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 think you sound much the bigger person, and ending it early was exactly the right thing to do.
Their expectations of doing a full time job in part time hours, not making reasonable adjustments etc gives an impression that they are not a pleasant company to work for.
Good for you rejecting them.

Sorry but your comment is so ableist, you clearly don’t know anything about disabilities and reasonable adjustments.

Special treatment? It is about levelling the playing field. Some people need adjustments to help them, it doesn’t mean they can’t do the job.

Is it special treatment to give someone who is partially sighted reading software?

Please go and do some reading on disability employment law

Absolutely - any info provided to one candidate on request should be provided to all. Fair playing field.

Just because it's not common practice doesn't mean it's wrong or unprofessional, just different. If a candidate really needs to go first, they can showcase their communication skills and ask the others or the interviewer. If they can't be accommodated then fair enough, they can leave. If you want to throw your toys out of the pram without even trying, then that's your loss. The only situation where this interview would be unprofessional is if you're told the interview is from 10 to 11 and that turns out not to be the case.

It’s part of reasonable adjustment for a disabled person. If they agreed to it, they should have stuck to it.

Nope. Reasonable adjustment is for those with a disability and it’s meant to level the playing field to that of someone without a disability. If they agreed to make the reasonable adjustment, they should have stuck to it and not tried to sneak in questions designed to take OP by surprise.

There are a large amount of corporate boot kissers on MN who sound like real HR bores often. Don’t pay them much heed. Their job lokely gives them the ‘authority’ over people they so desperately want

If we give questions in advance to one - we will give them to all. How would that be wrong - they all have the time to think about their best examples,

Perfect demonstration of what the OP is talking about.

Well done on quickly identifying that the job on offer was unreasonable and, more importantly, unsuitable for you. Them not making the very first requested reasonable adjustment absolutely was a red flag.

it takes courage to end an interview like this and I admire you for it.

Unfortunately, in these forums there sometimes seems to be a lack of understanding on how disability can affect people in the workplace. And if the words ‘reasonable adjustment’ are mentioned some posters hate it, thinking it means you’re getting some kind of advantage or preferential treatment.

I’m sorry you’ve had so many nosey replies. Ableism is still rife and many rude people seem to believe they have a right to know about your health.

So because she didn’t get the promised reasonable adjustments and is reasonably upset she has a chip on her shoulder ? OP is right - there are some very judgmental comments on the thread from posters who clearly know very little about disability and the law around reasonable adjustment.

I don't understand this mindset - it's not throwing toy out of the pram, or her loss. It's making a rational decision for withdraw from a process that could end up with you being offered a job somewhere that you don't want to work because of what their processes say about them as an organisation. Interviews are two ways streets - you should be evaluating the organisation at the same time as they are evaluating you.

If you’re giving the questions to all candidates as standard then that’s fair enough. But the post came across as saying that it would be unreasonable to offer this as an adjustment for disability. My point is that if the employer had agreed to provide the adjustment in the first place, then they should have stuck to that. And providing the questions as a reasonable adjustment to someone with a disability isn’t necessarily unfair - it’s designed to level the playing field for someone whose disability means that the firing of unfamiliar questions would put them at a disadvantage.

I'm sorry, OP. But if it's any consolation, I really thank you for your post. My DD has a reasonable adjustment to see questions in advance. She is new to job hunting and did not know this was a possibility before, but the few jobs she has applied for have offered it as part of their accessible interview policy (yes, it comes from the employer, not a 'wish-list' from the candidate!)

So it's really helpful to imagine what she might do in the situation you experienced where the questions were off piste. It will be good to practice this, so thank you for the heads' up!

She had an interview recently where she said she knew she was rambling, but the interviewer was really lovely and gently pulled her back on track (rather than say, 'we don't want to hear about that!').

So yes, I think you were pretty brave to end the interview and advocate for yourself.

Probably a MH illness like PTSD where being put on the spot makes your mind go blank and then causes panic/anxiety/oversharing.... really not hard to comprehend.

Op, I think rather than putting yourself down, you should applaude yourself for ending it early!!! I bet they felt like idiots when you said that, I mean how dare you.....you essentially pulled them up on an unrealistic job role.

It's a completely normal and common adjustment. If you wouldn't interview in that basis, you'd be acting unlawfully.

People like you who will acquiesce to such unreasonable behaviours is the reason why some employers adopt exploitative practices like this and others, such as attempting to fit a full-time job within part-time hours. What that employer did was both wrong and, I repeat, unprofessional. And it has little to do with whether or not the practice is common (thankfully, it isn’t), but rather whether or not it was communicated to applicants beforehand. Maybe you have no problem going to an interview expecting to be met at 10am, only to be told on your arrival that you would need to negotiate the actual time with five other people and if you couldn’t you could simply ‘leave’. But I’m willing to believe that most people would feel justifiably put out.
I trust (and sincerely hope) your experience hasn’t led to the pursuit of a career in recruitment.
P.S. It would be no loss to avoid working for such an organisation!

I think you are a queen! I wish I’d ended a job interview early many years ago and it still bothers me now that I didn’t have the guts to do it. Ultimately, they showed themselves for who the really are, and that is not a good enough employer for you. Bullet dodged.

Probably one of the most ignorant and ableist comments I’ve seen on MN. It begs the question why are you posting on a thread about the law around disability when you clearly know nothing about it ? The employer agreed to provide OP with the interview questions as part of reasonable adjustment for disabled people - it’s the law. OP is entitled to reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010. If the employer agreed to this, then they should have stuck to it, not tried to put OP on the spot with extra questions she wasn’t expecting - that could be seen as discriminatory because it’s putting her at a disadvantage because of her disability. It’s not ‘special treatment’ it’s OP’s right as a disabled person. Having the questions in advance has no bearing on OP’s ability to do the job.

I’m sorry you had that experience OP. For those people saying they’d never give interview questions in advance, sounds like they are not very good at interviewing (and the people who interviewed you clearly weren’t either).

Genuine question, if as part of your job someone asked you a question (“how did you arrive at that answer?” or “what if X assumption applied instead of Y?” would they need to put that in writing? How does it work in practice? If there is a round robin in a team meeting where people talk about what they have on etc do you opt out unless you know the question is coming?

I agree it’s a reasonable adjustment. However, as an interviewer the roles I interview for are ones that require some level of thinking on your feet - meetings with stakeholders, answering questions following a presentation etc. And so I’d be concerned needing the questions in advance meant the interviewee wasn’t a good fit for these core competencies.

I think you dodged a bullet OP, you wouldn't have been happy with the hours at all understandably.

Well done for taking control and ending the interview x

IYKYK.

It's not about kindness. Legally speaking it's about proportionate, reasonable and objective assessments for justifying adjustments. She met the shortlisting criteria, had experience, and they were happy to make adjustments, especially given their own Disability Confident award. Their practice however turned out to be poor.

Questions in advance have been shown to improve preparation and participation by those with hidden disabilities (hate that term). In schools and universities, for example, it helps the affected students to more fully engage in class, which likely benefits the whole class, contrary to the belief they will cheat / skip class etc. I spent time supporting disabled students in a postgrade setting years ago - it opened my eyes.

Years later my own children now have a range of physical health and learning difficulties impairing their executive functioning (the part of the brain that processes and reasons, hence people needing more time to prepare). It's extremely tiring to have brain based or oyher hidden disabilities, as the effort expended just to keep up is highly exhausting and anxiety laden.

We don't consider it a kindness, worry about the time it takes, or claim a detriment when a bus driver adjusts parking, operates the ramp, and embarks and disembarks a wheelchair user. The exact same legislation applies to the OP.