Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I had a disastrous interview a while ago with a guy who was more or less a trust fund baby. Basically a 20 something year old CEO of a company that his father created and built that was handed to him. The role I was interviewing for was a finance role.
The interview started off with asking him to tell me my life story. He then probed my high school experience and kept asking more and more questions such as were you popular? What were you like? I was a bit baffled by these questions but just continued. Then he asked similar questions about my college experience. After that he continued on to my family and asked if I had siblings. He then probed my sibling relationships and asked even more intrusive questions such as what my parents do for a living. He then asked me questions about the state of college sports.
After that he asked some resume questions such as my employment gap and would probe even deeper and ask some dumb questions about it. He then asked me questions about my personality which weren't job related at all such as are you nice? Do you think you are too nice? After that the interview was over and he gave me some bizarre compliments and said he would contact me in a few weeks.
I obviously lost all interest in the role so I didn't care at all that I never heard back from him. Anyways, I just wanted to give an example of a bizarre job interview I had and what it is like to be interviewed by a trust fund baby.
I have had many interviews which I failed badly but I don't consider those my worst interviews because I was the one who screwed it up. I listed this one because the interviewer was the worst interviewer I have ever had.
Just remembered a peer interview with two RNs who looked completely fried and exhausted. One said, "This place sucks. Why would you want to work here?" I was naive and went on about the hours, etc. If that ever happened again, I'd thank them for their time and leave.
I had a phone interview once with a guy with such a thick Indian accent I understood probably less than 50% of what he was saying. I don't know if he did it on purpose because he really had no intention of hiring someone non Indian or that was just the way he speaks.
This was a phone interview.. it was kind of my fault for neglecting to take better care of the logistics but anyways..
I was applying for other jobs while I have a job.. so I need to find time out to do the phone interview. They only had time around my lunch hour so I said ok to that. I had to go out in my car to do the interview since I have no privacy in the office.
It was over 90 degrees outside with the blazing noon sun overhead. I was cramped and sweating profusely in the 100+ temperatures in the car while I talked to them on my cell phone. Not that long into the interview, the interviewer wanted to ask technical questions. Needless to say, I wasn't in the best shape to answer them and royally bombed this interview.
My worst interview experience was for a less than ideal job in one of my dream companies. I had a good phone screening and phone interview, so I was invited to interview at their office. I had accepted that I would need to relocate, so I was ok making the 6 hour drive. My then boyfriend and I turned it into a vacation.
So I get to the interview in a suit on a very hot, muggy Southern summer day. I was very uncomfortable and could feel my makeup running down my face. Attractive. I quickly found out that the job was a temp-to-perm job. During my previous conversations and the job posting on their company website, I was told the job was a full time, salaried position. I never would have interviewed for a temp job (with no benefits until 3 months after I was a full time hire) that required me to move to a much smaller city (with a corresponding smaller economy) had I known!
I was told the interview would be around 3 hours meeting several people in the department. From the get-go, the hiring manager told me the interview would only be an hour long and only with her. She expressed confusion about why I drove down when we could have done the interview by Skype.
So I wasted several hundred dollars on this interview. And then no follow up. None. They never even gave me the dignity of a "thanks but no thanks" email.
I think I've described this in other posts but here goes again:
1) My worst (so far) was where I took a vacation day off work and drove 2 hours to the interview. I got tremendously flustered trying desperately to find a parking space and then practically sprinted to the building in my high heels to arrive on time, only to have the HR woman tell me they didn't, ". . . actually have anything for you, we just wanted to meet you." I was LIVID ! Gritting my teeth I very calmly and politely pointed out that I had taken the day off to come up there, under the impression I was being interviewed for an actual position that I had applied to, was she really sure there was nothing for me? "Oh no," she said, "so sorry." I think I cried all the way home.
2) An almost identical experience a few years later only that time I had to drive nearly FOUR HOURS to the interview. At least with that one it was in a lovely historical town on the Welsh border so I took the afternoon to be a tourist before schlepping all the way home again. And then had a blistering fight with my then boyfriend. Good times !
2) I had a really bizarre one just a few years ago where I was (and still am) convinced one of the interviewers was stoned the entire time I was there.
The worse interviews I've had so far are employers picking up their phones during our interview. I've had one employer play on his ipad while interviewing and one employer who was so dame popular that people needed him all the time.
I don't know which is worse, but I had these two experiences back to back:
1) Interview was going OK, nothing too hard or weird. Suddenly the interviewer noticed my wedding ring and suddenly would not stop asking questions about my husband. What does he do? Is he employed now? Is he OK with you working (WTF??)?
2) The interview started with them asking me if I were any Microsoft Office program, which one would I be? And then they went on to explain they had no idea what they wanted in the person that they were going to hire or what the person would ultimately be responsible for. They think it will be X skill set, but really, they don't know, so are not sure what other questions to ask other than to try and figure out if I had kids or not based on the fact I was married. What a frigging waste of time.
I don't know which is worse, but I had these two experiences back to back:
1) Interview was going OK, nothing too hard or weird. Suddenly the interviewer noticed my wedding ring and suddenly would not stop asking questions about my husband. What does he do? Is he employed now? Is he OK with you working (WTF??)?
2) The interview started with them asking me if I were any Microsoft Office program, which one would I be? And then they went on to explain they had no idea what they wanted in the person that they were going to hire or what the person would ultimately be responsible for. They think it will be X skill set, but really, they don't know, so are not sure what other questions to ask other than to try and figure out if I had kids or not based on the fact I was married. What a frigging waste of time.
The questions they asked you are borderline illegal if not illegal. I don't know how you answered those questions but I would never answer them and simply imply that those questions have nothing to do with the position and that I would like to focus on my skills sets and experience.
Legal or not, they all came off as a bunch of real ignorant d-bags I would never want to work for anyway.
I'll have to say, I was really surprised by this because I came from a fairly socially conservative state and was never, ever asked anything like this at interviews before I came here. These were just the most tactless of the interviews of the bunch that I have had where they have tried to weasel out of me things not relevant to the job at hand. If all really illegal, I should probably just start wearing a wire to these things and let the lawsuit money roll in, it is really that bad.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
! Gritting my teeth I very calmly and politely pointed out that I had taken the day off to come up there, under the impression I was being interviewed for an actual position that I had applied to, was she really sure there was nothing for me? "Oh no," she said, "so sorry." I think I cried all the way home.
!
