awful interview, WIBU to have ended it early?

[cigarsmokingwoman]

I had an interview this week for a fixed‑term maternity cover role in a field I’ve worked in for years. On paper, it looked perfect — but it turned into a complete nightmare.
The current postholder is full‑time, but they want to replace her with someone part time, on a short contract, no team, and still covering the same massive list of responsibilities. Straight away, it felt like they were expecting one person to do the work of several. Its not a senior role, but sounded it as they kept refering to "supporting our staff of over 2000".
Beforehand, I’d asked for some reasonable adjustments, as I have several disabilities, which they agreed to — but when the interview started, they hadn’t done them. I had to ask twice, which was awkward and made me feel like I was being a nuisance. They did send the questions in advance, again as an adjustment, but then on the day they started asking completely different ones, putting me on the spot and making it much harder to answer properly.
One of the panel was so patronising. They asked me to explain really basic concepts that I’d expect anyone in the field to already know. When I started talking about some of my biggest achievements, they cut across me and actually said they didn’t want to hear about the awards I'd won! The question was literally about qualifications, experience and achievements related to the role.
The whole thing felt off. The tone was wrong, the expectations were ridiculous, and there was no sign of respect for my experience or the effort I’d put into preparing. Eventually, I just said I was ending the interview because it was a waste of both our time. I left the Teams call feeling small, upset, and wondering why I’d ever applied.
I’ve done and sat on many interview panels, but I’ve never had such a bad experience.I've never exited an interview before either and I'm still shaken by it. AIBU to think that whatever the role is, the least you should expect is a bit of professionalism and basic respect?

I've had it, I have autism and ADHD. I have processing difficulties and can take a while to understand the question and respond in a balanced way, and the anxiety can lead to panic. It's quite a common adjustment, with my diagnosis I've been offered it rather than asked for it.

I fully agree with this. You have nothing to feel small about.

One thing I am wondering about, and that I've experienced myself in interviews, is that they may already have had someone lined up for the job, but had to interview candidates as a legal requirement. I've been to interviews (a fair few), where it was very obvious that they were just doing this because they had to. And every time, a few days later, I was informed that I was unsuccessful, and that eg the Director's wife, or a previous post holder etc got the job.

I have thrown interviews before, as it was clear from the start that they had no interest in actually doing a proper interview or hiring me.

I am neurodivergent and I have asked for this adjustment. It’s to do with processing in this specific situation. I find it overwhelming to deal with the anxiety of the interview, which I am highly personally invested in, and to be able to organise my thoughts and think up examples on the spot.

In my actual job, for which I get highly positive feedback, I’m regularly cross examined in court including by KCs and regularly interview people and respond to information I’m given. I obviously prepare for this, but can do this without any issue as I’m not under the same type of pressure.

Nope, not unreasonable at all.

I have requested that two interviews be ended as I was no longer interested in the role, in the past.

The first I ended fairly early on in the interview as for a number of reasons, it was conducted so unprofessionally it was farcical. The second mentioned a hybrid working arrangement and onsite parking, and when I asked about both of these in the ‘have you any questions’ part, I was told that there was no hybrid, it was 5 days in the office, and there were only two parking spaces that were for use of Directors only.

This was a dealbreaker for me, as it was a city centre location with no other free parking nearby, and a long and expensive commute on the train which I was not prepared to do 5 days a week. Also if they are prepared to lie about that, it’s not a great first impression.

Companies seem to overlook the fact that an interview is a two way street, unless the candidate is absolutely desperate for a job and will take anything, they will be sizing the employer up just as much as they are being sized up!

In all honestly everyone would benefit from being sent the questions in advance of the interview day.

I once had an interview when the director doing the interview said, one thing I
DONT want is a dolly bird sitting here doing her nails all day! Whilst looking at my nails, that I always did myself and would never dream of doing them at work, he said it really nasty and made me feel very uncomfortable, I wish I'd just walked out but I hadn't got the nerve. I definitely wasn't a dolly bird I was in my 50s with a family.
Good for you ending the interview.

Providing interview questions beforehand is a huge advantage, even if you refuse to accept it as such. If you can't manage without this "adjustment", then perhaps the jobs you are interviewing for are not for you.

Personally, I feel they ticked a box by inviting you to interview but they don’t want to hire you so made it so awful that you were the only professional one there and behaved like an adult.

I would report them to the scheme that they claim to be proud of for disability awareness.

Try not to dwell on it as they don’t deserve you anyway.

How they expect to find someone when they literally bully someone at an interview stage, beyond me

Better to find out before what the company is like. Not one to work for op so lucky escape and well done for having the guts to call time on the interview. Hope the next interview is more suited to your employment needs

I feel bad for you OP. As you’ve pointed out, asking for questions in advance is a completely reasonable adjustment and the reactions of many show how ignorant they are.

I’m sorry you had this experience and they made you feel small. I’d argue that it takes a lot of courage to do what you did, speak up and acknowledge that they were wasting your time and not showing you a company you would want to work for. Most people would struggle to do that so if anything you should feel proud of yourself. I hope something much better comes along soon x

Well done to you for ending it when you did. You went with your instincts - something felt off - I really do think you've dodged a bullet.

What struck me was when they cut you off saying 'we don't want to know about your awards'. Reading it here, it comes across as really rude on their behalf! I'm hoping they weren't being as abrupt and snarky as that comment sounds!

An interview is as much about you checking them out and getting a feel for the place as it is about them seeing if you are suitable for the role. They weren't right for you.

Can’t say whether or not it is reasonable adjustment in your case, but generally everyone performs better if they don’t have to answer on the spot. That’s would never be why it was a reasonable adjustment

That could be right or it could be that the OP was giving answers that were irrelevant. We’ll never know as we weren’t there.

She's just made it up

I think the interviewer had a lucky escape to be honest.

Well done OP!
I worked for a Disability Confident Employer. I said that, due to my physical disability, I would not be able to drive all around the county or manage stairs easily. They gave me an upstairs office & got me driving all around the county.
I lasted 6m and became very unwell. They sneered throughout my time there.

Sorry to bring in politics but I do wonder how the Govt think so many disabled people will be able to move into work / into full time hours when there are so few employers willing to make the necessary adjustments, even at interview stage.

Well done for holding your head high and voting with your feet. I didn't for ages (I had come off benefits & was scared of resigning as I would then have left my job & I had two children to feed so had to keep going until GP signed me off)
They had the cheek to offer me 4 weeks wages to sign an NDA too.

You are hard work op. I bet they decided to give you a hostile interview because they didn’t want to work with you

’organic questions’ is actually a very non-inclusive interview practice. You are then being led by unconscious bias. You will ask more helpful questions to people similar to you. HBR has quite good studies on this. Fixed interview questions with scoring can help offset unconscious bias in interviews. If you give all interviewees the questions in advance then no one has an unfair advantage, it’s more realistic to how people are in work and less a test of how well you can waffle something under pressure. Some people are very good at waffling and talking the talk and terrible at the job and vice versa. You can see how much work people have put into preparing the answers too. And of course you can ask clarifying questions to ensure they know what they’re talking about.

It sounds like the interviewers were unprofessional and you were right to end the interview when it was clearly not going to be working for either of you.

In my view questions in advance can work in some roles but in the ones for which I am usually interviewing (customer facing) one of the things I am assessing is communication skills and people's ability to think on their feet and respond accordingly. In these circumstances questions in advance doesn't help me assess this, and you don't know if the practiced answers are the interviewee's own work.

As an interviewee I would much rather have questions in advance, but IMO there is no point in an interview if interviewers are simply reading out set questions and interviewees reading out set responses - all that can be dealt with via email.

so you work in HR?

consider writing to them with your feedback. They could benefit from your knowledge. They seem useless

Good for you OP! You’ve handled this all really well and in a dignified way. I hope your constructive feedback to them will benefit future employees 🙏

I think the questions in advance thing massively depends on the job itself. Some roles hugely rely on quick processing and decision making on the spot and it's important to see in an interview situation how someone reacts to changing information but that role wouldn't lend it self to someone who didn't have that skill ( regardless of reason why)
however they are loads of roles where quick decision making isint a key skill and of course questions can be offered in advance , there is always in my opinion room for unscripted follow on questions depending on candidates answers which in my experience often allows candidates to 'show off' a little more .

@InOverMyHead84

i thought that too…

Sounds to me like the OP must have been a pain and therefore did them a favour too.