Interviewer laughed at me

[Sooocold]

I’ve just come from an interview this morning and I thought it was going quite well until the second to last second. It threw me off and I thought it was quite a difficult one to answer but I tried my best and came up with an answer anyway. Whilst I was speaking they were writing my answers down and I saw one of the interviewers smirk and chuckle as to himself and then he looked at the other man who was sat next to him with a big smirk on his face and to get his reaction. it really put me off to be honest and I felt silly and humiliated after that.

I feel so down now because I pushed myself to go to this interview and I felt like I tried my best. I have anxiety and I felt proud that I’d gone but I’ve left feeling like an idiot

Yes, highly likely. I remember interviewing someone and during that, it transpired she was heavily into horses, which caused me and the other interviewer to look at each other and give each other a weird kind of lob sided smile. It was nothing to do with her. The firm had actually had a very long protracted issue with trying to rehome a horse which lived on a field the firm wanted to buy to build a new factory - it had become a long standing joke throughout the firm about the horse holding back our expansion plans and basically any mention of horses was a trigger for people saying daft things! The difference is that we immediately apologised to the interviewee and gave her a very brief explanation of why horses were a hot topic in the firm!

I think quite a few people on this thread including the OP need to learn the difference between laughing at someone and having made someone laugh, and smirking at someone and having made someone smile.

Knowing the difference really helps to read the social cues correctly.

Sorry we are going to need to know the question/answer! 😊If you want more accurate advice. It could be some sort of inside joke relating to what you have said - something that goes in the office or something someone does/doesn't do.

You weren't sitting in the room with the OP. So you can't say with certainty that she was misinterpreting anything. Odd that you'd even need to be told this.

I've had the 'knowing smirk' between interviewers a few times before and one thankfully went on to explain that I'd just given a perfect example of a situation that they were currently having in their area. So it's not necessarily bad!

Yes, I really wouldn't overthink this. Interviewers - speaking as someone who has served on interview panels - unless they are in recruitment and do this all the time are often quite nervous. I've never been on an interview panel when everyone wasn't a bit nervous. If I thought someone was rubbish, I wouldn't laugh at them. I'd be keeping quite a straight face. I'd probably only laugh if I was trying to show interest in what was being said or if someone really hit the point I was hoping for (sort of an ironic laugh). Or could be one of them farted! Who knows! But I wouldn't worry yourself about it too much. It's a weird social situation and people do respond in weird ways, even people doing the interviews.

What the smirk was about depends a lot on the kind of job you were interviewing for. If it was, say, a hiighly quantitative role and the question was numerical with a right or wrong answer, I would say it is indeed possible they were being nasty gits (also my experience working with male finance types is that they really can be that mean). Most jobs are not like that however, and if it was something more subjective and without a clearly defined right or wrong, I really wouldn't read into it because I agree with others on this thread that it could be related to so many things and not necessarily negative. Hope that helped.

I find intervirewers busily writing away is rude. I understand why they do it but you are talking to their heads.

Agree with others that they liked your answer or you hit on something they are currently or have experienced within the organisation.

I once had to pretend to drop my pen and dive under the desk mid-interview to hide a smirk/smile/choked-back laughter because, during an answer about working with a road safety charity after her friend had been hit by a car, the candidate said "it all hit us very hard" and I could see instantly that my colleague and I immediately had had the same thought - "but not as hard as it hit your friend" -and were both trying valiantly not to laugh, while also being appalled at ourselves for wanting to laugh which just made it worse. Unprofessional, yes, but we're human not robots. So it could have been that something you said was inadvertently briefly funny but not in a "pfff, this answer's rubbish" way, or reminded them of a company 'in-joke'. Or, as others have said, it could simply be acknowledgement of a great answer after a run of poor candidates!

(The friend survived and was fine, btw, the candidate had already clarified that.)

To be fair you have to justify every recruitment decision within an inch of your life and have specifics of what was said and done so it's hard not to write lots down

Good practice would be one of you asks questions while the other note takes

We run three-person panel interviews now so one is always focused on the candidate and the other two take notes, and we swap roles during the interview so the candidate gets the chance to talk to / build a bit of rapport with everyone on the panel.

Excellent practice, that is. I agree.

It could have been that your answer to that question was so much better than a previous candidate's, and then were laughing at the improvement.
You'll never know unless you get the job, and ask them.

That's a brilliant way of doing it. 👏

If he was being derogatory then you know that a. It's a a good thing if you don't get the job and b. If you get the job, you probably shouldn't take it.

I've had a senior who gave me bad vibes during the interview and ...by fuck, did they turn out to be correct. I should have taken him to a tribunal while working there but didn't for all the usual reasons that employees often don't.

OP, IF you are unsuccessful then as an interviewee you should be entitled to feedback, so don't be afraid to mention / question it if you find yourself in that position.

Id' probably have jumped to the same conclusion in your shoes but it's more likely that something you said reminded them of a private joke between the two of them.

Try not to take it personally.

You should’ve asked.

I’ve had someone laugh and I asked. It doesn’t need to be accusatory.

At the end you can always ask, admit you’ve waffled a bit and ask if there are any loose ends you can tie up more concisely or summarise.

Also, you should lovely. Don’t let them dictate your worth and impact your opinion of yourself. They have only seen a tiny snapshot of you x

He was the one being unprofessional not you. If he did find what you said funny he should have had the cop on to wait until after the interview!

Remember that you cannot control what other people think. You did your best and we are all human. Sometimes in retrospect you can realise you could have answered something completely differently but the whole thing about interviews is that you get used to them and improve as you do more of them. So don't let a not perfect one put you off.
I had one colleague who stayed in our company for 20 yrs but would still go for interviews each year to "keep him on his toes", according to himself.

Some interview questions are really so ridiculous. My DH interviews people and would be with HR going through the questions beforehand trying to get them to drop all the ridiculous ones but it's a fight.

Not sure I agree. The panel should be professional and that means a poker face and respect for the candidates. It’s a simple enough job, ask the question, record the answer and assess the answer against competency.

It’s worth giving feedback if asked for it on this experience. I’d get in a load of trouble if I behaved that way.

I have to say that interviews aren’t the best way to assess competency. Some of the worse appointees I have encountered interview brilliantly. It just turns out that self promotion is their singular competency.

I’d also have read this it was something between them , for example they said if anyone gives this answer we will give them the job, or if anyone says this answer it’s too obvious. Whatever, but unless you were talking absolute irrelevant shite I doubt it was about you/

It was impolite of them to do that, but don't assume they were laughing at you. Given the exchange of glances, I think it's much more likely that your answer related to something they'd been discussing earlier.
Suppose you'd been you'd been talking about an idea with a colleague, and then the next person who comes in mentions the very same idea - you'd find it difficult not to exchange a smile on that.

Poker face is a terrible way to interview and will never bring the best out in an interviewee. Being interested, encouraging,curious, able to ask follow up questions, to put the candidate at their ease is a good interviewer. Poker face shouldn’t be allowed to interview a second time. That’s a do it once and you’re done.

It's not fair for them to smirk and make you feel uncomfortable. I would definitely feed this back to the hiring contact.

I think interviews should feel like a chat - poker face doesn't do anyone any favours. I smile and laugh when I do interviews, but I explain why or share instant feedback, or ask a follow up question so there's no doubt that it comes from a place of encouragement.
I don't know why interviewers get a kick out of making people like they are on trial - you're looking for a new co-worker or team member, you want it to be a positive experience and for the candidate to be great!

Agree this is most likely what happened, however they should have said 'we are smiling because we were just talking about that earlier!'