Please tell me about your embarrassing job interviews

[Itdoesntrain]

I've been made redundant and applied for a few jobs. I had 5 booked in (different jobs at different companies!) but 2 were cancelled due to the mini budget announcements so am feeling sorry for myself

Anyway, last minute interview arranged at 9am today for 10am today on Zoom.

It was a complete and utter disaster. I had such good answers in my head but just ended up tripping over all my words and stuttering. I couldn't even think of a decent question to ask at the end.

I even started getting teary eyed when they asked why I left my old job (redundancy!) - but I didn't actually cry. I know they noticed my watery eyes though...

I KNOW I haven't got the job, but I'm feeling so cringe about it all and keep having flashbacks 🤣

Please cheer me up with your embarrassing interviews. Extra points if you cried in your interview!

....and I've just had notification to say they've looked at my LinkedIn profile after my interview ended.

Ahhh swallow me up. Hide me forever.

First question: What do you know about {Name of company}?

Me: My current company works with you on some projects, and I know of you by reputation.

Them: What projects have both companies worked on?

Me: -embarrassing pause- I'd have to run a report to check.

Second question: What do you know about our group structure?

Me: Not a great deal.

-embarrassing pause from everybody. I start to go very red-

The rest went okay. They called a few hours later to offer me a second interview!

I once told an interviewer I really liked Shakespeare and then blushed like a beetroot.

It was for a trendy clothing shop. They didn't even need to tell me I wouldn't be working there!

At an interview, not in the UK:

Thanks for coming, but we don't hire white women because they are lazy. I just wanted to see who the competition were interviewing.

Oh my goodness, thank you for sharing. At least I'm not alone.

But @OldWintersSong wtf!! 😱

@CatJumperTwat your username made me laugh so much.

Interview thirty-odd years ago for a government department. I had recently moved to the town and was sent by the Job Centre. Head honcho asked if this was the sort of job I thought I would like. I said I didn't think so. Suppressing a smile, she said they needed people like me. Within a couple of weeks I had top security clearance and was delving into the minutiae of people's lives. I loved it!

Interview on teams where there was an exercise to test the ability to follow multiple web chats, its as a digital adviser for a bank.

Teams wasn’t playing ball, kept crashing, and although I was able to follow the conversations, my replies somehow came out disjointedly.

After a couple of minutes the interviewer stopped me and said “well, let’s stop the practical part of this interview as it seems you’re struggling.

mortified.

I must have done something right in the verbal interview though because I am currently sat at home waiting for my laptop to arrive so I can start on Monday.

I had an interview for an advertising sales job. I already sold advertising so had the experience. I was given a maths test. I'm ok at arithmetic and working out my targets but this test had formulas in! I completed around 10 percent of it so that set me on the back foot. Then the interview started and I could tell I wasn't the right fit (it was for HTV Wales which is now ITV Wales) I just ended up saying after a question 'I'll stop you right there and save both of us, this really isn't for me' I know that might not sound embarrassing but you know when you can just tell that you aren't the right person.
Its the only interview I've ever walked out of.

When I was 18 I had an interview for a sales call/broker type job. One of the questions was to finish this sentence "Money is..."

I said "...sometimes important". I didn't get the job, I should have realised they were looking for some kind of sales-driven response like "the be all and end all for a business".

Came down from the North of the UK to London to interview in the morning. For some reason I thought taking the night bus would be a good idea.

Did not sleep a wink (several crying babies) and got stuck on the M1 for several hours. Had to call ahead to apologise for running late.

When I finally made it I was hot and flustered and had shoe polish on my white shirt (don't put newly polished shoes in the same bag as your interview clothes).

First interviewer didn't seem impressed and told me none of my newly acquired MBA skills would be of any great use.

Second interviewer asked about the challenges one might face working for a smaller company. For some reason I started talking about maternity benefits (at the time i was single and not planning on children any time soon).

In a case study involving numbers i then strugled briefly to calculate 5% of something.

I did consider terminating the interview to save us all the bother, but did continue. Amazingly they offered me the job and I ended up staying for over 10 years.

Fingers crossed OP!

I wore a polyester shirt and sweated so much from nervousness that I had huge sweat patches under my arms that were absolutely visible to the interviewers.

I had an interview where you were expected to meet various people prior to the interview. I also arranged to chat with the head of a service closely aligned to the one I was applying to head just to chat informally about working together. Had a very frank chat to him which included me using the phrase “my CV is a bit crap but I’m alright on the shop floor”.
It transpired he was actually on the panel! Thankfully he hadn’t realised either and we both said we would have been less frank had we known.
Got the job!

In response to a question about my management style I told the truth and said I think people pretty much manage themselves and the good ones get stuff done and are a pleasure to work with, and the less-good will twiddle about belly-button gazing and there isn't much you can do to change people's inherent productivity or intelligence. Didn't get that job!

I hate interviews, I am no good at thinking on my feet and just winging it. I had one where they asked me a long question I just didn't understand and didn't know how to answer, so gave this big, convoluted response. The interviewers nodded politely when I finished, then said: "thank you, but I don't think you answered the question" and then asked it again! I felt so stupid, as I had to admit I couldn't answer it.
Good luck OP!

A mix of my experiences.

Receptionist said to me (or did she?) very quickly and quietly, "Follow me," and promptly walked off, taking no account of whether I'd heard her properly (me young and easily embarrassed about slight hearing problem) so I had to guess what she'd said, trying to keep up with her fast pace. I was lucky that I'd guessed correctly. Otherwise, "Why are you following me?"

Another time I misunderstood instructions so walked in on an interview with another candidate instead of waiting in the corridor. I never regained my composure.

One interviewer had a large notebook in front of her (which remained blank) and she obviously wanted someone who was experienced - I wasn't - and she wrote not a single note down. "I'll inform you later," she said. I knew that wasn't to be as she didn't even write my name down.

I am surprised that I never walked into a cupboard.

Not an interview exactly but I went for a teaching job where they were looking for somebody who had experience of infants and could teach music. There were 3 of us being interviewed and I was the only one with both. So I thought I would definitely get the job - otherwise why specify that etc.
When they said I didn't get the job I burst into tears and ran out of the room and on to the nearest bus.

I went for an interview for a job in HR (my previous role had been in HR and this job would have used and built on the skills I'd learned and used there) and spent the whole interview somehow denying that I had any knowledge of HR work and didn't have a clue as to the recruitment portal the company used - I had been the trainer teaching new starters how to use this portal in my previous job!!

Way to talk myself out of a good career move. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I went for an interview for a job I was unsure about, and they kept asking Top Three questions (what are your 3 greatest achievements, what are your 3 greatest strengths...), on and on. I pride myself on always interviewing well even when I don't really want the job, but I felt the will to live draining out of me. When they asked for 3 ways in which I would be well suited to the job I thought of two and then totally blanked. I couldn't even think of a tenuous place filling answer. I just sat there staring thoughtfully into space for a few long minutes, and then said "Sorry, I can't. I really can't."

Clearly I was not offered that job.

I've told this story on here before but I once had an interview where the receptionist told me to wait outside the interview room while they finished with the previous candidate, sat on my plastic corridor chair I couldn't help overhearing the panel having an absolute whale of a time with the previous candidate, roaring with laughter and as she came out they warmly hugged her and wished her a good day - when it came to my turn they all sat through my interview in stone faced silence, not even raising a polite titter at my little jokes, then didn't even get up to let me out - obviously didn't get the job, clearly they'd made their minds up about wanting the other lady already but they could have done a better job at not making it totally obvious me interviewing was a waste of time!

As an interviewer, I've had the odd corker, the man who came in looking a bit grey and sweaty, assumed bad case of nerves until he had to break off the interview halfway through to chunder violently into the waste paper bin, turned out he'd been suffering from gastritis all week but really wanted the job so thought he could soldier through 😧. Another terrible one was when the fire alarm went off mid-interview, had to evacuate the building and make small talk with the poor candidate for a full 45 mins while the fire service investigated, our receptionist has also whisked away her coat and not had time to retrieve it before we went out (and ours were at our desks on another floor), it was November and we were all shivering and frozen solid by the time we were allowed back in (she actually got the job though so that's nice!).

It's probably apocryphal but my colleague told me a story that happened to a friend of a friend many years ago, where her friend who has a very common name, let's say 'Lisa Smith' went along to an interview as a receptionist/admin person at a large financial company, she was quite surprised when the questions at the interview were very in-depth, asking her about her experience creating financial strategies and conducting in-depth risk assessments but she struggled through, left thinking she probably hadn't got the job, as she was leaving there was a bit of a fracas as another lady was storming out saying she couldn't believe she'd come for an interview as a VP for finance and they'd been asking her about her typing speed and whether she minded making cups of tea, totally inappropriate for someone of her expertise and how dreadfully sexist. After some confusion it turned out the other lady's name was also 'Lisa Smith' and when the interviewer had called out their names in the waiting room they'd gone into each other's interview! I think sadly the story ended with the candidates being blamed for the mix-up rather than the recruitment agency or whoever's fault it really was, and neither of them got the job...

I had 2 interviews booked for the same day, when the 1st interview asked me what I knew about the company I started talking about the 2nd company... obviously didn't get that job

These are making me feel loads better, thank you 😊

@missbipolar that made me chuckle, I've done that previously too!! Which I had forgotten all about until just now.

Medical school interview.
Them: Why do you want to be a doctor
Me: stares in silence... ermmmm. I can't remember.

I didn't get an offer!

I had put "astrology and the supernatural" down as my hobbies. This was for an insurance job, in the 90s, in Ireland@ so he thought I was extremely weird and pushed back hard on my hobbies with a bit of bad attitude (in my view!!).
I ended up lecturing him about symbolism and the collective consciousness. Then I told him I'd read a book by Colin Wilson, called "the occult". I recommend it to him.

🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈

My tooth broke and I had the most excruciating pain, was in a cold sweat for the whole interview. I didn’t get the job but they sent my CV to another department that did end up hiring me! Best of luck OP!

Nothing, nothing will ever top "I believe in equality of access for all life forms" by a job interviewee in the Angela Hernandez thread (now sadly like a Swiss cheese because of posters deleting their accounts, but still well worth the read).

www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_classics/650904-The-Least-Professional-Moments-of-My-Illustrious-Career-Please-Feel?page=1