Just had the worst job interview ever. Anyone else care to share?

[EggNogRules]

I am morto and at myself. I was in and out in 20 mins .

I am used to initiating meeting with new clients and thought I had prepared well. I was so nervous, I had to keep drinking water to stop my lips from sticking to my teeth. It was all I could think about. None of the answers I prepared were useful. I need to rewind and do over because I have better answers now (after the nick of time).

Bugger.

Congratulations Euphemia!

I had a interview a few weeks ago. I route planned it and it was a 30 minute drive. I left myself 90 minutes and took my knidle to relax when I got there.

Traffic was pretty poor but that was ok, I'd left ample time. There was an accident but that was ok, I'd left extra time. There were roadworks that had sprung up overnight (I'd bloody practice driven the route!) and now I'm squirming in panic. There was ANOTHER accident and I'm practically crying with stress. I don't do late. I called them when I was still 20 minutes prior to my interview time because it was just spiralling into bad times and I just kept calling them to keep them informed. I arrived 30 minutes late but god love them they still saw me.

I have never been so stressed in an interview in my life. One of the questions (after my grovelling apologies) was "If you do get the job, what is your planned commute? Would you look to drive?" Thank GOD I'd prepped and knew how I would commute to them.

I have a 2nd interview for them on Thurs It's at a different venue and it's in the evening. I've taken the whole day off work and will be leaving 5 hours to get there!!!

Ribena, best of luck! And loving that picture of MumsKnitter as a demented rabiit

I had had an OK 2nd interview and was responding to a phone message left by the manager who interviewed me.

I got her voice mail & I started to leave a message which involved leaving my landline number. It was around time time the numbers had changed from 0171 to 020 in London. Just as I started to leave my phone number a man I did not know appeared in front of me in my living room. I was very . He was a delivery person my flatmate had let in on her way out of the house. His appearance completely threw me.

I was STILL in the process of leaving a message on the voice mail. I have now completely forgotten my phone number. WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?? I had no idea. I blabbered, said the number wrong several times, apologised, I must have sounded like an absolute loon rambling on forever, wanting to hang up but thinking that would probably be worse (I doubt it). I left the longest, most rambling and WORST ANSWER PHONE MESSAGE EVER, which clearly showed I was incapable of passing on my very own phone number.

I did not get the job! (this turned out to be a great thing though as I got the next job, at a competitor and they were much more my thing and the other company is actually a bit nastily managed anyway & I don't think I would have been happy there)

Have a Scottish smiley for Good luck RibenaFiend [bgrin].

I just remembered an awkward telephone conversation I had in relation to a contract I was trying to get. Despite being prepped throughly DS (then 3) to be quiet and being set up to give me 5 mins, he started singing 'mummy, I need a poo' over and over. The very woman I was negotiating with could not have been kinder. She laughed and asked me to call her back at home when he went to bed. She is a classy lady.

Thank you

"Mummy I need a poo" hysterical!!!

I meant to say professional and inspiration woman. She was understanding and took it in her stride; she asked after his bowels when next we met.

'mummy, I need a poo' is a cheeky little rock number in this house. Wee ratbag.

Love this thread!

I'm normally very capable and confident but I just go to pieces during interviews.

I was interviewed by my DH's boss and the HR person and when asked to talk about my previous roles, my mind went totally blank and I had to ask if I could have a look at the copy of my CV he had. Cue horrible embarrassing silence.

I felt so bad for DH when I had to tell him how it had gone. He was mortified. I couldn't even just write it off as a terrible interview, safe in the knowledge that I'd never need to see the interviewers again as I had to socialise with them at work events with DH afterwards.

I have had another interview. I did not goldfish, trip over a potato, flash my pants. I did have sufficient saliva to talk and could recall what I put in my cv.

I have a new contract. They don't have an IT budget and so I have been given a calculator instead of a laptop. I don't care

Congratulations OP!

Thanks HoratiaWinwood . I see you liked the potato at interview too. I would love to hear more about that; it would make me feel so much better about making an absolute fool of myself.

I'm just discovering this topic but I just had to contribute. Once, I had given blood in the morning before I went for an interview. Gave blood, got my bandage, went home and changed for the interview. Nice white cardigan, pretty light blue skirt, etc. Very professional.

Mid-interview, my arm starts to go cold, and I see the interviewers face go pale, and I look down, and my entire cardigan was dripping with blood (all over her desk, floor, chair, my clothes, etc.) while my arm is just gushing blood (like something out of Monty Python). In my panic, I figured the only sensible thing to do would be to shout, "I'm not on heroin, I promise! I just gave blood this morning!" (why drugs needed to be mentioned, I'm not sure???)

She had to have her entire office professionally cleaned, I had to go to the hospital and funnily enough, I didn't get the job.

My favourite was a few years ago when I had mobility issues (thanks to some amazing surgeons it isn't the case any more).
Was pleased to be offered the interview, and when I accepted I let them know that I wasn't able to walk unaided and therefore they might want to arrange the interview on the ground floor or somewhere near a lift.
No problem, said HR.
I called a week before the interview just to remind them, and HR said no problem.
I turned up on the day and was collected by one of the interviewers: who then revealed that the building was listed (so no lift) and they didn't have any meeting rooms on the ground floor.However, there was 'no need to rush' to the fourth floor and I could 'take my time' on the spiral stairs.
Crutches didn't fit on the spiral stairs so the only way I could go up them was to crawl.

Interviewer takes my crutches to the top of the stairs and 20 minutes later I joined him on the fourth floor. I went into the room a sweaty, limping mass with my hands and knees covered in dust and coughed through the first few questions.

Didn't get the job....

Makes me feel better to read some of these!

I once had a horrendous teaching interview for a job I really didn't want where I couldn't get brain and mouth to co-ordinate. Chairman of the Governors started the questioning with 'How do you think of the Governors of the school. Do you think of us as critical friends?' and I looked completely blank and said, 'I mostly think of you as irrelevant, TBH. I don't think I could name any of the governors at my current school. As a classroom teacher I have absolutely no contact with them'...She was extremely po-faced.

After that I went on to tell the Head who'd told me he hated Dickens what I would say to him and my answer was, 'Don't read him them'...

Halfway through the interview half of my brain was screaming, 'Shut the fuck up!' at me....and half of my brain was laughing and saying, 'Go on - just tell it like it is'. Needless to say I went with the second option.

I was brutally honest about all the things you should not be honest about in teaching, refused to come out with the crap they like to hear, and by the end of it when they asked me 'Do you still consider yourself a firm candidate for this job?' I simply laughed and said, 'I can't possibly imagine that you do'.

I got disapproving stares and the Head said, 'That's not very reassuring. What would you say if we offered you the job?' and my answer was, 'Why would you want to do that?'

I laughed like a drain all the way home. I was like a hideous video of 'How NOT to conduct an interview'...

(Didn't get the job, thank God! Although the Deputy Head who rang me to tell me I hadn't been successful kindly said, 'We very much enjoyed meeting you...you were very honest!)

Really?! Wow. Did you take it?

I was asked for interview for a masters that was paid for by a company Network Rail who were going to employ all masters graduates afterwards. They had two versions of the course, and candidates could select, one 'people management in projects' one 'project planning and management' - the second was the practical reporting stuff.

I said on the pre telephone interview that I thought I was better at the people stuff already, so had chosen the hard-edged practical course. Stupid duffer on the phone put me down for the wrong course. What fluffed it was that I guessed on the way in because one of the interviewers was from the 'people' course. Instead of saying 'I was expecting to be interviewed for the other course' and describing that I just kept saying 'I don't know' when they asked me what the course was about I told them on the way out but not before making an arse of myself..

The interviewer said I had done a good job,.. what a liar!

OOh also i went for a temp to perm once and the stupid interviewer/team leader asked where I was from (a village just outside the town) then said 'you are all inbred out there aren't you, all weird and web toed'. I was feeling pretty pissed off, so I said 'ha ha and you wonder why all you townies get stabbed by people from x' - er I didn't become perm...

I once interviewed someone who was wearing mules and tights and had a toe ring pushed on OVER the tights.

She didn't get the job.

My first job interview after Uni required that I do an administrative tasks test. After sailing through the interview portion I was ushered into a small office (belonging to another person, who was present) and was given a disc (this was in the days of hard discs) with a list of tasks to complete. I sat down at the work station in the corner and attempted to insert the disc into the computer....but I couldn't find the slot. I don't know what kind of computer it was but it was very different from anything I'd encountered before and I couldn't figure out where the disc was supposed to go. I tried every orifice that looked even remotely slot-like but nothing worked! After 5 minutes I began to panic, sweat pouring down my carefully made-up face, all the while aware of the drone office's occupant spying on me working away at his desk in the middle of the room. I did not know what to do, I couldn't even read the list of tasks, let alone complete and print them out. So I did the only thing I could think of; grabbed my 'urban professional' bag, stuck out my chin and tottered on my brand new heels marched right out of that office without a backward glance.

I've never told anyone this story (I got a job offer the following week)...it's taken me 13 years to be able to even think about writing or speaking about it .

After an all-day interview I was shattered but thought I had done well, I was just about to stumble into the street and call DP to tell him how it had gone when one of the guys from my presentation came over to say goodbye.

I meant to say "Thank you, lovely to meet you" etc but in my distracted nervous/adrenaline fuelled state I think my brain thought I was already talking to DP and I said, "Thank you baby, I love you."

He frowned, said, "Er, thank you" and walked away. I was absolutely mortified!

I got the job. Guy from presentation has NEVER mentioned it.

My first ever job interview when I was 18...I tripped over the step on the way in and landed in a heap in front of the panel of interviewers ....I didn't get the job!

When I was about 21 I went for an interview after applying for a job as an 'IRC operator'. I'd been using IRC (Internet Relay Chat) for a long time and knew a lot about scripting and commands. The job description didn't seem that vague to me. It was about moderating channels, being friendly towards users and having knowledge of IRC to help others.

The interview was in an industrial estate and was difficult to find. When I finally got there I was interviewed by a guy with long hair and doc martens on, along with a girl wearing a nose ring with jet black hair and scruffy clothing who didn't say a word but played with her hair.

It slowly began to dawn on me that the position wasn't quite as advertised when they asked how I'd deal with 'dodgy punters'.

Turns out they wanted someone to work on a sex line, using IRC as a pick up point.

Whether to my credit or not, I said I'd probably do quite well if they gave me a chance. They looked at each other, then at me, and then said they'd be in touch.

Nope, I didn't get it.

Interviewer v nice but for reasons unclear, I decided to stand up and walk over to the full length windows and look out at the view. Only it is double glazed and the internal glazing is so clean I misjudge the distance and bang my face on the glass. Leaving a full imprint of make up.