Holy hell, just had THE toughest job interview that I have ever experienced! Come & tell me your interview horror stories.

[Vampiricouncil]

Wow!
2 on the panel with the coldest staring eyes ever.
Absolutely no kindness to be seen!
Just cold hard eyes staring at me barking questions at me…

I had an interview with a charity. The two women interviewing by Teams spoke at great length in yoga voices about how I should "remain calm" throughout the process etc

I just thought - wtf? This is a senior position. If I can't "remain calm" doing a video interview a full fifteen months into the pandemic then I'm not up to the job.

Then they mentioned something about questions, and I glanced sideways off camera to my list, and one of them said, "Oh, I see a nervous glance there, it's nothing to worry about!".

Oh do bugger off.

I came off the interview wondering if I got the job if I could stomach them for twenty hours a week!

The silliest question I’ve was asked in my first role, a panel of three, was “how would you answer the phone?” (Not a receptionist role). I was like, er…mimes picking up phone “hello allsorts1 at XYZ company” 🤷🏼‍♀️
They were like, yes very good. I think even they were embarrassed by that question 😂

Most weird interview ever was years ago. There was a vacancy for a person to write/type names on fingerprints taken. That was the job really. DF in the police force and he was asking around if there were vacancies (I suppose.)

I turned up to a panel of senior ranking officers. Five of them! I was 16 and they were firing questions at me. Scary. I felt like a criminal! One of them said - well, I don't think you have a great deal to offer us do you? I remember saying - I think I have and walked out. (Then rang my Dad and cried.)

Strange way to interview a 16 year old. Maybe they wanted to make a point about nepotism?

Why oh why were there so many officers on the panel?

@ProfessionalWeirdo

Not me (thankfully), but a story DH told me some years ago, when his boss was interviewing for a new secretary.

Boss set all candidates the following task:

"One of your colleagues is approaching his Silver Wedding, and his wife is planning a surprise party (about which he knows nothing) to celebrate their anniversary. A week or so ahead of the party, the Managing Director dictates that your colleague must go to a meeting overseas - the date of which clashes with the planned party. Write a letter to the wife explaining why her husband will miss his own Silver Wedding celebration."

My first thought, on hearing this, is not repeatable. My second thought was how I would deal it.

I would start by asking if this situation is likely to arise in real life. If the answer was No, I would question the whole point of this hypothetical exercise. If the answer was Yes, I would then say that if the Managing Director had put the employee in this position, then he should be the one to take responsibility for telling the wife - then conclude by saying that if this how the company treats their staff, then I wouldn't want to work for them anyway.

I've often thought that one of the most invidious interview questions of all must surely be "Do you work well under pressure?" Answer Yes and you're making a rod for your own back if you get the job; answer No and you won't be offered it.

Surprise party or not, I'd consider it a huge red flag to suggest that a workplace should be so enmeshed with employee's private lives like that.

My worst interview was in 3 stages. First part was interview with someone from HR which went brilliantly. Second was aptitude tests which HR person was besides herself with delight at the results, best she'd ever seen. Third part was with two department heads. They came in, introduced themselves, then sat and stared at me. And stared. And stared. They didn't say another word. I smiled and waited for them to ask me something, but not a word came out of them. After what felt like an entire lifetime they thanked me for coming and left. I didn't get the job. Bloody grateful as they were weird as fuck.

I'm in the civil service and have been interviewing with other departments lately. It's all behaviours and strength based questions - can you tell us about a time you've had to change the way you work, or what is an example of a time you've dealt with conflict within your team, that sort of bollocks. You have to have a whole bunch of interchangable stories you can make sound really good and relevant to displaying the behaviour, rather than just talking about how you can actually do the job because of your skills and experience doing XYZ.

Had one today where as the strengths I was also asked when did I last fail, and what are three words colleagues would use to describe you. The wheels came well off at that point and I started talking right nonsense!

I like to think that when interviewers behave like pricks, then the company's culture is toxic, so you've dodged a bullet, really.

Interrogation-style interviews are very old-fashioned and unprofessional.
Like the interviewers don't realise that interviews are a two-way street...

Being asked how I would 'add to diversity on campus', then getting a lecture on the liberal arts college's spatial proximity to Harvard University... the two institutions were not affiliated.

I had the hr lady at a huge corporation asking me things like " do you have children and do you have a partner" also drilled me for the answers I provided in a personality test ( that had like 100 questions ) and I think she went through all of them in an accusatory tone.

That was the 3rd interview and they were shocked I declined the job. Thank god I already had a job and didn't need that one

I had a colleague who had a great answer to the standard:
"What is your greatest strength? "Hard work and honesty."
"What is your greatest weakness? "Hard work and honesty."

@Backtomyoldname

Secondary school. Head of department post.

I wasn’t being interviewed but was part of the task. We 3 ordinary teachers were to teach a short lesson to a selected group of y9 pupils.

The candidates were to observe us and report back their thoughts and feelings about our lessons to the interviewing panel. In addition, when we were given the nod, we were to back out and the candidate take over our lesson.

Sounds crap and complicated. ‘The maths department thought it was a good method when they got their new HOD’. They didn’t - we asked them.

There seemed to be more adults in the room than pupils.

What could possibly go wrong….. well the candidates were never given the nod to take over, they didn’t have the whole procedure explained to them either. We got to the end of our lessons and just stood around.

None came dressed to teach a practical subject and one fainted and was out cold on the floor. The retiring HOD wasn’t involved in the slightest - bad manners there.

It was a shit show from start to finish. We did end up with the best person - more by accident then design. She thought it was a weird method.

Our SMT tended to read books and pick up half baked ideas, initiatives and then present these as the best invention since sliced bread.

This school sounds remarkably similar to the one which I escaped a couple of years ago. Is it a girls' school in Berkshire by any chance?

Our SMT tended to read books and pick up half baked ideas, initiatives and then present these as the best invention since sliced bread.
Sadly very common in senior staff in education and even more so in educational administration.

I went for a job interview after we sold our business. It was a school admin position and totally unrelated to what I'd been doing previously, but I had management experience, admin experience and customer service experience.

I was slightly bemused to find that I had to write a report on the percentages of pupils doing their homework in year 8, and then present it, together with a strategy for getting the reticent ones to do their homework... Then a group task saying how we would answer a horrible letter from a parent (where we were observed to see which candidate held their own in the group best) and an interview.

It was like taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

I did not get the job. The 8 other candidates were also bemused at the recruitment process, we had time to chat between each stage. The wage was fractionally above minimum.
They offered the job to two candidates, who both turned it down.

@samlovesdilys

Teaching interviews are ridiculous....all the candidates together in one room all day, and a full day (two if senior position)?with teaching a lesson, formal interview (often a couple with different members of leadership), often an in-tray exercise, 'informal chat' with staff, tour, presentation...and anything else they can think of...!!! Oh and if they offer you the job you are supposed to decide there and then!

While our son was doing his SCITT training he interviewed for a job at the secondary school where he was on placement. As well as what you’ve mentioned he was also interviewed by a panel of the students, some of whom he’d been teaching a couple of days before. He was up against experienced teachers including a department head from another school and he got the job!

I've been on the other end of this where a candidate I was interviewing told me my questions were really unoriginal!!!

So one of interviewers was yawning.
Completely straight faced with zero way of reading them due to masks and hard stares.

I put heart & soul in.

Didn’t get it.
“Give is a ring in a few days for feedback if you want” says straight face number 1.
No number given to call and ask for said feedback though .

@givemushypeasachance the really really bloody annoying part of those bollocks strengths-based questions is that they then try to tell me that it's to my advantage because it's not based on particular experience!

(ok, I admit I'm getting cross. I don't have much experience and would like somebody to give me a basic job I can learn to do)

Interviewed for a technical support job at a university. I'd barely slept and had a horrible cold. Interview was going ok although they were pretty humourless and dry. Then they asked me to describe my experience with a particular technology, and seemed unimpressed when I said I had only used it at a basic level. Nowhere in the JD was it mentioned as "essential". It got worse from then on and I was feeling progressively more ill, my answers getting more vague and crap as the ordeal continued. They then started quizzing me on totally unrelated systems at my then workplace, like some sort of industrial espionage, except blatant. It went to someone internal and they told me to ring for feedback. Reader, I couldn't be arsed.

@givemushypeasachance

I'm in the civil service and have been interviewing with other departments lately. It's all behaviours and strength based questions - can you tell us about a time you've had to change the way you work, or what is an example of a time you've dealt with conflict within your team, that sort of bollocks. You have to have a whole bunch of interchangable stories you can make sound really good and relevant to displaying the behaviour, rather than just talking about how you can actually do the job because of your skills and experience doing XYZ.

Had one today where as the strengths I was also asked when did I last fail, and what are three words colleagues would use to describe you. The wheels came well off at that point and I started talking right nonsense!

Agreed - all the 'competency' style questions are just total and utter bollocks

I had an interview once where the interviewer was visibly shaking from nerves

@Vampiricouncil

So one of interviewers was yawning. Completely straight faced with zero way of reading them due to masks and hard stares.

I put heart & soul in.

Didn’t get it.
“Give is a ring in a few days for feedback if you want” says straight face number 1.
No number given to call and ask for said feedback though .

You've probably dodged a bullet.

All of these sound terrifying! I'm sure I've had the stilettos-up-a-ladder one as an actual nightmare!

My absolute worst was one of the interviewers throwing a pen at me halfway through an interview. It was a job for a teaching position abroad, and they asked me to do a demo lesson teaching a grammar point. Then rather than do the grown up thing and ask me how I'd deal with behaviour problems, they both started acting like teenage boys messing around in a lesson, including one of them throwing a pen at me. They told me at the end that I dealt with the classroom discipline very well, but I didn't have the heart to say I wasn't telling them off as teenagers, I was telling them off as grown men being childish twats.

I got offered the job, turned it down and made sure I told them it was because of their shitty recruitment process. Arses.

Not the interview itself (that was uneventful) but when I arrived at the customer service desk and told the lady serving I was there for an interview she said "He's running a bit late. Take a seat and I'll tell him the next victim is here. Sorry, candidate."
🤷‍♀️

@cabingirl

I've been on the other end of this where a candidate I was interviewing told me my questions were really unoriginal!!!

"Well, you should be able to give me some textbook answers then, shouldn't you?"

@IslaInthesun

I wouldn't work there if that's how they think am interview should be.

Exactly. If that’s the vibe then run! You do NOT want to be in a place if that’s how they sort out and welcome newcomers!!!! That said I went through an interesting (robust slightly uncomfortable but probably part of their method) of interviews with Amazon prior to my job I accepted a couple of years ago. 8 interviews yep count ‘em 8!!! And …well