… to ask for your most cringeworthy moment in an interview yet you still got the job?

[tympanic]

I’m plagued by the missteps I made at an interview last month. Plagued. The process has been put on hold for various reasons so I’m still waiting to hear if I’ve progressed to the next stage. Really, really want the job.

As time drags on I’m growing increasingly embarrassed by the dumb things I said in the interview. If anyone has any stories with a happy in spite of feeling they made a total fool of themselves I’d be very happy to hear them!

My dad took me to an interview for nurse training. It was in another county and I didn't drive.
He was invited to sit in the said interview with Matron, soon after to be Senior Nursing Officer, and me which he accepted much to my embarrassment.
He proceeded to take out his cigarette case and offer her a selection of cigs ie. Turkish or Sobranie, which she politely declined.
Previously before I'd found my 'vocation' I'd worked for the GPO as a telephonist for 1 year until I was 18, the minimum age for nurse training.
Then the dreaded question was asked 'So Miss Maras, why do you want to be a nurse' Dad replied, Basically she hates being a telephonist'
He almost choked himself chuckling and doing that 'nudge nudge wink wink thing'
I was thinking 'please God just let me die now'
However, Matron said at the end of the interview 'Welcome to our hospital, Miss Maras, please go to the sewing room to be measured for your uniform. My dad died just 2 years later, never saw me graduate but left many legend behind him.

This time last year I interviewed for a post I really really wanted. It was by a very Senior management panel and they asked me the most basic question first - talk us through your career. I was totally blank and said ‘ I got this job in x year and I’m still here’. They looked perplexed and so prompted me some more about my role and development needs at which point I proceeded to list all my major areas of weakness! I’m still embarrassed by it now.

However I must have pulled it out of the bag as I got the job.

I hurt my eye on the morning of the interview and had to go all bandaged up - cant see well out of my other undamaged eye so was pretty blind. They gave me a guided tour - I was too polite to say anything but there was no point as couldnt really see. At the end of the interview I had to ask someone to take me to the bus - stop

@ImNotDancing

I was asked what my hobbies were on a telephone interview I wasn’t expecting. I panicked and said ‘well I’m really into cats’

Yes, I could see me doing this.

For me I applied to a place once and they asked me to do a trial mini job showing that I had the skills necessary to perform the job. For some reason, I decided to cite child protection as a reason I couldn’t do this and withdrew from the job. Six months later, having completely forgotten about this cringeworthy moment, I applied for the sane job. This time I got it and after I had been told the good news, the boss said something along the lines of “second time lucky”. There was a moment of realisation and horror before I managed to style it out.

DF shortly after the birth of her daughter was desperate for work and seeing a highly paid job “picking people up” immediately applied. All us friends were convinced it was a front for prostitution and made her tell us the address just in case. But no, the job was lifting people and having photos taken holding the person. DF was a weight lifter and spent her interview carrying a nine stone woman around, in her arms, over her shoulder and the good old fireman’s lift. One month post partum, She didn’t get the job but it was just the weirdest interview ever!

Realised that my skirt had ridden up when I sat down and the front split meant I was showing a lot of thigh. Still got the job. I showed I stayed calm when stressed apparently.

I also admitted my typing was rubbish and then got a job as a secretary. She appreciated honesty and as it was mostly audio-typing when she wasn't there I had time to get faster.

We'll ignore my interview yesterday, it was a distinct step up for me but I didn't give one good answer.

I told the interviewer I was so excited for the opportunity to work with xxx - which of course happened to be the company's biggest competitor 😳. Got the job!

Cried.

A few months after I started my job, my now colleague who interviewed me asked me if I new why I got the job and she picked me. She then went onto say whilst I was neck to neck with a couple of others who had applied, apparently I stood out as having a sense of humour as when they asked the 'Where do you see yourself in 10yrs question'' I had answered 'Well in 10 years I'll be about 45, so I expect having a massive breakdown judging by how things are going''.

She said it was the best thing she had heard in an interview and as the job was stressful she was looking for someone who had a sense of humour as she new I was going to need it!

At 18 I worked as a barmaid, on my CV I'd stupidly lied and said I'd had fire safety training at my previous job. The manager interviewed me and asked what different types of fire extinguishers there are - I replied "red ones"

Got the job!!

I did swear during an interview for promotion, worse, I said I didn't know how to do the task I was leading on. To be exact, the question was " How do you simplify instructions when the task is so very complex? ". I replied "I'm buggered if I know"

It was the truth, the task was nigh on impossible (taking a complex and large body of legislation, and turning it into simplified guidance), but given I was the lead deliverer on the project and the person asking the question was the lead customer .......

Anyway, despite (or possibly because of) my frank confession, I was promoted and in the top two or three that were successful, out of approx 500 candidates.

I used to be on the Bad Mothers website and remember one lady talking about her interview.

She was sat in the waiting room area and the interviewer came out, introduced herself and put out her hand, I presume to shake hands.

The lady, took hold of her hand in a "holding hands" kinda way and they held hands all the way to the interview room, which was down the corridor.

I don't know if she got the job, but God it makes me chuckle all these years later. 😄

@MrMrsJones

I used to be on the Bad Mothers website and remember one lady talking about her interview.

She was sat in the waiting room area and the interviewer came out, introduced herself and put out her hand, I presume to shake hands.

The lady, took hold of her hand in a "holding hands" kinda way and they held hands all the way to the interview room, which was down the corridor.

I don't know if she got the job, but God it makes me chuckle all these years later. 😄

God that sounds like the kind of socially awkward thing I’d do

@Lwren Love this!

Steve that is. Interview bondage, not so much.

One interviewer once asked me how I would deal with a stressful situation and all I said would probably go to the toilet and cry! I mean it's not untrue, but it's not my only response to a stressful situation! Makes me laugh even today - why did I say that?!
The same interview the man also asked me why I was looking to work when I should be at home with my young children. Can't remember whether that comment came before or after my stress management technique admission. Suffice to say I didn't get offered the job and I didn't want to work there. Love where I work now. Don't regularly hide in toilet cubicles 😁

Im now crying with laughing at some of these!!

Internal position, and the big boss rang me very assertively telling me about it. I think I misinterpreted the conversation, went into the interview with another, different, big boss B who I'd never spoken to before assuming I had already got the role (why?! Obviously it was an interview?!). I then told big boss B what I was planning to do, asked about how they saw things going and then gave big boss B some work to do to help me in my new role! Big boss B commented at the end just when the penny was dropping with me realising that it was in fact an interview that everything seemed seamless and they were delighted to offer me the job. God I cringed so hard I almost turned inside out, yet on the other hand I realised it was probably the most "assertive" I've ever been!

For my current job when I left the room my handbag got caught in the door but I didn’t realise, meaning I pinged back into the door and hurt my shoulder, and from pure instinct I shouted “fuck!” With 3 men all staring at me.

Still got the job

@MrMrsJones another ex BMC here- I am fairly sure I recall she did get the job

I interviewed for my current role when my daughter was 8 weeks old- first time I left her and had to leave her for whole afternoon as there were a couple of written assessments. The interview was the last thing and I was a bit stressed - at least twice during the interview I uttered the words ‘I’ve just had a baby’

I am sure I only got it as one of the panel knew me, had seen me work and must have said ‘she’s not normally like that’

From the other side of the desk…….

I worked as a recruiter for childcare jobs (nursery).
Not my candidate, but I’ll never forget the call from the nursery manager to tell us that the candidate we had sent had wet herself during the interview, but didn’t comment or react to it.

I turned up 40 minutes late for my Oxford interview. When asked to explain myself, I spouted a load of utter horseshit about how I struggled with timekeeping because my mind was always on higher things

What a gobshite I was.

I was once asked to describe myself in 5 adjectives. I came up with 3 then said I couldn’t really think of anymore meaningful ways to say I’m organised and confident (PA job). He said, ‘you could say repetitive’ and I retorted immediately ‘but I haven’t repeated anything have I?’ I thought I was a bit curt and it was my first PA interview from a reception role. I say far more outrageous things in interviews now I have lots of experience.

He said he knew then that I could ‘handle him’. (A scary number of interviewers have used that term).

Just remembered - years ago, I saw adverts offering jobs for people to deliver leaflets around London.
There was to be a mass demonstration of the role/chance to discuss it in Hyde park.

I went along on the date and time specified and there were literally hundreds of people gathered waiting to hear about it.
There was an announcement that the role involved running as there were many leaflets that would need to be delivered and therefore the round would need to be completed at a run.
So they told everyone that they had to run to a point in the distance and back again to show they had the fitness for the job.
Loads of people in anything from jeans to smart dress, carrying bags, laptop cases etc started randomly running in the direction stated and I wasn’t dressed for it, so I thought ‘sod this!’
Then the police arrived and said it was an illegal gathering and we had to disperse, so the organisers all disappeared sharpish.
It was very weird!!!!!