How to fail an interview (I was one of the interviewers)

[Hairisbad]

We advertised for bar staff at our local social club. This was for weekends when we have parties on. This person failed as soon as he came in the room.
Drunk or drugged up.
Told me I'm over the hill for bar work. And I'm not busty enough. I am on the committee and wouldn't know how to pull a pint properly.
The club is not first choice for people booking events. We are booked every weekend until September.
He could put us on the map as if he worked there they would come just to see him.

There were 2 of us interviewing and didn't dare look at each other.

Uni student applying for bar work - when asked why he was applying for the role because he had never had a job before (he was 22), he replied because my Mum told me I had to.

Not in the same league as some of these because there was nothing really wrong with her but my worst ever interview was with a middle class graduate candidate (so no work background to talk about) for a role requiring quite a lot of social interaction who was really hard work.

In desperation after 20 minutes I went to her "personal interests" section which said "reading" which is always an amber flag anyway, not because it's not a good thing but because it should go without saying (at least in those pre-internet days). I said brightly
"I see you like reading. What have you read recently?"
looooong pause as she was clearly desperately trying to think of any book she'd ever actually read
"Hannibal"
(recently released notorious pretentious thriller featuring live brain eating which I had read: lots to talk about.)
"Gosh, yes that's an interesting read, what did you think of it?"
Looooong pause
"Bit gory"

I gave up.

@GreatAunt26 you said "Over the next year he took every single day of holiday entitlement" as if this is a bad thing?

The woman in her 50's..that brings actual tears to my eyes.
Poor woman. I hope she got a job that paid her bills. Good for her trying to get a job, but I saw a {male} Amazon driver clearly struggling to walk up steps to deliver to houses recently {those houses built in
Victorian era with tons of steps to the front door- goodness knows how people with oldskool prams or limited mobility manage those.

From the other side… I interviewed with my notorious HoD. I had to keep steering him away from his favourite question:

”I notice you have a small child. How will you be able to commit to both motherhood and a busy job here?”

If he didn’t like the answer he would just keep going. “But who will look after your baby if she’s unwell? And will you need to keep missing work for appointments? How do you know it’ll be fine, I hear you say it but isn’t this your first baby? I’m not sure you have thought this through.”

It was a nightmare. One poor girl cried and when he didn’t give her the job I persuaded the recruitment agent she had had a lucky escape to avoid us being sued!

@BiancasSilverCoat his CV was very good. Worked in bars from years.

Like the 50 something woman, there are two applicants who stick in my mind for sad reasons.

One because he was being so horribly overworked by his current employers and seemed really beaten down. He'd probably have been really good after a fortnight's holiday but he wasn't showing to his best advantage at interview so I gave the job to someone else because I couldn't take the risk on someone who might be good if I had someone else available who was definitely good.

And the other, very young, because she discreetly disclosed that she'd been the victim of racial / ethnic bullying at her last job and felt she had to leave. It's not normally something you'd be advised to reveal at interview but I believed her, and felt she was a good fit for our very friendly very multicultural team. On the basis of her good but not perfect interview and test I was on the point of offering her the job when a last minute application came in from a perfect candidate who excelled at interview and test.

I hope they found great jobs in the end.

Why did you go ahead and interview a person who has clearly drunk or on drugs? I wouldn’t have started the interview at all if someone had turned up in that state!

If these interviews are being used by individuals to tick boxes to keep their benefits then a process needs to put in place whereby feedback is given about this behaviour and unless a candidate is showing they are committed then they still lose benefits even if they are going to interviews.

As regards the CV comment whilst I would hope that, if there is a careers dept in school, it would be touched on at school. However I'm afraid this is another example of how, despite having more access than ever to information etc, there is always a bloody excuse. It's simply lazy and shows how people think it's someone else's fault. There is so much advice/help etc on the internet. Go to a library and look, use one of their computers if your excuse is you don't have one.

My first CV was typed in a typewriter, sent in the post with a covering letter!

Does the interview panel have to give feedback to the Job Centre or whatever? To say e.g. that judging from their dress/behaviour, the candidate clearly had no intention of being offered the job?

If not, presumably they can keep on saying they’ve applied and attended interviews, and carry on getting benefits.

Shift pattern for the job was 6am - 2pm one week, 2pm - 10pm the next. One who said that he couldn’t work late on Wednesdays because he went to a quiz night.
Another who said no Friday evenings as he went out with his mates on a Friday night.
One who wore odd shoes, was very twitchy and never stopped talking

Definitely. We had a few like this when we advertised a secretarial role where audio typing was a required skill.

So many applicants totally irrelevant for the job (one guy was a DJ if I recall!).

We said it was likely because the job centre required them to apply for a certain number of jobs every week, so they either just applied to everything and anything hoping something would stick, or deliberately applied for something that they weren't able to do because they didn't actually want to work anyway.

There is a process for this - unfortunately due to lack of staff/101 other reasons, they never act on the feedback and the jobseekers get away with it. I agree - pure laziness - on all sides

💯

I'm of the era where this was a brief thing - I remember creating a CV and having that brown folder thing - National Record of Achievement - just had to google!

I remember seeing CV's for a while afterwards that were clearly written using the same template I'd been given at school.

I regularly receive CV's now and I can guarantee that almost every CV that says the candidate has "great attention to detail" has at least one mistake on it.

Few off the top of my head
20 something man who was very cocky, I asked how he liked to be managed. Apparently he didn't like to be managed at all and after he had been in the job a month or so he would probably be managing me (I was the MD)
Another man who said he only wanted a job for a year or so as he was "winding down for retirement".
One I actually felt sorry for - he explained on arrival that he had a medical condition that made him sweat excessively - and he did! He absolutely dripped throughout the whole interview and was visibly embarrassed about it even though I kept trying to reassure him. Apart from the fact that he would be client facing so it really wouldn't have worked he was so self conscious about it he came across very badly. I felt awful but there was no way we could have offered him the job.

Took his holidays that he was entitled to?

"Certain ethnic backgrounds"

Ever considered the problem might be you ?

Why wouldn’t you take every day of holiday entitlement?!

Please enlighten us with what do you exactly mean by 'a certain ethnic background' ?

We interviewed for a new office manager. Our one married a chap in the military and they wear off and away. We had shortlisted 5 and half way through. I needed to sit in the ‘reception’ area so our old office manager could pop to the loo, we had few visitors as we were a commercial equine business, but used ‘reception’ for the purpose of relating the tale.
There I am, jeans, boots, RAF jumper (warm and they wash well) when candidate 3 walks in. Very businesslike and smart. She barked ‘you there’ at me and was plain rude. I offered a hot or cold drink and she looked down her nose and said that she wasn’t here to be interviewed by the stable hand.
She was called through by Maggie who was second head lad, and the woman stalked through looking at me as if I had been dragged in by the cat.
A couple of minutes later, the old office manager returned, bring hot drinks for Maggie and I, so I took the drinks in and sat at my chair alongside Maggie. The woman’s face! She asked what I was doing there and I said ‘I believe you have met Maggie, I am (my name), Maggie’s manager and overall manager of the business. It was a sticky interview.
She wasn’t offered the job, we felt that she wasn’t a team player. We told her no at the time. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat a receptionist, or person manning that post.

"Over the next year he took every single day of holiday entitlement"

Is that not normal? 😂

Had someone turn up to an interview dressed as if she was going clubbing - thigh high boots and a black mini dress.

She greeted me with 'sorry I look like a bag lady love, I was on the piss last night".

]😁
If she had the skill set I'd definitely have given her the job.

Some bar men have a very inflated opinion of themselves, he sounds like a absolute knob

Just remembered another one.
Me and DH has a company and we were interviewing.
DH went straight to the office and was waiting in Reception with the candidate while I did the school run (I wasn't late)
I arrived and reversed into quite a small space which took me a couple of goes while DH and the (male candidate) watched. I walked in and said hello to hear the candidate turn to DH and say something derogatory about women drivers and parking. I said "hello, I am X and I will be interviewing you today"
He could have been an amazing candidate (he wasn't ) and he still had no chance.