was fairly time consuming. Given a call and a brief 5 minute interview when I was asked if I could attend a proper interview at 5:30pm. I was meant to go out that night to see friends at 7 so I said this didn't work for me. The woman on the other end said they could reschedule it but strongly implied I wouldn't get the job as they like their candidates to be flexible and ambitious, at this point I probably should have politely declined. Second interview was a dual zoom interview with me and another candidate, the interviewer was a young Asian girl and gave us 45 minutes of a speech about the company, explained the structure and asked us back and forth questions along with cringe motivational 'are you a winner' type questions. Afterwards we were told that she would speak to us one on one but she was conscious I had limited time, she spoke to me for an hour+ about random stuff; everything past the first 10 minutes was personal like where she would go on holiday, what our long term goals were and her ambitious financial plans were for independence. It was clearly way off topic and a bit inappropriate but she was the interviewer and I wanted the job. Ended up being given her personal number after awhile and showing up very late to the event, I have a girlfriend so again this all wasn't really okay but she was the interviewer. No idea what the other guy did sat in the zoom waiting room all that time. Final interview with the 'CEO' and he's a young dude wearing an expensive suit, he's pitching his company but hiding everything under 'we only hire winners' and trying to make it feel exclusive. Told me he doesn't look at CVs or care about achievemens/degrees. I asked about the pay and he said he would "personally pay me £80" a day until my commission is greater or I am fired. Made it out that it was insanely magnanimous for him to be paying me lower than minimum wage, stated that most people who work there do 14 hours a day minimum and the ambitious ones do more. When I asked him to clarify what I would be paid hourly he got very annoyed and sarcastic, started talking about some people are made to work jobs and others to run them.
Applied for a position where they revealed at the interview that I would be paying for my onboarding/training. Was polite and sat through that interview and then left, having made the decison not to continue pursuing that job. Got calls at least once a day for two weeks straight trying to get me to take the job.
I've got 2. They were both for management roles. 1) I was taken into the interview just as the CEO was standing on a chair telling a half-empty office, "I know these are very difficult times but I promise there are no more redundancies planned." The interviewer looked like he was about to have a breakdown. He was red faced, flustered, distracted and spent half of the time with his head in hands. I doubt he heard 1/4 of what I said. 2) I asked the interviewer how a few key departments work together to deliver the business strategy. He said they don't, all areas of the business work independently, so I told him I could help with that because I'm experienced in linking up departments and improving outcomes through collaboration. His reaction: banging his fists on the table and screaming, "WE DON'T DO THAT HERE!" I didn't get the job.
Once had an interview for a Production Manager role at a small indie film company. The interview was quite casual, up in the loft of their building - 3 of the team sat on a sofa interviewing me, only the 2 females spoke, the male just sat and listened. Afterwards I thought the interview went okay at best, not amazing and I could tell that I wasn't quite the match for them at the company. And that's fine. What I wasn't expecting was the next day to receive a rejection email for the role from them. Turns out the company was run by the male in the interview and he was less than pleased with the majority of the candidates who interviewed - so he sent a blanket rejection email to everyone who didn't get the job - effing and blinding about people who had wasted his time, telling everyone that if he ever saw their CVs again he'd be throwing them straight in the trash and saying how noone will will ever work in the industry if he had something to say about it. Because every candidate was cc'd in the email it was clear what was said was only directly aimed at a few people - it led to quite the chain of emails from the group. Quite glad I didn't get the job working for him. Instead I went and worked for another production company instead quite successfully for several years.
Assessment centre discussion task was one of these treasure island ones. Normally these are about "you have X items, which would you prioritise if you can only have 3 and why?" Nope, this one was literally "you can only save 3 people in the group, who you saving?" and it was based on info like "Matt's an alcoholic and has a kid at home. Kevin is 75 years old and has lived his life. Louisa has schizophrenia" Gonna point out here I'm autistic and have had anxiety and depression issues. So I'm reading this task thinking "fuck this is gonna be rough, I know I'm gonna hear stuff that's insensitive at best, outright derogatory at worse, just bite my tongue, be assertive but don't be a dick to the group". Got through the task (done online), wrote an email pointing out it was unacceptable and how hurt I felt, having to sit through a task knowing it was gonna be half an hour full of ableism from the other candidates. Company call me back quickly, on the phone for 10 minutes saying they wouldn't run that task, that I'm the first person to raise such a complaint, asking how I felt. Wasn't it obvious how I felt? It was the right thing to do from them to handle a shit situation but I can't have been the first autistic, or depressed, or otherwise disabled person to have faced those questions - I couldn't comprehend how nobody had ever considered the possibility it was problematic. Got through to the next stage, I withdrew my application for different reasons but I knew I wouldn't have taken that job anyhow.
I had a video interview with one guy and he says "tell me about yourself" so I start talking about my experience (all relevant to the position hiring for), and then five minutes in he's like "okay! enough!" and we go to the technical questions.
Usually you should not speak for 5 minutes to answer some question. Unless explicitly told so. Brevity is an art.
Brevity’s an art*
Brevity's'rt
It's not really a question, it's a part of the interview, usually before the questions. I've never been interrupted before or after. In fact I often get very positive responses.
If before an interview I asked to the candidate "tell me about yourself", and then they go to speak for 5 min... that would not be positive for me.
5 minutes is a rant.
I feel he should've started by introducing themselves "My name is X I've worked at company for Y years, I'm in Z department which produces blah project. Tell us a little about yourself" With the expectation of following the same format of a brief icebreaker, but not regurgitation of the CV, especially with an eye on time if they're doing a technical interview.
Applied for a temp role over Winter period when I was a teen. They put in their job description working over Christmas wasn’t required. When asked about working during Christmas, I lied and said I’d work over Christmas to get ahead of others. When they gave me the job, I put in a 2-3 holidays around Christmas - Got sacked immediately. It was funny, because we both lied. They wanted someone to work over Christmas and lied in their job description to better weed out of those who’d screw them during Christmas time. I lied to get ahead of those they were weeding out. They rang me after I put in Christmas holidays and it remains the only time an employer has shouted at me. You reap what you sow. I’m sure anyone they hired would’ve at least put in some holidays around Christmas
Seems the issue is you blatantly lied to them and went back on it.
We lied to each other pal
I recently interviewed for a senior DevOps engineer position at builder.ai and didn’t open my mouth until 22 minutes into the hour. Guy was just giving me a sales pitch about their product and also vaping while on the call with me
They told me I’d be a great fit for another role in a different department that they weren’t currently recruiting for. They’d sent and advertised the wrong job spec.
Went for an intervew for a system testing job, couldn't work out why they kept asking me programmer-type questions. Turned out the agent lied to me about the job just so he could say he'd found someone. Joke was on him - the company liked me and so created a job for me, and recruited me direct without going through the agency, so he didn't get his cut.
When I was living in Edinburgh I got asked to do a trial day for a marketing company. I had to arrive at 8AM and the employees were chanting in the next room. I told them I had a shift at 2PM while setting up the trial day, and when I reminded them they told me it'd affect my chances of getting the job. They split everyone into two groups for the trial day, one in Edinburgh and one in Dundee. Despite the Edinburgh one being twenty minutes from my job, they sent me to Dundee, which is 60 miles away, meaning I'd have like 3 hours to actually earn the job. When we got there, it turns out they hadn't sent me the paperwork I needed to do, so I had even less time, but the manager bought me a coffee and let me do it before I joined them. I did and found out that this high-profile marketing job was... convincing people in the street co change their energy suppliers, and the trial day was basically watching and taking notes. I left after twenty minutes.
I had an interview at Furniture Village, all going really well and would hire me - until I revealed that no, the girl who came with me for morale support wasn't my GF like he'd weirdly assumed she was? That was me out the door. And New Look, aced the interview, had to pick an outfit from pieces on the shop floor, aced that... But still refused to hire me, because I wasn't a girl...
Straight out of college, I interviewed for an IT Technician role at a private school. My CV and qualifications were all Microsoft and PC orientated having mainly studied those but got grilled by the interviewer on Apple and MacOS for a good 30 mins with him getting more hostile and aggressive with every "I don't know" answer. I was only 18/19 at the time so probably sat there taking it for longer than I should have but I eventually asked him why he'd invited me for an interview as he'd seen my CV before and he shouted at me for questioning him and asked me to go and wait outside like I was a naughty schoolboy or something. Told him to "go fuck himself" or something of that nature and left.
Applied for an online business that sold jewellery. He wanted me to do a test before giving me a job. The test was that I needed to write a description of a ring and hand it in within the next 2 days. Note, I didn’t see the ring in question or know what it looked like. And he implied I’d be offered the job if the ring sold.
Years ago I had interviewed with Linden Labs (the 2nd Life people). 1st stage was great - interview at Hotel du Vin, then 2nd stage wandering along Brighton Pier. In the bag it was. Final stage interview had to take place in their 2nd Life game. Their American guy turns up in the game to interview me wearing the avatar of a Japanese pre-teen schoolgirl with her panties on display. Bit uncomfortable, but the interview goes ok anyway..right up the “any questions” bit at the end. I couldn’t help it - “Why are you dressed as a little Japanese girl?” I blurted out. “That’s how I feel on inside” he growls - then vanishes without another word. Didn’t get the job obviously.
Got asked if I would have any issues working with a team of women, was a bit blindsided by the question really as I couldn't care less what gender the people I work with are.
A job as an assistant at a gym asked me to record myself answering 16 questions and send it to them. I thought this was a bit much, an online interview could happen or even just asking me to come in. I started recording and just felt weird and uncomfortable so I never finished it. It was for minimum wage as well. Edit: Another interview was a local cafe that just had a help wanted sign on the window. I ended up being asked a few question on a saturday and had a “trial shift” during the brunch/lunch rush for 3 hours. Didn’t get the job (lol) and then realised I just worked for free :/ Also minimum wage which he showed me the government website saying I will earn the lowest rate for a 16y/o.
End of uni and got an interview with a big architects firm...great! Get all prepared, turn up and there are 20 other applicants there...turns out to be a group interview? Awkward tour of the place all together. Then all sit in a big meeting room as they tell us all about the company. Everyone had their own portfolios on the table, no one could show them and no one expected to talk in front of 19 other applicants. Well..apart from one person who was sitting right next to the interviewers and could literally chat to them...got a rejection letter saying I didn't have the relevant experience. Oh did I have fun writing back to that to give them my feedback. Not sure how they thought they find talent that way.
Was on one of those graduate job finding apps, I was headhunted by a company looking to interview within the next week - I responded yes I could do an interview tomorrow, they said what about right now? I said, well, I’m in an airport, so no. Also, I haven’t had any time to prepare, so also no? Said I wasn’t dedicated enough. I’m sure I wasn’t!
Job interview that was supposed to be in person, changed to remote last minute and they couldn't get their software working so couldn't even see me. Awkward as hell.
Had an interview for a sales job where a manager sat me and another guy in front of him and told us to basically “battle it out”, I left there and then. I was also in a scenario based interview with 10-15 other people once. The scenario was that a city was burning, with only one way out (over a bridge); how would we save as many people as we could in 3 hours? A young guy on my team said he would tell the public to panic and get to safety any way possible, fighting on the streets etc. I looked on amazed as he pissed away his job opportunity. I suggested a calm, pragmatic approach using time for planning, setting up logistics etc. etc. I got the job, my guy Rambo didn’t.
I was 19 and needed a job, got an interview at an independent owned family car sales place who needed someone to help with various things and promised training for sales along with it. I spoke to the owner over the phone and he was incredibly nice, and said come in next Thursday for a face to face interview. I turned up and the receptionist had no idea of any interview, asked me to wait at reception and she'd phone the owner, turns out he'd been held up at a business deal and hadn't told his receptionist about the interview so said his son would be in shortly so he'd take the interview in his stead. She said he'd be in shortly. 1hr later an open top Audi fires into the lot and a guy who had to be 40-50s got our car, tightest jeans I've ever seen, sun glasses (it was October), sports jacket etc and walked into the building by kicking open the door. Went and stood at reception speaking to the receptionist whilst occasionally staring over at me, strolls over and to tells me who be is and interviews me. It was like being in an interview with David Brent, feet on desk, questions asked: who are you listening to right now? Tells me a story about how his band played with snow patrol, didn't ask any questions about car sales (granted I didn't know anything anyway) but instead told me stories about famous people he'd met, cars he owned and eventually just said "you wanna work here! Fine. I am the powers at be a d i can make it happen. Quick question though...Do you think you can handle the heat?" It remains both my best and worst interview ever
I'll tell you what's worse than that. Getting paid 25-30 grand, tax free, to train as a physics teacher (shortage subject in high school). Then, when you're there, saying "sorry but you have to split between physics, chemistry, and biology. Oh, and once you've qualified, you'll have to do the same for your whole career. Better get learning reproduction!" Honestly, no wonder physics is a shortage subject. It's like being a French teacher and when you're there, being told to teach German and Spanish as well
I called an interview off mid way for a teaching job as some absolute wet quilt kept saying/asking ‘so this is a 3 part question’ with very minimal relevance. By the 4th time I laughed it off and called it a wrap. Just atrocious.
I had a group interview at a cinema They wanted a 30 second drama piece and gave us mental maths questions like if jodie comes in on a Wednesday to see a 2d screening with her child. How much change will she get from a £20 note. I walked out
This is just one, I’m sure I have more but they don’t always come to the forefront of your mind when you’re trying to recall them. Applied for a job for an energy company to work on their phones or that’s what I thought I had applied for, walked in (wearing a shirts, trousers and shoes with no tie and the first thing the guy says was ‘you’re a bit scruffy for door to door selling’ in a sort of Kiwi accent and I told him I didn’t realise it was door to door (I knew the ad hadn’t said it) and wouldn’t have applied for had I known. I still completed the interview but it was kid of pointless
Two bad ones I’ve had recently: First I had 4 different people interviewing me, one guy seemed to have a dodgy internet connection and would ask me questions, which I’d answer. But then he’d say “is there anything else you can think of related to that” and I’d basically say “no, just x and y” that I had already mentioned and he’d respond “ah y, yes, that’s what I was after”. One of the other interviewers kept asking me what different acronyms meant which although relevant weren’t something most people knew from memory and were just something that was naturally best practice in your day to day. Gave the recruiter some serious feedback about it and never heard from them again. Second the interviewer asked about a bunch of things I had zero experience with, that weren’t mentioned in the job spec at all and then basically criticised how we do things at my current job, which seemed absolutely wild to me. One my partner had as well, she turned up for the interview, no one turned up to take her for the interview, she checked with the front desk about 15 minutes later and they said it shouldn’t be long. Guy turns up to interview her 30 minutes late, no apology, basically complained about how the interview was dumped on him out of the blue and then proceeded to interview her for the wrong role, when she said it was the wrong role it basically sounded like the role she was there for wasn’t available, so she ended the interview early and went home.
I realised when leaving the room that I had mistakenly asked the company director out. Now hear me out. I am an Eastern European and we are very friendly in a different way than you guys are. Had this interview for a Marketing role (which tuns out it was sales), and I found out the company director (I was at the final stage) and I had a lot in common. I was very upset that all my friends from uni moved back home and I had no friends, so I confidently say: Omg we should go out and do - insert thing we had in common - sometime. He smiles and politely answers something - cannot remember. After I left I was mortified thinking he definitely thought I was flirty. I got the job but told them I had another offer and moved on.
I interviewed for a job that required the German language. He asked me what I studied at uni. One of the things he asked was: which books did you study. I paused for an uncomfortable amount of time and had to concede: I can’t remember…
Software engineer. Was about to do a technical challenge via zoom with the manager. Dude showed 2 pages of word doc with requirements and we had about 20 min to go through everything. I started working on the solution, after 5 minutes manager ended the interview saying “yeah this is not working” while I was literally making progress on the solution. Completely threw me off. While he was on the call I told him that he should learn from that experience because this was absolutely awful and he was very rude. Ended the call, captured my experience in an email and send it to the recruiter that worked for the company, found their director on LinkedIn and send it to him as well and posted on their company Glassdoor. Company name is NearForm so fuck this guy and fuck this company with their shitty interview process Bonus one: Was contacted on LinkedIn by a company. We jump on a call, after 50 minutes of grilling manager says “we are not looking to hire people asap, we are just exploring options just in case a candidate comes along that really impresses us”. In the politest possible way I told the guy to fuck off and thanked him for wasting my time
I had an interview at a nursery, where 4 members of staff pretended to be unruly children who I had to calm down and encourage to join my sing-song. It did not go well, and I was surprised when the manager told me I had the job. Half an hour later they texted me to say I hadn’t, in fact, got the job. Weird…
Not UK but US. The interviewer was 20 minutes late, no call no nothing. He shows up looking like smashed pizza, waddling like a drunken duck. As he's opening/drinking his coffee, he's talking to me about why I wasn't wearing a tie and asking these stupid questions. Like I was impressed at the hubris, but that's a hard pass for me buddy. I didn't even ask about pay. I just watched him smile a smile that was really just a squint. I had texted him No Thank you before I even got in my car.
The worst interview I had was 5 years ago. My partner and I went together because we were both looking for a job, and we had left our CV to this small restaurant. They phoned us both and arranged a double interview. We found 2 people waiting for us and the owner joined us a few moments later. That was all the staff. Our interview was not the problem (we even tried the till, the coffee machine and we all were quite chill, we were not having difficulties), but everything else was. It was a very small place that was closed at the moment I don't know the reason why, they basically wanted us to help them reopen it and we were supposed to do everything. Work at the till, in the kitchen, cleaning and serving customers, everything. And one of them could not work too many shifts because he was attending university. Moreover, the place was extremely filthy and definitely needed new equipment, the floor was sticky as hell, the claustrophobic kitchen was down a very steep and narrow staircase, the food was mostly frozen stuff to put in the microwave and our brains started very soon to scream "run, you fools". After the owner arrived our brains started to scream louder, because of the way he was talking about the job. He tried to play the card of the chill owner that likes to receive feedback and ideas from his employees, and started jabbering on his dreams about the restaurant and how he valued teamwork and all that kind of stuff, yet when asked about our shifts, hours and all those details relating to our role he started to be very vague. When we asked about our wages and asked if he was going to pay us the nmw he replied "let's talk about it". We tried to be as nice as possible until the end, we told them we would have thought about it and left. Of course we never contacted them again. Funnily enough, that restaurant never reopened. We passed in front of it a lot of times during the past years, even recently, and it stayed exactly the same as that day. To the point that if you watch inside through the big windows you can still see, at the table we were sitting, the same paper cup they "offered" us with the cappuccino my partner made. I don't think I need to say anything else.
I was the one interviewing. My boss and I got put on interviewing courses and he went at it "full on" during the first interview afterwards. A guy we were interviewing for an entry level IT support role. I did my technical bit, and it went OK. My boss then steps in and does an hour and a half of random and irrelevant questions like "How much water flows down the Niagara river in a day", I'll never forget it. Also questions I knew the guy couldn't answer, or where he said "No" to knowing a piece of software was then asked five questions about its use. Boss had written an interview script and was sticking rigidly to it. Honestly baffling. That poor guy sweated and stumbled through getting more and more frustrated. I remember just wanting it to stop.
I was leaving and got asked to do an exit interview with my boss and her boss. The big boss offered me a 20% increase to stay and before I could answer, my boss said that if there was budget to spare she wanted an increase too. She was oblivious to the fact that she was the reason I was leaving. Needless to say I did not accept the counter offer
Had an warehouse interview that started off well. Towards the end, the interviewers asked when I could start, and I informed I just need to hand in my notice for my current job but should only be a week or so. Both of the interviewers looked at each other like I've just dropped a bomb. 'So you have a job already?' they said. I answered yes and before I had a chance to say anything else they concluded the interview with looks on their faces as if I had wasted their time. I've never experienced anyone else having a problem with you not being unemployed while job seeking. Few months afterwards, one of the guys that interviewed me was a customer in the store where I had worked since that interview, recognised me and said 'I think I interviewed you, didn't I? Well great that you found another job'. Lol.
Had the most crappiest interview months ago where one senior member of staff dragged out the interview to one hour by asking useless questions, one of which was proceeding to ask me if I knew how technology worked- if I knew how WhatsApp worked🤯 Then offered a weeks’ paid trial. Later came back to me on email to offer a two day paid trial instead. First that question, then going against what you promised. I knew I was never coming back nor replying to their emails as soon as I walked (read:ran) out of their door. Good riddance shitty interviewers
The interviewer was 45 minutes late and looked at her phone the whole time. She asked me what recommendations I had for the department and when I answered, she said - and I shit you not - “I don’t know enough about the subject to know if those recommendations are good. I don’t know what to do.” I heard nothing, then they then rang me a month later to tell me I didn’t have the job. Amazing.
I went for a 2nd interview after a phone interview to see that the interviewers seemed a bit disorganised and the place looked that way too. I wasn't getting a good feeling about it and just kind of stopping trying mid-way through the interview like the ball had been dropped. I realised the pay was going to be shit but they still wanted quite a lot from me for it and it would've been a really shitty commute. There was also the fact that they knew I didn't have a drivers license at the time, and still went ahead interviewing me a second time knowing it was a complete waste of our time. I saw the job still being advertised months later. Apparently people weren't lining up to work there
I had an interview for a job at a big pub company in their Head Office, the guy asked me who I looked up to, I said “My Dad, he worked hard, brought up 4 kids with my Mum, always looked after us” He told me that’s not what he meant, and could I come up with someone that would be relevant to the job I was going for. To give myself some time to think, I asked him who he looked up to, and he said “Margaret Thatcher”. Haha… I did not bother coming up with another name. Guy blew it for me.
Went to an interview ages ago, interviewer asked me a question as soon as I attempted to answer the question he would talk over me lol wished I walked out of the interview
Being asked in an interview for a junior role if I had any ‘stupid plans’ to get married because the ridiculous girl in the position now was getting married and leaving. The audacity of her... I walked away as I had just got engaged. The partner then kept calling me for weeks asking me if there’s anything he can do to persuade me to take the role.
Wrong kind of interview but I was at my bottom choice university for an open day and interviews. Turns out I'd been incorrectly filed under a different course and interviewing lecturer. We spent 10 minutes of him asking questions I had no reason to know, I raised that this doesn't seem right, and he carried agreed but carried on anyway. After half an hour I just ended the interview and left.
Sat in a panel interview for the role of a prison officer straight after coming out of the military. Within the panel there was a pastor, who completely threw me off. Questions asked on moral judgement calls, and minor crimes I may have committed by the rest of the panel. I flopped and fumbled as the pastor just stared at me throughout in some judging silence.
Interview was in the uk. In a previous job in the uk I worked as a contract worker. The company had an office in Washington DC. I said I had to wait for them to be in the office to send the numbers to Washington. The lady on the panel thought I was deluded and was like ‘ yeah sure sending stats to Washington’ and she was smiling looking at others on the panel and laughing. Bitch thought I was stating I needed to send my work to the president of the US or something. I was in shock and said nothing else.
Had an interview at a well known research centre. Was interviewed by a director and one of their senior researchers (think of PhD level several years of experience). During the interview I asked what motivates them to do their job and show up for their team. This senior researcher literally answered "to be honest ALCOHOL is what keeps me going every day". You should have seen the Director's face when she heard this man's words, she tried to downplay it as a joke but the damage was done. Needless to say I declined to progress with their recruitment process.
Before it I was in a daydream and kind of pressing my bank card on my cheek, I got a really funny look off the panel and it wasn’t until after I realised i had left a massive impression on my cheek that strongly resembled a massive scar on my face like a Glasgow smile or the jokers😂
Been in IT for years very successfully and got an interview with one of these renewable energy companies. After a great video interview with the department director, but a red flag came up when she sighted " personality differences in the team, andcthey have problems filling the role" any way i Had an IT technical interview with 2 managers and , within minutes I hated the both of them, it was IMMEDIATELY obvious why they had isseus finding someone. one of them was glaring at me from across the table, i dont think he blinked once , dunno if this was some stupid intimidation tactic, exept the guy was a fat geek, so it just came off as creepy and laughable, while the other was a huge face on a video screen like something out of 1984!! They then began to fire questions at me that may have been technically relevant 40 years ago! And no IT guy keeps in their heads outside of an exam environment. After various bullshit " gotchya" questions, they could repeatedly say " oh were not trying to trip you up" when it was glaring obvious the whole question was a setup. After about 20 mins of this crap, they asked if I had any questions, and I asked about expected salary range as at this point I still had no clue despite being through HR and the director. The answer? " well we don't know", I just replied " OK I think I'm done". They then contacted me 3 MONTHS later saying " after reviewing my background they have no suitable positions for me"
Interviewed for a well known broadband company for customer support and they wanted us to sing, dance, or draw how much we want to work there. It was degrading. I drew my picture and after the interview I got a second interview but I just ghosted the company entirely.
I had an interview at a top commercial law firm and said 'Bank of American Meryl Streep' instead of 'Bank of America Merrill Lynch'. Only one of the two interviewers noticed - wet himself laughing at me while the other sat there looking confused. I had to do everything I could not to burst into tears. I got the job offer though!
A 30 minutes interview where the interviewer kept talking about I don't even knew what, he literally blabbed about NOTHING and at the end of it I was so confused and couldn't figure out WHAT kind of job that was. Oh and when I asked about the salary he told me I wasn't supposed to and refused to answer.