To ask for your cringeworthy interview experiences where you were the interviewer?

[AlternativePerspective]

A friend was just telling me about the interviews they were holding recently. One candidate was apparently awful. Kept interrupting, threw a pile of certificates down on the desk when asked about his qualification, referred to people with disabilities (it was in a disability focussed organisation) as “mentals” and he wanted to help them because he was sure they aren’t stupid.

Then when he had the rejection he has sent numerous emails insisting he should have been employed.

The story is so horrifying that I wonder whether he was deliberately that objectionable. From their end I do know it really happened, but could it be he was being like that deliberately? Or …?

So, as an interviewer, have you ever conducted any awful, cringeworthy interviews?

I had one recently.
Phone interviews- I asked what the candidate knew about us and they said nothing as they hadn’t researched us at all. I then asked why they had applied for the job and they started talking about how they wanted to work for a company who were very ethical. I asked how they knew we were and they hung up. They then sent a series of emails complaining about my rudeness to our CEO, who handled it brilliantly

I had another one.

I was chair of governors at a school and we recruited a head teacher.

It was actually between exercises that one of the candidates made reference to some of the areas around where we were, and then said, “well, you wouldn’t want some of the likes of the parents whose kids go to my school moving in next door to you.”

It didn’t matter that she hadn’t said it in interview. She didn’t get the job.

I had just read the CV of a different candidate just before one came in and I asked a question about the previous place the other candidate had worked... She handled it well and we ended up employing her.

Had someone fall asleep in an interview once.

That was awkward.

don’t really get why her saying that is so bad

On line interview. Candidate had camera pointing directly at her chest. I said that the camera was too low and we couldn't see her face. Candidate snapped that she couldn't help that. Fair enough.

At the end of the interview she moves the camera up so we see her full face for the first and last time as she says goodbye.

Not me but a former boss.

Graduate trainee interview for a big blue chip. My boss had just returned to the Uk after 10 years in China. One CV said they were fluent in Mandarin so boss interviewing greeted them in Mandarin and asked how the journey had been.

The interviewee looked totally blank. Boss tried again, slowly. Still blank.

It was basically a total lie.

They went through the whole interview but it was excruciating because they'd blown it in the first 10 seconds.

I interviewed someone who hadn’t done any research into the job but thought she was a sure thing as she was friends with the person whose vacancy we were filling. At the end of the interview she said to my colleague ‘my friend said you were nicer than you looked and she was right!’

As part of a set of competency based questions, I asked a candidate to tell me about something he’d done that he was particularly proud of. He started telling me about his baby twins. He then burst into tears as he got so emosh talking about them.

We were a very boring company of statistical analysts and mathematical modellers - colleagues could barely look each other in the eye, never mind express actual emotions.

I just waited for him to finish blubbing then asked him the next question.

We had an applicant for a support position at our law firm. Very young inexperienced person so I was going into detail about what the job would entail. Research, notes,post, organising scanning bundles.

She said, "Oh no I'm a law student so I want to go to court and meet with clients."

I told her there'd be some shadowing at court, sure, but most of the job was support work.

"No, I'm a law student. I don't want to answer the phones."

I said, "That's fine, fair enough," and ended the interview.

When I tell you that she kept contacting me aggressively about starting work with us and "What's the next step?'

Oh and I had an interviewee cry during an interview. She'd been made redundant after trying really hard to keep her department running. Nothing but sympathy of course but no way did I consider her candidacy any further.

Okay you need to tell us more!

Once, I was going through the applications for a position we had vacant.
His answer to the question "why have you applied for this job?" was...
Bored shitless and the job centre are making me apply for jobs!!!

😲
He's now my manager!

🤣🤣🤣joking... of course his application went NO further...

We asked a candidate what was their biggest work achievement and they snorted and said, "none really." We were interviewing for quite a senior position

She was essentially slagging off the parents at the school she taught at.

Given the school she worked in was in a fairly deprived area and the one she was interviewing for wasn’t, it was abundently clear what she thought of them. Iyswim. So how would she view any of the children in our school who potentially came from poverty or deprived areas?

Competency based question

Q: "In you previous roles how did you deal with a difficult situation"?

A: "I took him out the back and leathered him!"

I once went to an interview and the person interviewing me was so nervous he was shaking. It really helped my nerves though!!

When I was interviewing once with a colleague she was explaining something in the lead up to a question. She always talked with her hands. I looked over, there was a (clean) tissue hanging out of her jacket sleeve, wafting about. Tried to discreetly say something but she didn't catch on. It wafted for the rest of the interview.

The full day assessment one which involved staying at an hotel (paid of course); one candidate brought along several family members and expected them to have a paid stay too

The one who chaired the fan club for a celebrity and wanted to talk about little else; no matter what the question they dragged it in somehow

And the one who vomited in the middle of the interview

I was supporting my boss with interviews. The candidate on paper looked great. Someone wanting to go into banking. Thought I’d be easy.
She turned up moaning about how many buses she had to get. We gave her a test paper and she then proceeded to use her phone and converse with someone, also, you weren’t meant to use a calculator, so could have been deemed as cheating. Something didn’t seem right. My boss walked in on her and the candidate burst into tears and then gave her life story out. As she was leaving I heard a clunk noise and she couldn’t work out how to use the door and that her shoes were not great. Turns out she was drunk.

Not an interview but someone applied to where my husband worked and obviously sent in a draft of their application rather than the finished version. Most of the answer sections only contained the words 'Bullshit here'.

Very good @ijustcouldntthinkofausername.
Funny!

@AlternativePerspective my husband is a teacher and has never wanted to live next door to kids he teaches, not because we are snobs and think we are better, more from a privacy point of view and not wanting the kids/their parents knowing our business. Funnily in the end my husband ended up getting a job at a school 3 minutes from our house, he teaches 4 of the neighbour's kids!

I don't understand why saying you don't want to live next door to the kids you teach means you are rejected for a job? Surely you score candidates at the interview, I can't see how it would be fair rejecting on such a thing.

I once had to pause an interview because the candidate was so nervous they started to cry. It was internal so I still work with them and I've interviewed them since.

So tell me something interesting about yourself:

I'm not interesting at all. Actually I'm really boring.

Ok then..

*@SleepSleepRaveAsleep · sorry I have likely been too vague here.

her reference wasn’t based on privacy, it was based on the fact that the local HA sometimes give houses to people from her (non desirable area) ad put them in our (more desirable area). I.e. she was a total snob. It wasn’t a case of her saying that as a teacher you wouldn’t want to live next door to the children you teach for privacy reasons, it was literally saying that you (as in one in general) wouldn’t want to live next door to some of them.

Maybe you had to be there, but it was blatantly obvious what’ she meant.

TBH she wouldn’t have got the job anyway, but this most definitely didn’t help.