AIBU To Ask For Interview Stories?

[OverCapacity]

I had an interview a few days ago and it went horribly... I completely butchered it. And I have no idea why I was such a bumbling mess.

I forget everything I had prepared and al the research on the company I’d done. I seemed to lose the ability to read my own notes and form coherent sentences. When asked why I believe I’m the ideal candidate I stuttered something along the lines of “I think, uh, well I’m... uh... I’m fun’ ... FUN?!

It’s my dream job; a company I’d been looking to get into a foot in for years (but there was never an opening), a job that’s perfect and what I can do for a lot better pay, closer to my house, fantastic insentives...

I don’t even have the excuse that I lack interview experience either, normally I do really well but this time something went horrifically wrong. Just remembering the whole thing is making me cringe! If I get the job I will be highly surprised!

AIBU to ask you to share some interview-gone-wrong stories?

Worst interview for me was from a recruitment agency. They wanted to "interview me" but it was clear within 10 minuted that it wasn't going to work and the person had no idea about the role that they were trying to hire and made some rather strange assumptions about what the job entails and instead using "buzz" words like "strategic importance", "looking out of the box". Complete waste of time and they just looked amateur.

Was the weirdest interview but what was weirder still was that they called me 6 months later for the same job but different recruiter!

My first ever interview was for an insurance company, I was 18. I didn’t know about questions and answers being a game or needing to prepare for interviews, I’d applied after finding the ax in the local paper.

I talked non stop about watching the history channel and wanting to go to uni to become a psychologist. The main interviewer was sweet and fatherly and next to him was a guy in his early thirties who looked completely bored and uninterested and didn’t look at me once!

I can’t even remember what I replied to “why do you want the job” I probably said something like “because I need one!”

Then I think if I’d got the job there I might have a really different life now, so I’m happy it went the way it did.

I went for a role with a bigger company in a specialism that I am qualified in, have worked in the industry for years and trained other people to get this qualification. Only to hear myself in the interview deny all knowledge of this specialism, no, never been a part of my role, no I know nothing about it, what is it anyway?

The panel were looking at me so when they asked if I had any questions I said "can I go now?" And left the room.

Luckily I didn't go into a broom cupboard instead of leaving

Needless to say that I didn't get the job.

Worst. Interview. Ever.

An agency found my CV on Monster and put me up for a job.

It was all very rushed and very pressured.

The agency passed on minimal details, the job was two trains away in Burton-Upon-Trent, but the agent I spoke to on the 'phone was very pushy.

The interview was for late in the afternoon and the first train went without a hitch.

Second train was cancelled before it left the station because of an electrical fault, which made me an hour late straight away.

I 'phoned from the station and spoke to the pushy agent.

Told her I needed to cancel as I was unable to get there on time, but she was as pushy as ever and told me she'd ring ahead and warn them.

I got to Burton-Upon-Trent and rang for a taxi, all the while fielding phone calls from the agent asking if I could get there sooner.

Kept telling her no, as I was going as fast as I could and had warned her that I was going to be late due to the train.

Believing the blurb I'd been given about the company, about it being in Burton, to my horror, the taxi took an unexpected half an hour to get to a remote industrial estate in the middle of nowhere.

The driver had clearly made the journey many times before and pulled up outside the entrance to a building where a smoking man holding a door open, greeted him like an old friend.

I went inside and the smoker let go of the door to have a long chat with the diver.

It turns out, I had entered by some emergency or staff exit.

I was trapped in a stairwell, with all doors electronically locked and no way of opening them without a key card. Or an emergency.

I couldn't get the attention of the two men outside and was only rescued when another man, on his way out for a smoke, found me.

He let me in and we searched for the place where I was supposed to be interviewed.

The pushy agent hadn't given me the name of the interviwer or the department where I was supposed to go to.

The secretary of my rescuer's department went on a ring around the building, until she found someone on the other side of this complete rabbit warren, who was waiting to interview someone.

My rescuer took me round to the front entrance, where I was collected by a clearly unimpressed woman.

I was supposed to be interviewed by two people, but one had gone home due to it being so late.

I apologised and told her that I hadn't been given a contact name by the agency and when I had realised I was going to be so late, I had tried to cancel but the agent was insistent.

The place was very old fashioned, with sprung wooden floors which created strange acoustics and amplified noise.

She took me into a room and I had the most awkward interview ever.

The interviewer was not happy, was clearly not interested in hiring someone who arrived nearly two hours late and I couldn't blame her.

As the interviewed 'progressed', it became clear that the job and I were not a good fit (think management style report writing, not the lab work the pushy agent told me it was) and I clearly didn't have a prayer of getting it or wanting it.

Matters were made worse by my mobile vibrating in my bag beside me and creating an audible and disturbing rattle due to the floor.

I had switched the ringer off, but, due to the floor, the vibrate mode was just as disturbing.

It wasn't just someone ringing me, it was someone repeatedly ringing me, leaving me a voicemail and my mobile repeatedly telling me I had a voicemail.

The interviewer finally snapped and ordered me to switch it off.

I struggled to find the thing and once I switched it off, decided to just terminate the interview and put us both out of our misery.

I told her that I thought this interview wasn't going very well at all, that I had been given a completely incorrect impression of the place and the job and if, in the extremely unlikely event that I was offered the job, I wouldn't take it.

She looked so relieved and we spent the next 15 minutes slagging the agency off.

The agent hadn't visited the site and had done everything remotely.

The interviewer escorted me out and I called the agency.

The pushy agent, clearly thinking of her commission, wanted to know what happened.

I gave her a summary (leaving out the getting stuck in the stairwell) and told her that she should have been to the company and found out how far it was from the rest of humanity.

She had no idea.

She even asked my why I didn't want the job.

I went off on one and ended up shouting at her.

I had no more money and still had to get back to Burton, which was a good 7 or 8 miles away.

I was also stuck on an industrial estate with no clue as to where the exit was.

However, it was home time and the queue of cars gave me a clue.

I ended up wandering down a busy B road looking for any sign of civilisation.

Like shops. Or a bus stop. Or something.

I found a pub, with a cash machine, close to a bus stop and, after checking the time of the next bus, went for cash, a drink and the toilet.

The bus took a good three quarters of an hour to zig zag back and forth through the countryside.

Villages and estates so small that kids stopped to look at a bus rolling past and hit town just as the last shops shut.

It was a miserable day and was the last straw with Monster.

I deleted my profile as it was just a bunch of scammers and chancers.

Miserable, miserable day and left me down about £50, when I was extremely short of money at the time.

1. The time one of the panel fell asleep during my answers
2. The time I could hardly shake hands as my false nails were falling off
3. The time I pissed off the panel by asking a pertinent but barbed question (in hindsight I deliberately threw the interview)

Oh no ICantBelieve, that's awful! I've had some irritating agent contacts in my time but nothing nearly that bad! I hope you found a real job eventually?

Not cringey on my part so much as the organisation's, but I once got given a job by mistake... I was already unsure of what to expect before I showed up for the interview, as I'd been given conflicting information on whether it was going to be a formal one or not, but I knew that the interviewers were going to be my potential line manager and her boss. I also knew I was the only candidate but that they weren't in a particular rush to hire anyone, so there was still no guarantee that I'd get the job.

They sat down with me on stools in a random store room and the line manager's boss, who was dressed a bit like a steampunk pirate (not relevant, but it added to the absurdity of the situation), asked me to tell them about myself. So I gave them my usual spiel about my education and work experience and whatnot, then he asked why I was leaving my current job, which was also easy to answer because I had perfectly valid reasons for doing so. Then he said 'Erm, well, I'm not sure what to do now... tell you what, let's take you round the building'. Not really what I was expecting, but I obediently followed them round and said hello to about three hundred people while he made sarcastic comments about how terrible the organisation was to work for, unsure whether this was still a part of the interview or what. He left the two of us at the entrance, where my line manager - who up until that point hadn't participated much except to laugh awkwardly at her boss's jokes - lit a cigar (!) and proceeded to spend the time it took to smoke it telling me how the senior management were terrible, the pay was awful and I was going to regret working for them.

I left, thoroughly confused, and the agency called me about an hour later to tell me the organisation had been really impressed and wanted to know if I'd be interested in a managerial role in future (the interview was for my field's equivalent of a low-level admin assistant ) I told the agent that I had no idea what they were on about but that I'd liked the place and was happy to take the job (which was true, it had a really nice atmosphere despite the oddness of the interview), and she arranged for me to go in and sign all the paperwork the following day.

A full nine months later, it transpired that the reason it had been so weird was that I wasn't being interviewed at all - the people I met had somehow got the impression that I'd already been interviewed and accepted by the head honcho, and they thought they were just showing me around my new workplace. The head honcho, meanwhile, had thought they were interviewing me, asked for their impressions and interpreted their 'yeah, she seems fine' to mean they were happy for me to work there. I never did work out where the future management comments came from

I worked there for two years, really enjoyed it and left with a glowing reference... This incident turned out to be a pretty fair representation of the level of.communication that existed between the managers and underlings, though!

psycho I have just quite literally laughed out loud at that. That’s truly extraordinary.

I haven’t had many strange interviews: one interviewer hugged me, which was a bit of s surprise! And someone else asked me how I would cope at the work place given my accent?! I have a southern accent. This was a workplace in the south of England.

A woman kept asking if I had experience of working with chefs. I thought the question was a bit odd as the interview was with a TV company. Anyway, I told her that I had helped organise corporate banquets etc and went on a tangent...

I suddenly realised that she had actually asked if I had experience of working SHIFTS, but that I misunderstood her accent...

Didn't get the job.

Nacreous I know! I hadn't thought about it in a while and now I've got the giggles remembering how bizarre it was. It was actually a really lucky break though, because even though it wasn't particularly prestigious or well paid it was my first non-temp 'proper' job, and until that point I'd been struggling to find anything for lack of experience. I should add that this wasn't some small haphazardly run company, either, it was an established and quite reputable organisation. So I've no idea how on earth they managed to make such a monumental cock up!

I was 18 and six months off from heading to uni in a far-off city to study early years, needed a job to tide me over until then. A family member set me up with an interview in a nursery! I was so excited! It'd be perfect to get that six months experience before my course started! I researched the setting but didn't know anything about the job listing, but my family member assured me it was perfect!

I showed up in my smart outfit, got shown around the place before sitting down with the panel of three people, one of whom was the owner. He was completely silent but the rest of the panel asked me lots of questions which I enthusiastically answered, up until I mentioned how I was going to uni in September to study and would love the experience before I go!

A silence. Then:
"How will you work if you're far away at uni?"

More silence.

"I'm... not going until September," I said.

The owner glares and starts to mutter "waste of time, waste of time" and I am very swiftly shown out. They didn't want temporary or bank staff as I had believed. They were interviewing for a permanent staff member.

I still cringe every time I go past that nursery.

I've also been letting out full-on, poorly muffled snorts in public at yeah, but it doesn't grow in the desert either... such a perfect retort, at the worst moment imaginable!

Went across the country for a post which was (I thought from the advertisement) working with young people in secure units getting information from them about their experiences within the units etc. Went to the interview excitedly, asked why I wanted the job. Spoke at length about my experiences working with children and young people, my knowledge of children's rights etc. Met by a confused silence, and one of the panel said "that would be fantastic if you were going for my job, but this is data handling the information I collect and putting it into spreadsheets".

She then went through my application form and told me she couldn't understand how I'd got through the application process as none of my experience would pertain to the role. But they carried on the interview anyway, whilst we all pretended I wasn't there for a completely different, unavailable role.

The cringiest part was when they asked me for my weaknesses, and I admitted I was useless at data handling and anything involving numbers.

Interview on the 11th November 2010... it had been tough, the guy had been pretty hard on me so I already felt reasonably sure I wasn't going to get the job. We were in a huge empty meeting room, we'd wrapped up the interview and were getting ready to shake hands and go our separate ways when a voice comes over the PA system... "Ladies and Gentlemen, the minute's silence for Remembrance Day will begin at the end of this announcement" (or words to that effect)

Interviewer and I had to sit opposite this massive table from each other in complete silence. I stared at the table and was chewing my tongue trying to keep a straight face. Longest 60 seconds of my entire life.

Got the job in the end

@ICantBelieveIDidThis that sounds horrendous! I wonder if they ever didn’t find anyone though?

A friend has suggested that since I haven’t heard from my job I should request some feedback just to see what they thought of my failure. Has anyone actually requested feedback? I’m not sure if it’s worth it other than to confirm how awkward I was that day

@OverCapacity, it was over 10 years ago and it's still burned in my memory.....

I went for an interview at 16 for my first ever job. I’d picked out some black plants , white lacy vest thing and a black cardigan. I came from college and got changed in town so I had a big bag of college stuff . It was uncharacteristically hot for Britain but I knew the vest was too skimpy to wear alone so I thought I’d sweat it out.
Got to the interview and waited and realised I felt like I was dying and just had to take the cardigan off for a few seconds but the interviewer came out as soon as I did so I just thoght well I’ll juat slip it on mid interview.
Sat down and went to get a copy of my cv out of my bag, knocked it over and scrabbled to put everything in again including tampons and sweaty fitness clothes.

Carried on with the interview and it seemed very awkward. I knew I was really inexperienced so I thought it was that. The interviewer gave me a furtive handshake and thanked me for coming.

On the way out realised my top had slipped down in the scrabbling and my entire lacy bra cup had been on show the whole interview . Hence the awkwardness .

I didn’t get the job , he rang me and wished me luck in my job search

@UnlawfulBananaPeeler I cringed a little for 16 y/o you there!

OverCapacity - I cringed writing it !
I laughed when I noticed and then cried all the way home. Then had to explain to my dad why I was so upset

It’s probably the best I didn’t get the job because my dad probably would have thought that was why

Had one interview where the two interviewers started laughing at me as I left the room. I still don't know why.

Another interview where one of the panel spent the entire interview having a right go at me about my interview technique and saying 'you're obviously not interested' because your not good enough at interviews for my personal liking. I'm glad I didn't get that one in the finish.

One that was advertised as a full time permanent job on a good wage, then after I'd applied they e-mailed back to say it was afternoons only. After the interview had a call back saying, 'you didn't get the job but would you like work experience one afternoon a week and if you like we'll pay you (like paying staff was some sort of optional extra)'. They were genuinely offended that I turned the offer down.

Another interview I had was with an agency where they basically lied about what the job was (they said it was office work, turned out to be factory). I got the job and it was so awful I quit after one day. It should have been a red flag when the interviewer spent the whole of the interview discussing what to do if you want to quit.

On another occasion, I was working on a temporary zero hours contract (incidentally I'm still at the same company but now with fixed hours and permanent), but looking for something else with more hours and job security. Applied for what was advertised as a full time permanent job in a call centre. Had to cancel the only shift I was able to get that month to go to the interview. Got there and told it was a six month zero hours contract - so basically what I was trying to move out of!

Fell over my own handbag on the way into the interview room. Didn't get that one.

@ICantBelieveIDidThis

Worst. Interview. Ever.

An agency found my CV on Monster and put me up for a job.

It was all very rushed and very pressured.

The agency passed on minimal details, the job was two trains away in Burton-Upon-Trent, but the agent I spoke to on the 'phone was very pushy.

The interview was for late in the afternoon and the first train went without a hitch.

Second train was cancelled before it left the station because of an electrical fault, which made me an hour late straight away.

I 'phoned from the station and spoke to the pushy agent.

Told her I needed to cancel as I was unable to get there on time, but she was as pushy as ever and told me she'd ring ahead and warn them.

I got to Burton-Upon-Trent and rang for a taxi, all the while fielding phone calls from the agent asking if I could get there sooner.

Kept telling her no, as I was going as fast as I could and had warned her that I was going to be late due to the train.

Believing the blurb I'd been given about the company, about it being in Burton, to my horror, the taxi took an unexpected half an hour to get to a remote industrial estate in the middle of nowhere.

The driver had clearly made the journey many times before and pulled up outside the entrance to a building where a smoking man holding a door open, greeted him like an old friend.

I went inside and the smoker let go of the door to have a long chat with the diver.

It turns out, I had entered by some emergency or staff exit.

I was trapped in a stairwell, with all doors electronically locked and no way of opening them without a key card. Or an emergency.

I couldn't get the attention of the two men outside and was only rescued when another man, on his way out for a smoke, found me.

He let me in and we searched for the place where I was supposed to be interviewed.

The pushy agent hadn't given me the name of the interviwer or the department where I was supposed to go to.

The secretary of my rescuer's department went on a ring around the building, until she found someone on the other side of this complete rabbit warren, who was waiting to interview someone.

My rescuer took me round to the front entrance, where I was collected by a clearly unimpressed woman.

I was supposed to be interviewed by two people, but one had gone home due to it being so late.

I apologised and told her that I hadn't been given a contact name by the agency and when I had realised I was going to be so late, I had tried to cancel but the agent was insistent.

The place was very old fashioned, with sprung wooden floors which created strange acoustics and amplified noise.

She took me into a room and I had the most awkward interview ever.

The interviewer was not happy, was clearly not interested in hiring someone who arrived nearly two hours late and I couldn't blame her.

As the interviewed 'progressed', it became clear that the job and I were not a good fit (think management style report writing, not the lab work the pushy agent told me it was) and I clearly didn't have a prayer of getting it or wanting it.

Matters were made worse by my mobile vibrating in my bag beside me and creating an audible and disturbing rattle due to the floor.

I had switched the ringer off, but, due to the floor, the vibrate mode was just as disturbing.

It wasn't just someone ringing me, it was someone repeatedly ringing me, leaving me a voicemail and my mobile repeatedly telling me I had a voicemail.

The interviewer finally snapped and ordered me to switch it off.

I struggled to find the thing and once I switched it off, decided to just terminate the interview and put us both out of our misery.

I told her that I thought this interview wasn't going very well at all, that I had been given a completely incorrect impression of the place and the job and if, in the extremely unlikely event that I was offered the job, I wouldn't take it.

She looked so relieved and we spent the next 15 minutes slagging the agency off.

The agent hadn't visited the site and had done everything remotely.

The interviewer escorted me out and I called the agency.

The pushy agent, clearly thinking of her commission, wanted to know what happened.

I gave her a summary (leaving out the getting stuck in the stairwell) and told her that she should have been to the company and found out how far it was from the rest of humanity.

She had no idea.

She even asked my why I didn't want the job.

I went off on one and ended up shouting at her.

I had no more money and still had to get back to Burton, which was a good 7 or 8 miles away.

I was also stuck on an industrial estate with no clue as to where the exit was.

However, it was home time and the queue of cars gave me a clue.

I ended up wandering down a busy B road looking for any sign of civilisation.

Like shops. Or a bus stop. Or something.

I found a pub, with a cash machine, close to a bus stop and, after checking the time of the next bus, went for cash, a drink and the toilet.

The bus took a good three quarters of an hour to zig zag back and forth through the countryside.

Villages and estates so small that kids stopped to look at a bus rolling past and hit town just as the last shops shut.

It was a miserable day and was the last straw with Monster.

I deleted my profile as it was just a bunch of scammers and chancers.

Miserable, miserable day and left me down about £50, when I was extremely short of money at the time.

I want to see this made into a BBC one off special!

At he appointed time, I stepped away from my desk and went to the office. The boss and deputy were there, and said to me "in the interests of equal opportunities we're going to pretend we don't know you. So, err (looking at application form), feefeefee, tell us about yourself and where you're currently working..."

I was so flummoxed at their pretence, that I went "but it's me, I work here, you know what I do"... I didn't get the permanent job...

Feefeefee I had the same thing happen to me. My current boss said, welcome Tensmum, my name is Sandra etc. I replied, "Sandra this is ridiculous and does not make it equal opps to pretend that I don't know you". We carried on with the interview without the pretence and luckily I got the job

When I was in 6th form my mum made me apply for a job i didn't want (with a ferry company so it was mostly evening and weekend work). I applied but drew bananas and pineapples all around the edge of the application. I had to include a photo so I sent one of me with a spoon stuck on my chin. Astonishingly i got an interview, probably because they were dying to meet this bubbly wacky person.

Instead sullen teenage me turned up and gave monosyllabic answers. I did get asked how I would deal with an angry member of the public. I said i would go and sit in the staff room until they went away. I didn't get the job.

On another occasion an empty gin bottle fell out of my pocket as I took my coat off. Didn't get that one either.

There is an explanation for the gin bottle! I commuted to London and at Christmas the rain company gave season ticket holders a voucher to get a drink from the buffet. The evening before I had enjoyed a gin and tonic and put the little bottle in my pocket to put in the recycling when I got home ... I forgot ... then came the interview next morning ...