Yahoo Lifestyle Bosses Are Sharing Their "What The Hell Is Wrong With This Person?" Moment During Job Interviews, And It's Actually Unbelievable
We've all had our fair share of bad job interviews. Speaking from experience as an interviewee, I've had many moments when I've felt like I completely bombed a question. While it can feel extremely humiliating, chances are, things could have gone way, way worse.
In this Reddit thread from u/G_man252, employers shared their biggest WTF moments they've had when conducting job interviews, and let's just say that it makes me feel a lot better about the little mistakes I've made over the years.
I've rounded up 19 of the best stories for you, below. (You're welcome!)
1."Had a candidate who came in and said how hot my admin was and asked if she was single or 'open to freaky Fridays.'"
2."This kid, probably 18-20, started picking his nose, like knuckle deep and digging for gold in the middle of his food service job interview. Wrapped that up real quick and didn't hire him."
3."I interviewed a gal once and while we were talking, I was looking over her resume'. (Please note that English IS her first language or else this wouldn't have humored me so much) Her "mission statement" on her resume' was as follows:"
""Along with my detail oriented and organizational skills, I will bring encourage team to work cooperatively and creativity to provide an understanding the visual aspects of our work."
This was for an admin position at a law firm. Not sure what "the visual aspects of our work" entailed in this position, honestly. I read it over about 5 or 6 times, worried that I was having a stroke so I didn't really hear much of anything she said during the interview. I haven't been able to make sense of it no matter how many times I read it. I actually cut it out of her resume' and have it sitting on my desk some 15 years later."
4."When she listed all of her ex-boyfriends that currently worked there, and said she couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces when she showed up to work. This was in the first 3 minutes of the interview so I wasn’t even close to offering the job yet. I cut the interview right there and sent her on her way."
5."I hire student (university) workers. One of my questions is 'Tell me about a time at work where you made a mistake, and how you fixed it.'"
"This kid had no prior work experience, so I modified the question to remove the 'at work' part. I thought he’d tell me about fucking up at school or at home and no. He told me about the time where he ripped his pants in gym class in the fourth grade. He didn’t tell me how he fixed the situation either, so I’m assuming his pants are ripped to this day.
This kid was a goldmine of what not to do in an interview, tbh. He did not get the job."
6."To start the interview, I asked him to tell us (3 people) a little bit about himself."
"35 minutes later, he stopped talking. Usually people answer this question in 1-5 minutes. It was incredibly awkward and I was tempted to interrupt him but then truly wanted to see how long he would go."
7."Obligatory not a hiring manager, but I still had to interview some candidates."
"Some of the walls in the office were painted a vague brownish colour. Partway during the interview this guy starts looking around with a really spaced out look and says: "This office really reminds me of a cardboard box. But not in a bad way. Like the kind of box that you put things in, you know?"
He then decided that he didn't want the job and left before the interview was over."
8."A few years ago, I was hiring for a new graphic designer. The guy didn’t have much working experience and was a little odd, but I liked his portfolio so I decided to interview him anyways."
"The whole interview was bizarre, but ended with the question 'what do you think are your weaknesses?'
He replied 'ummm tbh. I have some pretty violent tendencies...’"
9."I was interviewing for a salesperson position. I asked all the candidates to tell a joke, just to see their storytelling skills. This guy told a joke that included swallowing semen, puking and gang rape. It was so out of place!"
"That happened over 15 years ago. I was 20, starting my first company and it sounded like a good question to ask. Of course I know better now.
Also, humor (at that time, in my country) consisted mostly on telling out-of-a-book jokes. Well, because we only paid commissions on sales, he got the job. Funny thing is, he was the best salesman we got (I’m not kidding). The joke was not the aristocrats."
10."I had someone show up in daisy dukes and cowboy boots for an office job at a 4-star hotel."
11."I asked an applicant what kind of hobbies he took part in and he told me he collected random things that "pretty" women threw away. When the interview was over I called the police and gave his resume to them."
12."This was a candidate that was otherwise pretty impressive seeming, and had been among the favorites for a quite sought after position, the interview had even gone quite well up until this point. Met him later at a party, he had no memory of me."
"Me: I see you managed a vegetarian restaurant.
Interviewee: What?
M: It says here you managed a vegetarian restaurant.
I: Oh, I guess I did write that. Not really though. My girlfriend had an art exhibition, and I organized the sandwiches for the opening. They were vegetarian."
13."I was performing a video interview with a candidate. They were clearly in a large room/bedroom, with most of it visible in the background, but it was clean so I didn't mind."
"In the back right corner was a closed door. About 7 minutes into the interview I see the door open slightly and some dude poke his head in, see that his roommate/girlfriend was in an interview then close the door. Not a big deal, it happens. I ask my next question and let the candidate respond. But then, about 30 seconds later I see the door slowly open again, only this time the dude comes crawling out the bottom.
He continues to crawl across the floor making his way to the opposite side of the room. I assume he thought he was out of the cameras FOV, but he was clearly visible. He gets to the far end of the room and turns to fiddle with something ass in the air facing the camera. Finally, he finishes up with whatever he was doing and makes is way back and out the door.
I know I should have stopped the candidate and had her deal with the dude, but it was so funny to watch I had to let it play out. I could barely contain my laughter and after the interview finished I lost it. She got the job though, and from what I remember was a great employee."
14."I set up an interview for an acquaintance's nephew with a company looking to hire 30 college students for summer work. The nephew's major and the line of work this company performed seemed to mesh perfectly, and I knew the hiring manager personally, so it seemed like a great fit."
"A couple weeks later the acquaintance emails asking about the job. So I hit up my hiring manager friend and the conversation went something like this.
Me - Hey how'd the round of hiring go?
HR - Great, needed to fill 30 spaces and only had to do 31 interviews to fill them.
Me - Oh cool, so was Paul X one of them?
HR - Oh him, yeah well... uhh.. he was naked during the interview so we declined.
Me - What?!?! Are you serious? I find it hard to believe he would show up to an interview nude.
HR - Well it was a skype interview, and when we brought up his video feed he was laying in bed nude.
Me - Oh, well maybe he thought you couldn't see him. Maybe he thought it was just an audio meeting.
HR - We told him we could see him and he said "sorry" then covered up with a sheet. We asked if he wanted to reschedule and he said no he was good. So yeah we decided to pass.
Sorry Paul."
15."We have a very simple 'pre-employment' test. If you have been in our industry for more than a year you should get 100%. Some times we even give it as an 'at home' test."
"We had one guy that took his test home had it for over a week. He brought it to the formal interview and got 90% of the questions wrong. Even though according to his resume he was an all star and knew everything.
He had an excuse for every wrong answer to even the most widely known questions in our industry.
It would be the equivalent of saying you have been laying sod for 20 years, and then put the green side down.
He didn’t get the job."
16."My wife was interviewing an early college student for a (paid) internship at a pharma company and he just stared at her breasts the whole time. She was not displaying any cleavage or skin, he just stared."
17."Not a manager, but I was the interviewee. I wasn’t feeling well that morning but I had an interview with a super cool science museum as a promotions event coordinator. It would have been the perfect job."
"I decided to go anyways. As I drove to the interview, I felt horrible. When I went inside I was feeling worse. I was asked to sit and wait for the hiring manager to come get me.
When she finally did I knew I had made a mistake in coming. I got up and followed her across the whole museum and up 2 flights of stairs. It felt like it was 120 degrees in there. And finally as we were walking toward her office and she reached for the door handle, my stomach let go. I barely made it to the trash can right next to me and proceeded to vomit for a good 2 minutes. Even dry heaving a few times.
When I was finished I looked up and she had her back to me with her head in her hands like she was trying to hold it together. I said I was sorry and I hope she had a better day than me and I turned around and left. Man that would have been a fun job."
18."I once received a resume that was just a list of around 20 places someone had worked with the reason they had been fired next to each one."
"It's been quite awhile now so it's hard to remember exactly but it was something like:
Restaurant 1- kept oversleeping
Restaurant 2 - manager hated me
Restaurant 3 - couldn't keep up
Restaurant 4 - got into fight with dishwasher
Restaurant 5 - stole paper towels
Restaurant 6 - walked out"
19."I guess he didnt even make it to the interview part, but almost! When the person was already 45 mins late for their interview, walks up to the glass store front, (where I can clearly see him) and then glances at his watch."
"So he knows he's super late. Naturally he whips out a cigarette and smokes it leisurely outside, then comes in smelling like an ashtray and says his name and that he's here for an interview.
So I said, 'Sorry buddy, the only interview i had under that name was almost an hour ago. It would have been only 45 minutes if you hadn't stopped right outside the door to smoke though.' I figured he would try to lie and say he got the time wrong, but no, not even that smart.
He says, 'Ah, yeah, I was running late and then I was nervous about coming in late so I had a smoke first. Can we do it now or should I reschedule?'
'...No. Neither. Goodbye now.'"
Do you have a job interview horror story? Tell me about it in the comments!
