To ask for your interview fuck ups

Teaching interview … asked for my weaknesses and I said planning and assessment !! I didn’t get the job and in the feedback they said I had pretty much said I struggled with the 2 main aspects of the job !!

In all fairness I had great feedback and they told me it was really close between me and one other and that they had to be really picky , they told me my lesson was perfect and so was my application , they recommended me to other schools and they did say that my weaknesses were nothing to do with why I didn’t get the job , they got what I was saying , but we both did have a bit of a laugh about it and I was advised to maybe not say that in another Interview 🤣

I was interviewed to be the interim headteacher of a failing school.

After 6 months, I had to be interviewed again for the same job, re-advertised as a permanent contract. Panel consisted of my LA adviser and my board of governors. Having to evidence my work and not make an idiot of myself was a huge pressure. Worrying that if I wasn't good enough I still had 4 months of my interim post to complete with them.
I was appointed.

However, a couple of years later I was involved in an interview panel for an interim HT in a similar position. Shortlisting, the board said they had completed without me. This signifies that the applications meet the criteria.

I turned up for the two day selection process to find the interim HT ready for the selection days…except also to find she hadn't completed an application.

I had to explain to her that she couldn't be appointed to a job she hadn't applied for…( especially under safeguarding).

She was very cross, bizarrely, and very vocal about ‘not being made to apply for a job she was already doing’.
She asked ‘what happens now because I haven't applied?’

My response, of course, ‘the panel will select from candidates who have’!

I was interviewing for another role in my then work place. The interviewers were most of my colleagues and bosses that I already knew, which made it more mortifying. There was one new colleague that I'd never met and when they introduced me to her she asked me what my current role was. For the life of me I couldn't remember my job title and stuttered out some nonsense.

Also this interview followed another interview that I'd had 6months before this one for a similar role. At the previous interview they had asked me a question that I couldn't answer but had promised I'd look up later. I didn't. In the next interview the same person asked the same question and I again didn't know the answer...

I didn't get the job the second time either...

I love this!!! 😂

Hahahahaha! This is brilliant 😂

A friend of mine interviewed a woman who threw up into a bin during her interview and he still gave her the job.

Probably outing and not very funny...

I had just graduated from uni in 2010 during the recession and with jobs being in short supply, I got an interview via a recruiter with a pharma company in Suffolk (Haverhill) on a Friday to attend the following Tuesday.
I was in Dublin and flights were very expensive as too short notice. So went the cheapest way (ferry) as I was broke.
Got in the coach on Monday evening and coach got on the ferry, off the ferry through wales couple of hours to Milton Keynes. Got on a bus from MK to Cambridge, changed at a public toilet and got a bus from Cambs to Haverhill. At that stage I had been travelling for about 18 hours and got there at 1:30 for 2pm interview. I was so tired but interview went really well until I was asked about a very simple chromatographic technique and my brain froze. I still got the job! They were shocked when I told them about my journey. And I had to do the same trip back home so got back to Dublin on Wednesday evening having left on Monday evening.

I started the job a month later on for HR to ask about flight tickets so they can reimburse my expenses, recruiter never said they'd pay for my flights!
Good luck op 👍

I once applied for a job and got e-mail saying can I send a second page of my CV as it is missing... There was no second page because all the advice about CVs I got online is to keep it short!

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea as in candidates arriving 30 or more minutes earlier than their scheduled interview time and waiting. It comes across as entitled as it gives the impression that they are more important than the interviewees - candidates have expressed that as they are early they can be interviewed earlier.
you hit the nail on the head when you said that you’d get a coffee or wait. 10-15 minutes early is great. I should have mentioned that I’m in central London so it is easy to wait around, an important thing to have missed so I apologise for that

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea haha. I guess I should be flattered. I was definitely not capable of A levels, hence dropping out.
I would be offered work in a commercial kitchen or food business now 25 years later, so it makes no sense. Though not waitressing. I'd be shite at that.
Like oh we need someone who'll work here for 20 years on minimum wage.
I really fancied myself as a soup shop supervisor. If only he knew.
Haha.

Well yes, you may not have had work experience but with 7 GCSEs you were most likely capable of A levels or other further education and therefore unlikely to remain in a job pouring soup into cups , which is what they needed .

I remember being told similar myself when first looking for work age 18 and it is frustrating .

I was being interviewed for a college place and one of the panel started rocking backwards and forwards on his chair and next thing he went flying, head over heels, legs in the air - I burst out laughing and much to his embarrassment I couldn't stop laughing. Didn't get offered a place.

Not an interview anecdote, but my husband was in WHS once and heard a supervisor showing a teenage sales assistant (probably a Saturday job) how to do something. He ended by saying 'And that's the difference between good retail ... and great retail.' Apparently she rolled her eyes. Good for her.

Panel interview....me ssying i was reliable...great memory etc..interview ended...left room ..only to have to go back because i forgot my handbag 🤣🤣🤣..we all had a giggle about it tbh. I got the job

I drove to an interview 2 hours away from my house. I stopped to get fuel, got back into my car a wee bit too enthusiastically and split my trousers right up the back, nicely exposing my knickers. Very luckily I had a winter coat in the boot that just about covered my arse. Managed to get into the client’s office and the very helpful assistant offered to take my coat…no problem, I just stood with my arse to the wall to take it off. The interview went very well until the point where I was offered a tour of the facilities 😬and I realised I’d have to put my coat back on. Cue some weird maneouvring and shuffling along the wall to get my coat back on. The interviewers were clearly puzzled by my wanting my coat on in the height of summer but didn’t say anything. I got the job and months later told my interviewer about the trousers…she about wet herself laughing 😆

Years ago, I was interviewing for a primary teaching job. It was with a year one class, I remember.

I was doing a circle time for my lesson demonstration, and obviously, not knowing any of the children's names, I was having to point at the ones with their hands up to get answers.
One little girl sat about 2 children away from me had her hand up to answer, but wasn't looking at me to be chosen. So I reached over, and with a single finger, lightly tapped her on the head to get her attention. She looked up, answered, and we moved on.

Then, in the interview, the head starts criticizing me, saying "we don't use physical discipline here to correct the children!" I was so blindsided by the fact she thought I'd attacked a pupil, and at her clear lack of attention to what had actually happened, that I didn't even bother to correct her. I knew at that point she'd already decided I wouldn't get the job. And I wouldn't have wanted to work there anyway, if that's the assumption they'd leap to after any sort of physical interaction with a child, that I simply did a confused shrug, said, "okay then". And that was that!

It was just... so bizarre.

When I was on the dole at 17-18 (dropped out of media studies lol) I went to an interview for a soup cafe, it was called 'nincom-soup'.
The job was to pour soup into cups and hand it to people and take payment, and cleaning.
The boss told me unfortunately I was 'overqualified'?!
I had never had a job before, and had 7 GCSEs!? Lol.

I got out of that one by quipping “it’s not the mistakes you make, it’s the way you deal with them” and promptly pulled a large hanky out of my bag and mopped it all up.
I got the job!

Actually this is very true. I was recently on a virtual an interview panel over teams for a clinical fellowship and one of the candidates could not get their presentation to work and ended up having to email it to one of us so we could share our screen. He just kept completely calm and in control of the situation and while he was trying to sort the situation out, continued giving really good answers to his interview questions (we decided to go to the questions part and come back to the presentation).

He most definitely got the job. Good luck!

Second interview, Head of HR and one of the company owners. Very much about cultural fit. HR asked “What three trades do you value most in people?” And then “What three can you not stand”. Me - “I can’t stand when people aren’t on time”. HR glances at Director, saying, well, she clearly can’t stand you then”. ….. When answering I had not considered that said Director arrived 20 minutes late for the interview 🙈😂

I did get the job.

I interviewed for a job I knew nothing about. They asked why I applied for the job and I said because I needed a job. I didn't get it.

A young lad I interviewed at a graduate recruitment drive:

Me: what did you do to prepare yourself for the interview today?

Him: I had my trousers taken up

Bless him

What do you mean being early comes across as 'entitled'? Most people are going to allow plenty of time to get to an interview if they aren't too sure of travelling time. If I was driving - then yes I'd sit in the car and wait; on public transport I would go for a coffee if there was somewhere about - but otherwise I'm not going to hang around in the street . Do you not have a waiting area at your workplace ?

Reading these has cheered me up today 😄. Mine aren't that funny, had one as a teenager for a dentist receptionist job. Just out of college, in the interview they got mixed up and asked about my job in the college (I had just finished a course in media), I panicked and lied. Can't even remember what I said! Then interviewed at my mums office and had no idea what I was waffling on about, the woman interviewing me had a tight blouse unbuttoned and the buttons that were done up were struggling to stay that way. I'm straight but couldn't stop looking at her chest! Didn't get either job unsurprisingly.