[Closed] Tell me your job interview nightmares

I walked in, and all the interview panel were actually all naked 😯

Seriuosly though, 2 of my bad interviews actually ended up with me getting the job. 2 other interviews I bossed, one of which was successful, the other not 🙁

got interviewed for a teaching job as the sole applicant i managed to not get selected 😳

Had a few bad ones when I was redundanted a couple of years back - worst one:
Drove 2 hrs down to Dorset, just as I arrived in the big industrial estate the rain came down like someone pouring buckets off the roof. I was a bit early, so as the rain eased, went for a quick walk. 10 mtrs from my car a van went past and washed a massive puddle over me. Even my tie was wet.
Bloke gets me from the building entrance way, I make a joke about being wet and he just "hmphs". Then the massive arsehole interviews me by completely picking apart all my knowledge (I knew it was a bit out of date), telling me how great he is, and how he couldn't pay me as much as his first line techies.
He finishes the interview, by this time I'm 4.7inches high, by saying he could mentor me for free for a couple of months. Yeah! 2 hours from home.
An over 50 IT bloke, just been made redundant, struggling to find work and this absolute **** just crushed me.
Apart from that, it was a worthwhile experience. (It wasn't really).

Mate walked into a job interview once, really nervous. The interviewers put him at ease, pointed at a big vase of water with a glass behind it and offered him a drink of water. He didn't notice the glass and picked up the vase and started glugging from it instead. When he put it down he noticed the glass and realised what a tit he'd made of himself. He didn't get the job.

Yes had a couple of interviews after I was made redundant... Was sent to interview by an agency before with only 1/2 the job description. I basically spent 1/2 the interview going "don't know" and eventually had to say that I had been mis-sold the job by the agency very embarrassing.

Even the job I ended up getting I was asked to do a 15 minute presentation off the cuff about business strategy and stakeholders except the "business" problem these related to: Robin Hood??! I don't have that Job anymore

I was sat in a waiting room thinking, "do I have time to go to the loo?" just as the secretary opened the door and called my name.
I stood up and failed to stop a very loud fart escaping. Mumbling "Nerves" I left it with the other hopefuls and walked in to meet my new boss. They never miss an opportunity to remind me of that day.
🙂

Not as an interviewee but an interviewer:

Recruiting tech support staff, I'd do the techie stuff and my manager did the "soft skills" stock interview questions side. Two of the questions were "what's your greatest strength?" followed by "what's your greatest weakness?"

One guy we interviewed, when asked what his greatest weakness was replied that he had anger management issues and the reason he was applying for the position was because he'd just been sacked for punching out his boss...

I was put forward for a manufacturing engineering position that was heavily materials based. This was when I'd just graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and was very wet behind the ears...

Couldn't answer any of the technical questions and you could see they felt sorry for me.

As I left I actually turned and tried to walk into a cupboard... literally like something out of a terrible comedy sketch show. Genuinely happened. I was mortified at the time!

Hilarious thinking back on it!

One guy we interviewed, when asked what his greatest weakness was replied that he had anger management issues and the reason he was applying for the position was because he'd just been sacked for punching out his boss...

I'd say his greatest weakness was his honesty

Interviewer comes out with lots of concerned questions along the lines of "you don't mention any skills in X" "your CV doesn't list any experience with Y or Z".

I respond "Yes I've done plenty of X..."

"I can do Y Z etc etc, I tailored my CV to the job description but it never mentioned X,Y or Z".

Interview fumbles some paperwork and awkwadly says "The job description has been re-written since the advert was published" 😯

Luckily the job actually suited me better, I got it and i'm still here.

I was interviewing for a graduate job a Sony Semiconductors. They asked me a technical question looking for a simple answer (resistance), and I went off on one about electrons and holes (it was 20 years ago, I forget most of it now).

After about 5 minutes of me stressing out giving potential different answers he put me out of my misery.

Got the job offer, didn't take it.

I went for a job interview as a data cleanser and ended up in a very embarrassing situation

When I left school I was trying to find any job I could get and was struggling a bit as it was 2008 just after everything went tits up...

I was invited to an interview for a "marketing" company in cardiff. I had almost no money to my name and my parents were away so I used most of my cash I had to buy food until they were back buying various bus and train tickets to get to the interview which comprised of a brief presentation which made the whole thing start to seem very much like some pyramid scheme....

I was then taken out to spend the rest of the day shadowing one of their "marketing executives" which meant catching a train to Porth (the literal arsehole of the universe) and followed him round as he knocked on doors asking for money for the redcross while earning himself some commission out of the charity donations. I soon decided I didnt have the stomach for this type of work and said "sorry mate but you job is shit I dont know how you do it" and walked off...

Then after an hour trying to find my way around I bumped into him again and had to appologise for my insult so we could split a taxi back...

First proper job after uni. The person doing the interview calls a name and it sounds like mine. Here I go and for 20 minutes she interviewed the wrong person.

Crazy thing is that I knew the other guy as we had gone to same course, and being à first job there was no work history to tell about.

Health care seems to attract them...the person interviewing for a reception role admitting that they found dealing with people difficult...Another where candidate was interviewing for a community healthy living advice post, who a. had to go through the door sideways, and b. couldn't climb 3 flights of stairs without a rest.

Went to the address listed on the company letter head. They "were" a architectural practice. Got there and the office wasn't built.
Pretty big clue there..... keep walking.

Had some pretty dire interviews where the job had been filled and just going through the motions.

When I was younger I went to interview for an internal position/promotion. Whilst sat in reception (it was a different office building) I needed a nervous poo. So , I asked the receptionist where the toilet was and started going about my business. Once I had finished my poo and whilst still sat down I started a wee. Just as I was finishing up I noticed that somehow instead of weeing into the bowl, my stream of hot piss has been coming out of the toilet between the ceramic and the seat and dribbling nicely into my pants/suit trousers around my ankles.

Several minutes of paper mopping, and frantic hand dryer gymnastics and you couldn't see the wet patch any more.

I didn't get the job.

Applied for position as Program manager at IT company and interview was about C and C# code snippets and errors.
Did not get the offer and the company went bust two years later

Not bad so much but laughable. Had an interview with a recruiter only this week, 'specialising in positions that are executive level and not advertised on job boards'.

I was suspicious the moment I got there as on the web it was very slick, in person clearly a Regus rented space. But that's OK, maybe convenient for interviews. Nice welcome and intro, then talk me through your CV and experience, which i started doing.... and then wham.

"Let me stop you there. Your CV is rubbish, it doesn't get across your skills and experiences at all"

"Also, your interview technique is terrible. Here at Grabit and Runn we would take your CV and rewrite it to suit you. And give you two - no for you i think we'd need three - one hour mock interview sessions to get your technique up to scratch"

"Then we'd work with you and define a personal marketing strategy for you to market yourself to potential employers, and with our help you can create a position that probably doesn't exist at these companies currently. That's how much they'll want you"

Me: so are you actually recruiting for a position at the moment?

"Gah! That's such an obvious question, didn't you listen? No, we'll give you the skillset to be able to create a niche opening specifically for you"

Me: And I assume you will charge me for this (which is where the by now paper thin veneer came down)

"If you sign up today to some initial consultations between now and the new year - before January when things go crazy - I can offer you a discount on our fees"

Double glazing salesmen dressed up as exec level recruiters, playing on the vulnerability of recently redundant or at risk people. Did a bit more reading and research after and they seem to charge around £3000 for their services and after that you might have a better CV and a practice at interviews, but then you still have to find your own job. But if you've just been told (maybe in not these exact words) by an employer that you aren't valued any more, and walked away with a few quid in redundancy and then someone else tells you that you and your CV are shit, I can see easily why folks at a low ebb are getting fleeced by them.

Wow. What a bunch of absolute tossers. I'd be creatively looking for ways to waste their time - possibly by sending them multiple 'rubbish' CVs from different email addresses, filling up their appointment book then not turning up.

Applied for a part-time job at Maplin when I was a student, didn't get it because I hadn't memorised resistor colour codes, then got outside to find someone had nicked my lovely Stumpjumper.

Just got the thanks but no thanks call. Some good feedback though. Ah well

My stepson recently had an interview with Virgin trains to be a driver (he's already qualified & driving for Freightliner but Virgin is more dosh)
It wasn't so much as an interview as a sort of team excercise where a group were given a scenario in which a ship they were on had sunk & you could only save so many passengers & who would you save & why. He spent almost the entire time shaking his head at some of the shite people were coming out with & he nearly walked out half way through.
He didn't get the job & still wonders what any of it had to do with the role.

He phoned on his way home (before he knew his result) & said he wouldn't work for Virgin anyway even if they pleaded with him.

On the way to the interview/assessment with a couple of miles to go I crashed and wrote off my car. This made me late and to make matters worse I was driven to the site in the Police car that attended the crash.
I made an impression, but possibly not the right one.
Anyway I had 45 minutes left (from what should have been 3 hours) to complete the morning assessment, so winged my way through it.

It turned out OK as I was invited back for a second round and ended up getting the position, although not quite sure how that happened though!

The old why do you want to work here question. To finance partying and riding bikes while I’m deciding what to do with my life. Got the job wound up being a boss after a few years then chucked it in and joined the army.

I'd say his greatest weakness was his honesy

Or his lack of research into standard interview questions.

They asked me a technical question looking for a simple answer (resistance), and I went off on one about electrons and holes
...
giving [b]potential different[/b] answers

Please tell me that was intentional.

The old why do you want to work here question.

Surely one of the most pointless interview questions ever. "Please tell us how great we are!"

I went for an interview many moons ago at Kent CC. I had a 1-to-1 interview with the head of department first who was an obnoxious arsehole. Then I was passed on to his deputy (who would be my immediate manager) for the technical stuff.

His first question was "What did you think of the HoD?" I said I thought he was a complete arsehole and I wouldn't take the job if you offered it. He agreed with a smile and finished the interview there and then.

An agency who's name begins with Eden Brown sent me to the wrong company once.

The old why do you want to work here question.

Surely one of the most pointless interview questions ever. "Please tell us how great we are!"

Or an opportunity to explain how your personal values align with the company, as well as that you're capable of doing some basic homework about your potential employer.

A pretty important question really.

Just got the thanks but no thanks call. Some good feedback though

At least you got a call/email... I've not even had the courtesy of a thanks/no thanks message in any form from the last couple of(disastrous) interviews, the latest only last week.

Just so flipping obnoxious,..

My last couple of interviews have gone [i]really[/i] well, I think I'm getting pretty good at them.

Apart from actually getting offered the job, that is.

A good mate of mine went for an interview with tfl, he turned up late, with his flies undone and his mobile went off half way through the interview.

He still got the job

Please tell me that was intentional.

I hope I haven't LED you to believe I would have inducted such a thing.

I don't have the capacitance for such puns and try to stay grounded.

I hope I have rectified your views at this junction.

I hung up on a telephone interview not so long ago. It was a kind of conference call, two s****ing "children" and a main interviewer who refused to listen to what I was saying. I got fed up an just hung up, it wasn't very professional but neither were they.

I walked out of an interview room, to be told my car had rolled into some-one else on the car park*, they had photo's to show me... I got the job, due to how well I handed the situation. I was then seated in the office with the lady whose car it was.. I was reminded quite often 😳

*I'd been sat in it for 10 minute pre walking in, so have no idea how it happened.

Many years ago through some recruitment agency I barely realised I'd signed up to (one of those ones that combs through replies on specialist job sites - this one was industrial synthetic chemistry) I got the offer of an interview in Technical Sales. Most chemical places have their own in-house team, if a phone call comes in saying "how do I make such-and-such a compound?" you're supposed to be able to give them the reagents, conditions etc and then sell said reagents to them.

Turned out the interview was for a job in marketing and was totally unrelated to the job the agency had told me. Basically it just meant they got a tick of "yes, we've processed / got interviews for this many people".

After 30 minutes of the interviewer trying to explain to me what the job entailed and me saying "but I don't have a clue about marketing" we both called it a day.

To add insult to injury the agency called me a day later and said "oh sorry but you were unsuccessful in getting the job".

So I told them exactly why that was and told them to remove my details and never try setting me up with another job ever again. My loathing and contempt for recruitment agencies continues to this day.

I had a great telephone interview for a job in new zealand a long time ago (no videoconferencing for starters). They were all in a room together which appeared to be right under an airport flight path so every few mins we had to stop while one took off, and I could vaguely hear they were all chatting in the background throughout the interview without being able to hear what they were saying which was a bit off-putting. Needless to say it didn't go well, and eventually one of them asked me "what made you even think you were capable of doing this job?" to which I replied "well you must have thought so too or you wouldn't have bothered interviewing me". Can you guess if I got it?

There was another one - not an interview though - where a full year after applying for a job in Chile (and hearing nothing back) I got asked if I was still interested. And yet another in the USA when, after sending off my application and having had references taken up from my then boss who didn't yet know I was thinking of leaving, I was told that the position had already been filled. This all took place prior to the closing date on the advert.

One of the oddest interviews however was in Japan. They flew me over even though it was a fairly junior post, being ridiculously flush with money at the time. After firing off a succession of mostly technical questions, they told me the interview was terminated and I could go. I said "don't I get to ask any questions then?" and they basically said no and ushered me out of the room. A couple of months later I got a terse letter telling me my start date would be the 1st April (which was by then only a couple of weeks away). No joke.

i asked about flexible working they said "no its 9-5 in the office and any extra time needed to complete your work, overtime was not payable".

i then asked do i get my time back for working long month ends..

at that point i decided i wasnt interested so went on the offendsive.

i went for another job interview a week later,
it was going really well until i asked about holidays..

20, i said is that it...

Oh yes, I forgot the most recent one where a post was created specially to fit my CV and aspirations, I was the sole applicant and interviewee....and I didn't get it. Not really my fault though, there had been a change of leadership and direction in the department in the meantime.

Cougar - Moderator

Not as an interviewee but an interviewer:

Recruiting tech support staff, I'd do the techie stuff and my manager did the "soft skills" stock interview questions side. Two of the questions were "what's your greatest strength?" followed by "what's your greatest weakness?"

One guy we interviewed, when asked what his greatest weakness was replied that he had anger management issues and the reason he was applying for the position was because he'd just been sacked for punching out his boss...

Or an opportunity to explain how your personal values align with the company, as well as that you're capable of doing some basic homework about your potential employer.

A pretty important question really.

We open with "tell us what you know about the company," which broadly ticks the same box without forcing someone to sit there stroking our egos.

My loathing and contempt for recruitment agencies continues to this day.

Ever since changing my job title from "Engineer" to "Manager" on LinkedIn I've had a steady stream of agencies trying to sell me staff, despite not actually managing people (aside from a few apprentices).

One time, I got an unsolicited email from one of them, with a couple of CVs and a covering letter gushing about how keen they both were to come and work with us. At the time we were in the process of merging with another company, and one of the CVs was for someone already employed by that other company. I took great delight in telling her how overjoyed he was going to be to hear that he'd be getting his wish very soon.

Normally when I was being interviewed I'd try to get an idea of just how much unpaid overtime they would be expecting me to do.

Some of them seemed genuinely shocked that anyone would expect overtime pay or time off in lieu no matter how many hours you worked in a week. Needless to say, I was never offered jobs with any of those companies.

I sweat a lot when I'm anxious but it's usually OK in job interviews, just the pits get a bit wringing but can hide that usually.

Had an interview last summer on the hottest day of the year, late afternoon, and was driving to work at the time, so drove to the interview. My old car couldn't handle hot days though so I had to have the heating on full blast in the city traffic with the windows down to stop it overheating, so I was roasting hot by the time I got to the office and sweating. This made me even more anxious so I sweated even more, only to find the office didn't have air con and everyone was sweltering. They apologised and said the interview room was probably the hottest room in the building as it was tiny and had the sun blazing in all afternoon, ho ho ho. I was basically soaked through, my hair was wet through with sweat and I could feel it running down the back of my neck, had to keep wiping my face all the way through. It went OK though and I totally stopped sweating towards the end once I relaxed. Didn't get the job though!

Went to the address listed on the company letter head. They "were" a architectural practice. Got there and the office wasn't built.
Pretty big clue there..... keep walking.

Had some pretty dire interviews where the job had been filled and just going through the motions.

scenario in which a ship they were on had sunk & you could only save so many passenger

had that one. people getting very agitated by it all. I said calm down, it's an exercise, shuffle the deck and deal the cards till we are out of spaces, everyone has the same right to life. then went off and got myself a coffee. got the job.

worst one. turn up. we are going to start with the 15min powerpoint presentation you have prepared. Err what presentation? Awkward silence. (turns out I had missed it mentioned on the bottom of the mail) looked around there was a whiteboard and pen. asked the topic and winged it. got that job too!

had a *** annoying one recently where I was quizzed for an hour on getting directors to do things and didn't cover a single other area of knowledge or experience. didn't get that as was told I didn't have the 'gravitas'

had a *** annoying one recently where I was quizzed for an hour on getting directors to do things and didn't cover a single other area of knowledge or experience.

Translation - They can't get anything done because the directors are a bunch of arses. Bullet dodged.

scenario in which a ship they were on had sunk & you could only save so many passenger

Did this with aeroplane and only two parachutes, we had to argue why we deserved one - and then there was a vote. Oh, and I had to pretend to be David Bowie.

Won the vote, was bloody glad not to get to round two - the place seemed like a nightmare.

esselgruntfuttock - Member
My stepson recently had an interview with Virgin trains to be a driver (he's already qualified & driving for Freightliner but Virgin is more dosh)

GWR are recruiting train drivers rail magazine advert in todays issue.

16 year old teenager, wnt with dad to a job interview at a joinery manufacturers, got shown round, absolutely horrendous noise/dust and clutter, walked into mangers office for a interview and dad just said hes not working here and we both walked out.

Next job at a new build joinery firm, nice building new machines etc,boss asked if i was in a choir and could i sing as he wanted an apprentiuce who could tel if the machines where being strained eg sounding noisy/screeching etc, i said no, he took 3 weeks to tell me i didnt get the job.

I was stood in the security queue for porton down once when the guy in front of was informed the interview invite letter he had just presented to the security guard was for an interview at Portsdown West. Im guessing he didn’t make it.

they all looked like variant of holly

Osmanthus, Berberis, Mahonia, Griselina, Camelia, Holm oak, ... that's it, I'm out. Anyone got any more?

My worst interview was for a sub-editor position. I was nervous so I had a pint before (bad idea). The interview was with a small, older attractive lady who I both fancied and was quite afraid of. I stumbled my answers, got a hot flush, and then stuffed the practical test on my apostrophes.

You never know, they may appreciate your honesty over all the blaggers out there. I've certainly hired the less technically able candidate over the nobber with all the answers.

Before today, my worst was for the RAF. The whole application process took just over a year. One of the later stages of the process was to attend two days of assements at the intelligence school/base at Chicksands.
I caught the train(s) down, on the letter they advised to call the gatehouse 30mins before train arrives and they’ll arrange a lift from the station to the base. Great. So after 4 hours of train travel, 30 mins out call the gatehouse and ask for collection, the phone went silent, lots of voices in background.....Eventually they came back to me and advised me that the course I was due to be on started the day before... I read the letter out to them word for word clearly stating the date being that day I was arriving... I was told to wait 5 whilst they called the Brum careers office.. They called back, apologised, advised me that they had got the date wrong and that I had to head home and await another date to come through. So there I was, in the arse end of Bedfordshire, after travelling 4 hours on various trains now having to face the same journey home again (and yes I had to wait an hour for the next train to come along) for a job in intelligence which the intelligence service got the date wrong

Examiner spent 5 minutes outlining how soul-destroying the post would be and I left.

From the other side of the table...

Years ago I worked in the Personnel (aka HR) office of a leading arts college, and amongst other things I was responsible for arranging all interviews, and sitting in on them as scribe and to ensure due process, etc.

We had one interview for a part time lecturer; the panel was the Course Leader - a scruffy, somewhat obsequious and slightly creepy bloke in his fifties - and the Dean of School, who was a very good looking, raffish, friendly, and roguish charmer, similar age. The (only) candidate was a very pretty and shy-seeming woman in her early twenties, looking for her first job.

The Dean spent the whole interview rocking back in his chair, inadvertently flashing a few inches of lower torso as the bottom 2 buttons of his shirt had come undone. I was trying to work out how to draw his attention to this (but not hers) when we got to the part were go through the candidate's portfolio. To get a proper look (behave) the Dean moved round to sit beside her, and the Course Leader came round and looked over her other shoulder.... at which point I realised his flies were undone!!

As far as I could tell, I was the only person in the room who was aware of the full horror. It felt like the longest interview I've ever been in, though on the bright side, she got the job! I also never sat on a single-gender panel again.

GWR are recruiting train drivers rail magazine advert in todays issue.

He'll probably know about it, but I think he's decided to stay with Freightliner. 46K a year & doesn't work weekends, bank holidays etc. He actually got a job with Trans Pennine but knocked it back.
Hauling freight is a right doddle.

Applied for a job at British Leyland Cowley, in the late 70,s when i had finished my apprenticeship, traveled down there by train 5.00am train, then another train then another train then another train,(good job i like trains) taxi to Cowley, went to security gate, said i had come for a job, showed them my letter for the interview etc, they burst out laughing.

They then pointed out the place was on shutdown due to a long running series of strikes, everyone went home at 12.30 usually even office staff, eventually they managed to get a manager to show me round the huge site, like the mari celeste, got offered the job and good pay also free accomodation payments for a few months and relocation package etc, i turned it all down.

The job was working on the engineering patterns for the design of the new austin metro 4 door and the maestro.

My most stressful was probably this one;

Drove from Surrey to Essex, allowing plenty of time. Arrived, drove to the industrial estate the business was on, checked it out, then drove back to a Little Chef I'd passed, as I'd nearly an hour to kill. Timed myself driving back, about 10 minutes. Had a nice coffee and a snack, whilst genning up on the company. Felt well prepared, the job was exactly my sort of thing.

Walked back out to the car with 15 minutes to go, sat in it, turned the ignition. Click. Click. Click. Nothing. Dead as a doornail (never understood that saying BTW). Battery was completely dead.

10 minutes later, still nothing, nobody around with jump leads. Slightly panicked, I rang the business and got put through to the Director I was seeing. "No problem, I'll come and fetch you". Which he duly did. I was pretty mortified, but it broke the ice nicely.

Got to last two, and a final interview, but didn't get the job.

I think my company car had sussed out that I was being disloyal and talking to the competition...

At my last successful interview, there was a 10 min presentation. I'd double checked they'd have a laptop and screen.
Of course, they didn't work at all. Fortunately I'd still brought my own laptop, and some hand outs, and 4 of us huddled around my screen on a small table whilst I did my stuff. Again, it broke the ice, and I was less stressed than their HR person!

Was interviewed by a total prick once. He sat back, slouched in his chair behind his desk looking down his nose and basically intimating that I wouldn't be up to the job. The 'interview' went on for a short time before it kind of petered out. I don't know if I was supposed to display 'pluck' by having a go at him or what.

Many, many years later I heard a couple of horror stories from people that had dealings with the bloke.

Basically I walked out of the interview thinking 'what a waste of time, I wouldn't want to work for a shit like that anyway'.

He probably sat there thinking 'what a waste of time, I don't want a weedy little turd like that working for me anyway'.

No great loss for either of us, then!

20 years ago, Stoned out of my box, spilled my water on the bosses desk, got the job. Only job interview ive failed was for selling plastic boxes wholesale. A bullet well dodged I'd say.

Last job interview I had was 1983. I got made redundant earlier this year and will start job hunting in the new year. I'm not really looking forward to it.

Was interviewed by a total prick [i]once[/i]

thats pretty good going based on my statistics

Mine was particularly chaotic. The Great Snow(TM) of 2009 led to one of the people who were supposed to be interviewing me crashing her car on the way into work, and the other was stuck at home. I abandoned mine about 2 miles from the assessment centre and waded the rest of the way.

Was eventually led into an empty conference room and a three way call set up for the interview. To be fair that helped, as I did it with the chair reclined back against the wall, my feet on the table, and my sodden shoes steaming gently on the radiator.

That was followed a gruelling technical interview, after which I wandered back to the lobby slightly shell-shocked. A man in there strode over, stuck his hand out, and said “ah, [my name], good to see you again.” My response of “sorry, have we met before?” was greeted by a simultaneous cringing of everyone else in the room.

Turns out he was the CEO and we had indeed met, but at a party a few months prior which had a free bar. No idea what I said to him at the time, but it obviously worked because I got the job.

School recently interviewed for a dept head post for our Base that is trying to re-engage a select few pupils with education.

Guy rocks up late, pretty unkempt then after question 1 pulls out a can of monster opens it and starts drinking it. He didn't get the job.

I once thought i was clever keeping my portfolio of work on a memory stick/thumb drive rather than carry a big binder full of drawings around...

i neglected the fact i also had a folder on there full of those filthy or disgusting clips that used to go round on email before whatsapp was invented...

when the interviewer plugged it into his PC it had some sort of auto-run feature enabled so before we could do anything a video popped up of this surgeon being sprayed head to foot in hot human shit!!

didnt get the job.

Attended an interview for a teaching job in Lancs (where the Autumn term started in late July, wakes week etc). The job was vastly underpaid for what they wanted. The head and the inspector 'deliberated' for an hour and a half and I was getting thoroughly teed off particularly with having a motorcycle ride back to London. Anyway, all three of us candidates walked into the head's room and withdrew our applications. A treasured moment and a bullet dodged. They still paid out the expenses which surprised me a bit.

I got a phone call on the Thursday to say 'interview on Monday' for senior post in the Lakes. I was on a fortnight holiday in Skye at the time.

I drove back to Ullswater for interview (with family in tow), hired a suit.

I spent two hours being shown around the outdoor centre while mrs_oab contained three toddlers in the woods opposite.

Walked into the interview to be met by the statement[i] 'We filled the job here internally last week, but you seemed a stand out candidate, so we thought we would interview you anyway, as there is a junior position in Wales going and we wondered if we could persuade you...'[/i]

The interview lasted about two minutes as I suggested that I wouldn't work in Wales, or for a junior position.

I was interviewed by a prick on one occasion also.

For a warehouse job with Blacks Outdoors in Peterlee. The prick in question was called Mark Antony (Anthony) & he made no eye contact during the interview but just stared at & twiddled with his pen. I'm pleased I didn't get the job cos the place closed not that long afterwards & I joined HMPS anyway.
If you know Mr Antony, tell him from me, he's a prick.

Did the first stage of an interview for a job basically perfect for me. I had very relevant experience and aced their competence test. Even corrected some errors in their questions.

Stage 2 of the interview was a long, irrelevant, buzzword ridden chat with some HR chubsters and then some stupid exercise where we had to pretend to be marooned on a desert island with access only to an argos store. How would we survive using available items, what would our priorities be etc.

The stupidity of the suggested scenario made me (I'm told) visibly cross, and I don't think they appreciated me saying the first thing i'd have done would be to ride down the store's conveyor belt.

thomthumb - Member
Interviewer comes out with lots of concerned questions along the lines of "you don't mention any skills in X" "your CV doesn't list any experience with Y or Z".
I respond "Yes I've done plenty of X..."
"I can do Y Z etc etc, I tailored my CV to the job description but it never mentioned X,Y or Z".

I've had plenty the other way round where it turns out my CV mentions X, Y and Z but I've never done them. The agent had added them to the CV and put me forward for a job I wasn't skilled for. I always take my own copies of the CV now and distribute that at the start.

Cougar - Moderator

I'd say his greatest weakness was his honesy

Or his lack of research into standard interview questions.

Or he was mocking the absurdity of the standard interview questions.

I got the age old "where do you see yourself in five years time", for a contract job! Really? ! Told the truth, and it was about developing my skills and my company, working with clients like themselves, expanding the business. Fair enough it shows commitment and ambition, even if not to them, and something to talk about, but this was a guy I knew and had worked with before, knew my skills and commitment. It should have been a straight tech interview. Like most my contract interviews, can I do the job and fix the hole they are in and can I start tomorrow?

All these questions really tell you is as you say, have they researched standard interview questions and come up with generic answer that you know is probably bullshit.

Stage 2 of the interview was a long, irrelevant, buzzword ridden chat with some HR chubsters and then some stupid exercise where we had to pretend to be marooned on a desert island with access only to an argos store. How would we survive using available items, what would our priorities be etc.

The stupidity of the suggested scenario made me (I'm told) visibly cross, and I don't think they appreciated me saying the first thing i'd have done would be to ride down the store's conveyor belt.

I do sometimes wonder if stuff like this is designed to test how gracefully you can put up with bullshit and keep playing along.

Which may be a big part of the job you're interviewing for.

I was late for an interview once... Driving up the motorway, on the way... puncture. Wearing a white shirt. On the way to a job interview, is the only single time I've ever had a puncture in a car tyre! Changed it on the hard shoulder, made me about half hour late and pretty grubby. Didn't get that one either.

hang on Piranha

Last job interview I had was 1983. I got made redundant earlier this year and will start job hunting in the new year. I'm not really looking forward to it.

feel free to start a new thread about this and don't hesitate to ask for help, yes practices have changed but not for the worse in most cases, this thread is full of exeptions to the rule. good luck !

The stock questions above reminds me of my interview to get my Chartered Engineer status. I've always been a contrary bugger but when they hit me with the old "what will you gain from being a CEng" it was clear I had woken up on the wrong side of the bed as I essentially said I couldn't give a monkeys, it was something my company expected, and not having one previously hadn't affected my career at all.

They also made the mistake of telling me who the interviewers were in advance. I googled them, found their CVs and when they asked if I had any questions I proceeded to grill them about the projects they had led and why they had been unmitigated disasters.

I got my CEng. I can only assume they like people who aren't afraid to stand up to authority and say what they think is right. Or maybe they were scared of me...