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?

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea as in candidates arriving 30 or more minutes earlier than their scheduled interview time and waiting. It comes across as entitled as it gives the impression that they are more important than the interviewees - candidates have expressed that as they are early they can be interviewed earlier.
you hit the nail on the head when you said that you’d get a coffee or wait. 10-15 minutes early is great. I should have mentioned that I’m in central London so it is easy to wait around, an important thing to have missed so I apologise for that

I once applied for a job and got e-mail saying can I send a second page of my CV as it is missing... There was no second page because all the advice about CVs I got online is to keep it short!

Probably outing and not very funny...

I had just graduated from uni in 2010 during the recession and with jobs being in short supply, I got an interview via a recruiter with a pharma company in Suffolk (Haverhill) on a Friday to attend the following Tuesday.
I was in Dublin and flights were very expensive as too short notice. So went the cheapest way (ferry) as I was broke.
Got in the coach on Monday evening and coach got on the ferry, off the ferry through wales couple of hours to Milton Keynes. Got on a bus from MK to Cambridge, changed at a public toilet and got a bus from Cambs to Haverhill. At that stage I had been travelling for about 18 hours and got there at 1:30 for 2pm interview. I was so tired but interview went really well until I was asked about a very simple chromatographic technique and my brain froze. I still got the job! They were shocked when I told them about my journey. And I had to do the same trip back home so got back to Dublin on Wednesday evening having left on Monday evening.

I started the job a month later on for HR to ask about flight tickets so they can reimburse my expenses, recruiter never said they'd pay for my flights!
Good luck op 👍

A friend of mine interviewed a woman who threw up into a bin during her interview and he still gave her the job.

I just want to thank everyone for your stories. They helped massively! I'm pleased to say both interviews went as well as I was hoping for. I was invited back for a second on the spot for the first one, and I'm waiting to hear about the second. The second one was tough but a massive confidence boost that I can survive a good cop bad cop grilling!!

Hahahahaha! This is brilliant 😂

I love this!!! 😂

I was interviewing for another role in my then work place. The interviewers were most of my colleagues and bosses that I already knew, which made it more mortifying. There was one new colleague that I'd never met and when they introduced me to her she asked me what my current role was. For the life of me I couldn't remember my job title and stuttered out some nonsense.

Also this interview followed another interview that I'd had 6months before this one for a similar role. At the previous interview they had asked me a question that I couldn't answer but had promised I'd look up later. I didn't. In the next interview the same person asked the same question and I again didn't know the answer...

I didn't get the job the second time either...

I point blank refused to apply for several steps up in my career ladder which actively stunted my progression purely because the thought of interviewing with people who already know me is fucking mortifying!

I was interviewed to be the interim headteacher of a failing school.

After 6 months, I had to be interviewed again for the same job, re-advertised as a permanent contract. Panel consisted of my LA adviser and my board of governors. Having to evidence my work and not make an idiot of myself was a huge pressure. Worrying that if I wasn't good enough I still had 4 months of my interim post to complete with them.
I was appointed.

However, a couple of years later I was involved in an interview panel for an interim HT in a similar position. Shortlisting, the board said they had completed without me. This signifies that the applications meet the criteria.

I turned up for the two day selection process to find the interim HT ready for the selection days…except also to find she hadn't completed an application.

I had to explain to her that she couldn't be appointed to a job she hadn't applied for…( especially under safeguarding).

She was very cross, bizarrely, and very vocal about ‘not being made to apply for a job she was already doing’.
She asked ‘what happens now because I haven't applied?’

My response, of course, ‘the panel will select from candidates who have’!

Teaching interview … asked for my weaknesses and I said planning and assessment !! I didn’t get the job and in the feedback they said I had pretty much said I struggled with the 2 main aspects of the job !!

In all fairness I had great feedback and they told me it was really close between me and one other and that they had to be really picky , they told me my lesson was perfect and so was my application , they recommended me to other schools and they did say that my weaknesses were nothing to do with why I didn’t get the job , they got what I was saying , but we both did have a bit of a laugh about it and I was advised to maybe not say that in another Interview 🤣