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.

This. Unprofessional.

If he needed to tick a box to get his benefits, why let him be interviewed?

He was shown into the room by a young member of staff.
We didn't want to cause a scene so carried on with the interview
as no one knows how he would have acted.

Fair enough

@Hoppinggreen Ha ha, like this?

Honestly, I feel that. I have to find a new job due to hating my current one but right now I just don't want to work for anyone.

I forgot these ones!

The candidate had several pieces of paper he kept looking at on the table. I asked a question along he lines of 'what motivates you?'. He looked through his sheets and said 'I didn't print off that answer, I don't know!'

A woman was sent via an agency, and performed terribly in the interview. 30mins later, reception called to tell me she was outside and wanted to see me. She declared that she knew she was the best candidate and was willing to be employed directly, cutting the agency out and she'd split the fees the agency would have taken- if I upped her wage!

Another was overqualified for an entry level role. He lived 4hrs away and assumed we'd pay all his travel and put him in a hotel when working with us! 🙄

Report him for abusive behaviour - he will need to show he is applying for and being rejected from jobs to keep his benefits.

I did once interview someone who came in and sneered at something we asked. He was flabberghasted when the feedback on why he did not get the job included that doing this was not helpful.

So did I.

We used to say the number and not "hello"

I was interviewing for part time contact centre roles, so I did phone interviews first and invited candidates who did well to a face to face interview. One candidate sounded enthusiastic but she kept interrupting me on the phone, she was young and I figured she was probably nervous so I invited her to an interview. She was awful. I couldn't get a sentence out because she interrupted, talked over me and guessed what she thought I was going to ask her. I called her later and told her she hadn't got the job.

Two weeks later she called me back and asked me to explain why she hadn't been successful. I told her quite honestly that there had been more experienced candidates and gently suggested that her listening skills needed some work. She then accused me of not employing her because of her ethnicity. In the end I had to point out that constantly interrupting the interviewer was not a good tactic.

I hope she took that on board because she was outgoing and friendly and would have been great with customers if she ever let them get a word in.

Some time later we opened a branch in Belfast. I flew out to conduct interviews which had been arranged by the administrator. One woman told me that she would be getting a lift in with her daughter and wouldn't be able to come in if her daughter was ill or on leave. Her daughter hadn't even got the job, I was interviewing her next.

Another candidate didn't want to give her full name and flatly refused to give her address for 'security reasons.' I lived in Kent and I was getting the next plane back!

@crowsfeet57 can you blacklist those candidates for applying again?

Well don't sigh and waste others time like the above. But nothing will change unless you do too

I interviewed a guy for a manager role in a professional environment who told me, with a wink, that he was "everything I could ever want, and more!"

I also interviewed a man for a Director level role who when asked how he would go about the task of familiarising himself with the work performed by his very busy team, stated "I don't really think I'll need them to tell me what they do I already know everything about the role,"

While it's not exclusive to men, I have found that over confidence/cockiness about their own abilities is more likely to be a trait seen in Men.

On the other hand I've done some interviews with great candidates and been gutted I couldn't offer them all jobs.

One memory sticks out though, young man looking for relevant work experience after A levels to help him get on a competitive university course. I phoned when the interviews finished to offer him the job, I didn't want to leave him waiting as I could see how important it was to him. His mum answered the phone and I asked for him, she asked who was calling and I said Mrs T from x company. She ran calling him, "It's about the job" so he answered and I offered him the job, she could obviously hear and I could hear how excited she was. It was a nice moment and a year later I was happy to hear he'd got his place at uni and he is now fully qualified doing a responsible job. A nice memory.

I’ve recently interviewed candidates for a number of home-based roles and the amount of candidates who answer “why do you want to work for X organisation?” with “I want to work from home” is staggering! Can’t they at least pretend they are interested in what we do?

I was recently involved in interviewing someone for a role requiring good knowledge of a particular area of the law. She said she really wanted the role because she knew so much about the relevant law, she loved dealing with it and it was right within her comfort zone. The problem was that every time she mentioned a legal issue, she got the law wrong. We were seriously concerned that it wasn't something we were going to be able to rectify by training, because she was so confident that she knew it all that it was clearly going to be virtually impossible to convince her that she might be mistaken about any of it.