To ask for your interview fuck ups

[Biggybigbiggles]

I have two interviews on Monday, my first in 12 years and I'm shitting it. I have horrible imposter syndrome!

Can you regale me with your funny interview fuck ups so I can cheer myself up should I make a tit of myself?

I was asked about hobbies so started talking about my horse which is my favourite subject, however I managed to get onto the subject of animal communicators and what my horse had said to them and by the time I took a breath and looked up, both interviewers were looking like this emoji 😲😲🤣

I got the job!

Oh forgot to say, good luck. You are amazing and have the skills they're looking for so don't forget that ❤️

When my husband was 16 an interviewer asked him "are you punctual?" and he said " yeah, I can spell and stuff"

I had an interview for a publication and when they asked me if I’d read a copy I said no 🙈

My friend was once asked one of those stupid "What would you say is your greatest character fault" question and she answered "I'm lazy".
Didnt get the job.

I had to do a presentation for an interview and I borrowed my brothers dongle to store it on. When I got there and plugged it in, a folder with all the other stuff he had stored on there popped up on the projector screen. Including his porn.

I was asked something about what I thought would be the most important skills for the role. I said I thought listening skills would be really important. Then I went blank and asked them to repeat the question.
Still got the job!

I spoke about my water bottle, as if it was a witty anecdote. I don't know what came over me, but to be fair I arrived and thought "this isn't a sort of place where I want to work", and when I met the panel I thought "these are not my people".

I’ve had interviews where I’ve most definitely don’t brilliantly and not got the job. I have managed to score highly in 2 G6 interviews in the public sector and come second/end up on the reserve list several times. That’s annoying.

On the other hand, I have been successful in an interview where I had a fever (I was so ill on the train home, and i have idea what on earth I said interview) and one where I was only asked 4 questions and I could not answer two of them. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Which is to say: good luck. Even if you do mess up, it doesn’t mean you won’t get the job!

Not my fuck-up but someone I was interviewing once answered her phone mid-interview, and sat there saying "hi mum, I'm in an interview".

Needless to say, she didn't get the job!

I went to an interview where I genuinely went completely blank and couldn't think of any words.... string a sentence together it was absolutely awful!!

Just think you could never be that bad!!

God luck op

I had an interview where I was loosing my voice and could only whisper, could hardly be heard by any of them, had to keep repeating myself and pausing for breath and at one point had to write things down because they couldn't understand me.

Still got the job. I think they felt sorry for me 😄

When I was interviewing for my first role in my current place, it was all going pretty well until they asked a question about my (fairly recent) PhD. My mind went completely blank. You know in films or TV if a character goes to some other dimension and they're shown standing in a white featureless void? That was the inside of my head. I stuttered through a half arsed answer and cried about it afterwards. Got the job though!

You'll be fine! Remember you can ask them to repeat a question and you get to have thinking time - the silence doesn't feel very long for them even if it feels like an eternity to you. Most interviewers aren't trying to trip you up. They just want to see the best of you so they can make the right decision for the job.

Good luck!

I was asked about a goal i had achieved

i started well with the story of how my husband and i went traveling for 6 months

and then i kept talking 😳

i said that i had started the ‘trial’ part of a degree about child rearing ….but then i stopped cos i realised i don’t like children 🥺

As a newly qualified teacher and my first interview…

I was asked ‘do you know Rosenshein?’ - my answer ‘no, I don't think I've met them’ - Rosenshein being a key educational researcher, with much publicised key education principles, not an employee in the school/LA, friend of the headteacher or whatever I thought!

Amazingly….I was offered the job.

The headteacher called me into her room and asked if I accepted the role -

I said ‘mmm, I don't know really’….

her response, rather shocked - and said ‘in all of my my headship years I've never had that response to offering someone a job’.

In my defence, I had no idea that with teaching posts, at the time, schools often made the decision there and then, offering the post immediately. I'm not sure I'd considered actually being appointed.

Dh had to turn up in trainers in an interview cos he had stepped on a plug which was impaled on his foot

they did ask him how he had hurt himself 😀

Good luck💐

Good luck, I'm mid job interviews right now!

Nothing really funny in my case but I did once go to an internal role and it quickly became obvious during the interview that I has totally misunderstood the nature of it. I thought of it as kind of similar to the role I was in but it turned out to be quite different and involve parts of the business I was barely aware of and I knew the lead interviewer and bless him, he was trying to gently prod me towards something like the right direction but I was clueless. So that was awkward!

TBH, it's as well I didn't get it - the manager for that role (not the lead interviewer) was a weird and not very pleasant person and the person who got the role lasted less than 6 months, so it's probably as well I stayed where I was.

Many, many years ago, dh was laid off from his job as a bricklayer. He made his way to the job centre, where he said he would take any job. The job coach said that there was a vacancy in a bakery, how did dh feel about it.

Dh said great, so the coach called to arrange an interview. The employer offered an interview in 10 mins, and when dh said he wasn't dressed for an interview, they said no problem, come anyway. When dh arrived, they were really busy, and the first question they asked him was "Do you know how to make baguettes?".
Dh response was "what are baguettes?"

He didn't get the job surprisingly.

These are all fantastic/hilarious, thank you and please keep them coming so I can re-read!

(Disclaimer, it was the 00s). I am quite ghost coloured and the weather had just turned a lot hotter. I fake tanned the night before but with a new tanner. I woke up with literal orange stripes all over - I looked like a tiger - and sat there very obviously boiling hot and sweating in a jumper.

I was sick in an interview once.
I'm not sure if I wasn't well or just very nervous but I had to keep excising myself to go to the toilet to be sick.
I got offered the job but was too mortified to accept!

I had an interview and while it wasn't 'disastrous', it was obvious it wasn't a good fit. They weren't keen on me and I wasn't keen on them. Sent to interview via agency and part of it was a short presentation.
3 months later I'm sent on another interview and didn't realise until I got to the building that it was the same place. Thought fuck it, let's just go through the motions. I had prepared basically the same presentation, met the same people, and had the same outcome. Uncomfortable for all involved but funny now.

I tipped a full glass of water all over the desk!

I got out of that one by quipping “it’s not the mistakes you make, it’s the way you deal with them” and promptly pulled a large hanky out of my bag and mopped it all up.
I got the job!

NB: take a hanky to your interview. 🤧

I nervously bit the skin around my thumb when I was waiting to be called in to the interview; when I came out and got in the car, I looked in the mirror to see my face was smeared in blood from my thumb.

I didn't get the job 😆