To ask if anyone’s ever gone to an interview where the panel were absolute nightmares?

Yes. Once had an interview coming back off mat leave where I answered a technical question and the interviewer asked "Jesus how long have you BEEN on mat leave". I was really junior at the time.
Half way through I just said, "this has to be right for both parties and this isn't the right place for me and to continue would be a waste of everyone's time". I walked out (politely). The agent who put me forward then said their feedback was great and they wanted a second interview. Erm no.

I climbed the ladder somewhere else and work against this giant of the industry frequently. Once where she had been professionally negligent and missed something technically.

That was a great day.

Around 15 years ago on an interview the woman kept getting distracted and looking out the window, I asked her was anything wrong and she said her ex husband was stalking her and kept driving past, she spent most of the interview telling me all about it and no I never got the job 😂

Oh my word I went to one exactly as you describe a few weeks ago. It was the second worst interview of my life - I'm a senior professional in my 40's.

I feel this happens when they are planning for an internal hire but they have to advertise the role!

Years back I had an interview for a civil service job.

The panel had their desks arranged in a horseshoe shape and I had to sit on a stool in the middle.

Unfortunately it was a winter afternoon when the sun was low in the sky and shining brightly through the window right into my face. I was squinting and my eyes were watering and I was too distracted with having to keep dabbing my eyes with a tissue without smudging my eye makeup to answer confidently.

Another one was a school admin job with a panel, but we were in the smallest office I've ever seen. We were all sitting in a tiny circle and our knees were almost touching.

OMG, I had an appalling half-day set of interviews, up against what turned out to be the internal candidate, who was treated with favouritism while I was insulted to my face & behind my back (subsequent interviewer read out what previous one had said about me).

When I got home I rang HR & told them I was no longer interested & asked them to shred any data they held on me. This didn't accord with their world-view & their response was along the lines of that Billy Connolly punchline: "You don't tell ME to f$%& off, I tell YOU to f$%& off!" Too late - I got in first.😂I heard a few years later that the whole benighted department had been closed down. 😂again.

Worst one I had was when I was around 18, I just finished fashion design at college. I was bright eyed and very polite. The interview was just for an admin role and the man and woman interviewing were so condescending and spent most of the time asking if I’d made the outfit I was wearing and do I just make all my own clothes, not much on the actual job. I just left as soon as I could and knew regardless I wasn’t working there if they offered. Just felt like a big waste of time.

Yes. I’m a lecturer and I went for a position at a different uni before I got my current job. It wasn’t the whole panel but the professor who was head of department. He literally eyed me up and down as I walked in which immediately set the tone. He was aggressive, kept interrupting me, sighing, checking the clock. He made me feel like he’d rather be absolutely anywhere else. I felt the same way as you, that I wouldn’t accept it even if successful though I knew the chances of success were next to none. I think he’d made his mind up about me as soon as I walked in.

I’ll be honest, it actually put me off the whole uni and I’ve never thought about it in the same light since. I’ve worked at Russell’s including Oxford and never ever met an academic like him.

Had a couple - one guy was trying to start an argument, got frustrated when I had a reasonable answer for him, the other was just snarky throughout, sent me the rudest rejection letter saying they'd found someone far better! However, years later, when I bought a flat and was looking for tiles for my kitchen, I went to the second guy's showroom (having forgotten the name of the company in the meantime) - the look on his face was priceless!

Two members of the three person interview panel started fighting. The position I was applying for was admin for two different managers. When I was asked how I would prioritise the workload, they started fighting verbally and very nastily about which of them had the more important work.

I couldn't believe it. It was insane. It went on for at least ten minutes. The third interviewer, their director, just sat there. I was ignored.

I withdrew my application. The person who got the job lasted three months if that.

Not quite on the topic, but I had a one-to-one interview once where it was quite clear that both the interviewer and I strongly disliked each other virtually on sight.

We had a very polite and stilted 20 minute question and answer session but we both knew he wouldn't offer me he job (it was as his assistant) and I wouldn't take it even if it was.

It was all quite odd really.

Most recent the interviewers talked AT me for an hour.
Asked me 1or 2 questions but didn’t really let me answer. Then talked at me again.
Weird thing is.. the interview slots were 30 minutes each. I was there for an hour each slot.

Felt like they were “selling” me the company and the role.
Waiting to hear if I’ve got it or not.

How utterly bizarre! Some people are so strange.

One of the 2 on the interview panel stretched her arms up to the ceiling while yawning very widely.
I had just entered the room, not even spoken. That was my welcome.

They couldn’t have given less fucks that I was there. Obviously had someone lined up.

I went for a job once where you had to attend in advance to do a test basically writing a press release and comms plan. The woman running the test centre was an absolute bitch. She shouted at people for picking up their pens before the time officially started. They also made everybody hand write everything why they couldn’t source laptops I don’t know. I’m so regretful that I didn’t actually just walk out.

The worst interview I ever attended was with a local authority.

the interviewer who would have been my line manager was extremely unprofessional. She looked at me with a very sarcastic smile and spoke to me like I was a complete simpleton. She mocked my work ethic and rolled her eyes at note taker before saying I think we’ll leave it there.

I got a rejection email even before I left the building, saying we have considered your application carefully but…. So I responded asking them how that could be given that I was still in the building.

they struggled to answer me and gave me some fluff about my work ethic. How could they possibly have any idea what my work ethic is based on a ten minute meeting?

I went through an interview for promotion in my last job for a role I was already acting up into but knowing I wasn't going to get it because the managers friend who had left wanted to come back and it was earmarked for her.
I gave a great interview, didn't get it as I knew I wouldn't, then chased her for weeks for feedback that she didn't want to give because she and I both knew the score and that I'd performed well at the interview but it was never going to change the outcome.
Handing in my notice to that job on the same day she told me the role was coming back up if I wanted to reapply was delicious.
I'm sure it'll come a surprise to no one who's worked within the system that this was in the NHS.

I had one years ago with a hedge fund company and the first interviewer was incredibly rude and insulting. Then he left and second interviewer walked in. At which point I said I was leaving and didn't want the job. Then the second interviewer said he's not that bad and please I will get him to offer you the job and I want to work with someone who will walk out and stand up for themselves. I said thanks but still no and left. Think it was the right decision, if someone reveals themselves to be difficult at interview it doesn't improve.

NHS. Three candidates (one internal) given 20 minutes to read a 70 page document then present to the panel. Internal candidate was a co-author of the document, me and the other had obviously never seen it before.

In the Q&A after the presentation the panel directed all the questions straight to the internal candidate.

The other candidate and I both walked out immediately afterwards, before the 1-2-1 interviews, and the HR person came running after us to ask if there was something wrong.

Yep. Many years ago. The two women asked me nothing (I mean nothing) and just talked about themselves for 20 minutes. Deeply odd

I had one where I was asked a question and one panel member said in a raised voice "I don't believe you" almost as soon as I finished speaking.
I responded with the evidence and he huffed and rolled his eyes
I was actually offered that job but turned it down when I found out Dickhead would be my manager - a more Senior person phoned me to change my mind and said one of the reasons I got the job was it was felt I could "handle" Dickhead
I had no wish to

I went to what turned out to be a really weird interview, years ago.
The job advert was asking for a Spanish speaker, I'm bilingual so applied and spent ages on the application as was desperate to leave the job I was in at the time. The Spanish speaking job would have been right up my street but when I arrived at the interview, it was in a really seedy office, down a dingy back alley and the receptionist locked the entrance door after welcoming me in.
Spanish music was playing but that was basically the only mention of anything Spanish. Interviewers didn't even check my language skills, they basically wanted a door to door salesperson to sell kitchens... in Manchester! No idea why on earth the salesperson would even need to speak Spanish. It was a question of knocking on residential addresses. I politely sat out the interview but ignored all calls from them afterwards... They left voicemail offered the job but I just ignored.

Not for a job, but I was interviewed to see if I would be awarded a small grant to take a professional exam.

It was the weirdest thing. I was asked nothing about what I planned to do with the qualification. The panel asked me about myself and latched on to one thing I mentioned about where I worked and asked me loads of questions about that which I was not able to answer as not actually part of my job. I mentioned something about my volunteering(very relevant to the grant) and how long I'd been doing this and one lady quite aggressively started telling me did I know that wouldn't be counted for the exam. Of course I knew, I was just giving some context about how long I'd been doing this.

They also asked how I planned to fund recertification in 5 years, which felt like a trap. If I said I could afford it, I wouldn't need the grant to qualify now. If I said I didn't know if I would be able to, surely giving me the grant would be a waste if I wouldn't stick with it??

I was planning on taking the exam as I finally felt ready and able but I sobbed after that feeling completely deflated and like I wasn't good enough.

I had one during covid, so it was a teams interview and before I hung up I could hear one of the panel saying my interview was a fucking nightmare. Unfortunately it was a promoted post in my organisation at the time. I didn't bother the next time the post came up and put my efforts into gaining a promotion with a different organisation which I was successful with.

I walked into an interview many years ago and was taken aback to see 8 people arrayed opposite my chair. Turned out that they had all been flown in from all over the world for this ( an international bureaucracy). None of them were in the least able understand the job, let alone judge who to recruit. It turned into me questioning them, calling in a more senior person to answer some more detail about the requirements of the organisation and me summing up by saying that they didn’t need a person of my level and experience to do the job in question, they needed a competent technical person at a much, much lower rate of pay. It finished by me drawing up a new job spec ( giving everyone a bit of input, however spurious , to save face ) and me suggesting where they could look for the right person.

In retrospect, I should have charged them a consultancy fee, though I did get a nice thank you letter and apology !