Describe your worst job interview.

In My Humble Opinion
41

Yikes! I’ve now got the heeby jeebies, and I’m just reading about your experience.

I’ve music directed a number of Gilbert and Sullivan shows, and interviewed for a handful more, at both MIT and Harvard. Both places have exective committees with which one must interview.

The MIT EC is pretty relaxed. There are typically five of them, and one will often be missing.

The Harvard EC? Usually 13+ people. It’s like facing a grand inquisition. They will all come up with a list of questions, and they are all required to ask a couple. The inquisitors that go first ask the good questions, such as how much experience you have, how would you handle conflict within the troupe, are you OK with a hack night, etc. Normal stuff. By the time the last inquisitors have their turns, all the “good” questions have already been asked, so out come the “interesting” questions.

“If you could be any kind of tree, what kind would you be?”

“Um… the mighty oak?”

This is invariably followed by several inquisitors frowning, shaking their heads, and making copious notes in red ink.

42

While I was in college, I worked for a tutoring company. I was in a pretty lowly position (I was the only college student there, all the other employees except the manager were HS students…oh yeah, I was older than the managers also…made me feel like a real bigshot :rolleyes: )

I worked for them for three years, and for the last two, I had wanted to be a manager. To become a manager there, you had to have had several years experience in the educational field and a BA. I figured I was a shoe-in because everybody was talking about what a smart guy I was, and when I mentioned what I was planning on doing after college they all thought it was a great path for me to take. My co-workers/managers were also really supportive. I knew they wanted people with a certain GPA (like 3.0+) in school, and I was worried I wouldn’t get the job. However, people told me time and time again ‘grades don’t really matter, your attitude matters’ Basically everybody thought I was perfect for the job.

The hiring process is split into three interviews: A group interview, a phone interview, and finally, a personal interview with some higher-up in the company. I made it to the third interview, so I thought I was on the right track. But I got lost on the way there- construction blocked the route I had mapquested, so I had to call them and explain I’d be late because of the roadwork. My car doesn’t have A/C so I was sweating profusely; before I went in I went to a neighboring subway, begged for a free cup of water and dumped it in my hair, using the relfection of the window to comb up my hair nice. I went into the interview, sweaty but still somewhat confident, when the worst thing imaginable happened- they sat down with a copy of my transcripts (which you had to provide earlier on) and basically went over every class I did crappy in :smack:

I didn’t get the job. At the time I was furious. It felt like the worst rejection ever. People who hadn’t even graduated college yet had gotten hired (in their last semester), but I, having worked for them for THREE YEARS, the enthusiastic never-late/absent-in-three-years employee had not. I actually felt betrayed somehow.

The ironic thing about the whole ordeal is that through that failure I got a (still part-time, with retarded issues) job which was better than what I was doing, but paired with substitute teaching allowed me to survive on my own. And both of those jobs required a BA also, so it wasn’t all work for nothing. Even better, I found out what a ripoff the manager position actually was, considering they have to put in 55+ hours/week with no overtime and end up making approximately as much per hour as I do with them now. So basically an even worse version of the job I’m in now. I guess I should be grateful my mediocre grades prevented me from convincing myself to work in a job taht would have been even more stressful/retarded than the one I’m in :smiley:

43

I’m picturing this in my mind…only it’s rather cartoonish…and you’re spinning on two wheels while you’re turning corners…and there’s zany music in the back ground…and I’m laughing my ass off. :smiley:

44

A couple years ago I applied for a call center job in San Francisco doing mostly customer service with a dabbling of tech support and light sales. First there was an online ‘interview’, ie a personality test. Then they gave you a phone interview with the hiring manager. If they liked you, you got an actual one on one interview. Well that interview was the longest day of my life. First you get a tour of the facilities, then an interview with the hiring manager. After that they stuck you in a computer room to take MORE tests. Mostly IQ-type tests and logic based tests. After you finished those (over an hour) then you interviewed someone else who went over your results. Finally if you ‘passed’ that you were sent home with a list of SEVEN people who you had to call for SEVEN more phone interviews. I can’t remember all of them, but one person actually called you because they were in Australia. They had this voice coach from Australia call you and give you a vocal test to see how you sounded on the phone. I remember him telling me to repeat what he said with the same tone and intonation and would then proceed to say something like “MomemaymEmeemaymimoo”. The final interview you got was the freaking CEO of the company. Now this was not a small company, they’d made a big deal to let you know they were part of the Fortune 500 and how quickly they were growing. Yet the CEO interviewed EVERY applicant.
All in all I spent a additional five hours doing these phone interviews (not counting the time wasted playing phone tag with some of the people). I finished with the CEO and I couldn’t help but think I HAD to have gotten the job, especially after all the hoops I jumped through. Of course I didn’t. But…seriously, this job was NOT that well paying and was basically customer service, why in the world would they go through ALL that to interview people?

45

Years ago I worked at a small company where the CEO was, to put it kindly, a disorganized jerk. A young lady named Kim came in one day for a job interview. The CEO himself was to interview her. She came in at 9:00 am, exactly when she was scheduled. The CEO was a little busy, but he’d be right with her. When I went out to lunch, she was still sitting there. When I left for the day, she was still sitting there. The CEO finally got around to the interview at 6:00 pm.

The poor girl sat in that chair without food or drink for the entire day.

She did end up getting the job. What she really needed to get was a clue. The CEO was just being himself, and she was just in for more of the same.

46

There is only one correct answer to that question:

“If I could be any kind of tree, I would be an I-fucked-your-mother tree.”

47

My second job interview here in England I was trying for a job as a case manager. This was a very low paying position and I wasn’t sure I could make a living here on that money, so I was a little hesitant to begin with. However, the advertisement for the position said that experience was not necessary, and since I have my law degree I thought I could qualify.

There were two interviewers in the room, and a third person who sat right behind me and didn’t say a thing. The first guy was really nice, and did the standard interviewer thing. He went through my resume, talked about my education and personality. That was fine, I felt confident in my answers and felt that we could have a good working relationship.

Then the second interviewer pulled out an eight page document and started asking me very specific questions. It was an insurance agency, and she wanted to know if I knew what a form KJERU40857 was (of course that’s a made up one, and it made just as much sense to me). She wanted to know how I would manage a case in detail, and specific to the insurance industry. I remembered Civ Pro from the bar, and I got some of the answers right, but damn.

It wasn’t the questions, either, it was the silences. “What do you do when you first get handed a case?” “I research it, gather evidence, and decide whether the claim has merit.” Silence…silence…silence. They are all staring at me, the guy behind me staring right between my shoulderblades. I sit quietly with my hands folded in my lap and back ramrod straight, and return their stares. When it eventually appears they will not speak again ever, I say, “That’s my answer.” The woman looks at the other interviewer, and hunts through her papers for the next question.

That’s how it went, the worst and most grueling interview I’ve ever had. At the end of it I was so furious I was shaking. They called me the next day to say I didn’t get the job and I said “Thank god” – because otherwise I would have felt like I had to take it. The person calling didn’t really like that.

48

Many years ago I went to a synagogue, and told the receptionist I had an appointment with the Rabbi. She gave me a ream of papers to fill out, and sent me to a room that had about 15 other girls sitting there, filling out the same forms. They asked for prior jobs, salary history, education, hobbies, etc. The darn thing was over 10 pages long!

49

Drat, timed out… cont’d

When I finally got inside to see the Rabbi (over 1 ½ hours later), he was holding my papers and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Miss, but you just don’t have the right qualifications.”
I couldn’t believe he said that, when I was there for pre-marriage counseling!

This was really a true story. I thought the papers were just so he could see where I was coming from (I know, duh - an intelligent person would have asked before filling them out.) Didn’t know I was applying for the position of his personal secretary!

-Wallet-
50

I was one of those english majors in college who had no idea what the hell to apply to when I graduated. I lived about 8 hours away from NYC by bus, and I began to comb the web and apply to NYC jobs. I was an artsy kid, not a major but illustrated some campus magazines, stuff like that, so I applied to some entry-level graphic design jobs and got called from this one rug design place in manhattan. They spoke to me on the phone for a while, asking me routine questions about computer platforms and such, and then said I sounded very promising, could I get down there to meet face to face? “We won’t waste your time for such a long trip,” they said, “come in the morning and plan to spend a few hours.”

I was so excited, it was my first interview EVER. So I got my fancy interview clothes, took the NIGHT bus down to NYC (I was too poor to stay in a hotel and I didn’t feel comfortable enough with the people down there to ask to spend the night), got there in the morning, 10 am on the DOT, with copies of my resume, with a good attitude, excited about being in the city, etc. I felt so prepared! I walk in and introduce myself, the guy says, “Thanks for coming! Stephanie will take a look at your portfolio and I’ll be with you in a little bit.”

Umm… portfolio?

I was such a novice that I had no idea they’d wanted a “portfolio”. Why was there no mention of this on the phone? “Uhh,” I said to Stephanie, “I don’t have a portfolio. I didn’t know I was supposed to bring one.” She looked confused, said she was sure she’d mentioned it on the phone. I was sure she didn’t, because I would have prepared SOMETHING.

She went over to the owner and told him I didn’t bring a portfolio. He looked confused. I felt MORTIFIED. I was ready to die. He sat me down anyway, at a bit of a loss, and asked me some similar questions to my phone interview. I wound up showing him the only artsy-type thing with my name on it, a website I’d helped a friend design. I was there maybe 15 minutes, I promised to email them a portfolio when I returned home, and that was that. I felt so deflated. And then I had to wait the whole day in NYC, alone, with no clue where any of the interesting, touristy stuff was, before I could take the bus back home. I remember spending time in a starbucks with a book.

When I got home, I emailed them a “portfolio” I hastily put together. I never heard anything back.

Gah.

51

Worst? I interviewed for a tech writing job at a local software firm.

It was clear halfway through the interview that they had no intention of hiring me, and only wanted to talk to me because I mentioned in my resume I had written a novel. They asked me more questions about that than anything else.

52

As a high schooler I interviewed for a summer job as an intern at my mom’s work. Good lord.

The most mortifying part of that was the mandatory pee test. Remember, I was a very nervous and shy high schooler (body functions? what body functions?), so I’d dutifully made the pit stop before the interview. :smack: It resulted in me sitting in the (male!) interviewer’s office after the interview was over, guzzling a soda and waiting for the inevitable to occur.

53

I totally forgot about another interview from hell. I couldn’t have made this one up in a million years.

The summer before med school I found myself without much to do, and there was an ad in the paper looking for people to drive ice cream trucks. How awesome would that be? They told me to come on over, so I put on a shirt and tie and headed to Ice Cream Truck HQ.

I didn’t expect the Wonka factory or anything, but I also didn’t expect I’d meet the owner in the bathroom-stall-sized office that he shared with a large growling Doberman. I’m pretty sure the Doberman had slept on the man’s T-shirt the night before. After I introduced myself, he talked for ten minutes, during which he smoked about half a pack of cigarettes and used some form of the word “fuck” about three times in each sentence. “We’ll fuckin’ get you out on a fuckin’ truck tomorrow,” he said, “and you’ll make some fuckin’ money. Fuck!” I actually didn’t say a word the entire time–he just went on and on.

He suggested I ride along with Bear for the afternoon. Bear owned his own truck, and when we found him he was fiddling with the giant speaker enclosures he had installed into it. They were blasting “Radar Love”. Bear made the owner look like a Brooks Brothers model; he wasn’t bearish at all, and instead looked like Kid Rock might look if he took up crystal meth and gave up personal hygiene.

Bear didn’t say anything, and the owner told me to just get in the passenger seat. After a few minutes, Bear climbed in the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and leaned in close.

“You’re not a cop, are you?” he said.
“Uh, no.”
“FBI? DEA? Anything like that?”
“No, I’m really not.”
“Because you have to tell me if you are, you know.”
“Yeah, entrapment, I know. Really, I’m not.”

Bear got back out of the van and went back to his speakers. I suddenly remembered someplace really important I had to be, and I ran like hell.

54

I mentioned one on here where I had to spend the day obsessing about a woman present whose husband killed himself, but my worst was probably at a university that will remain nameless; I’ll just allow it’s a major research university in Alabama about 50 miles from Montgomery and most famous for its football team, and coincidentally home of the world’s biggest bird cage (home to an eagle in times of peace and war). It was scheduled for the Monday after Thanksgiving when the weather was brisk but not really a tiger.

For those who’ve never had the joy of an academic interview, they begin the night before and they last all frigging day and you go before committee after committee after committee and there’s always a skinny bald guy and a woman with a goiter present for at least three of them and one of them (the bald guy or the woman or the goiter) is named Sam but you’ve long forgotten which by noon. They’re grueling.

Anyway, I arrived at the hotel about 6 pm on a Sunday night. PER THEIR INSTRUCTION, I called the head of the search committee, an old fart who referred to himself as “the resident curmudgeon” because he thinks that phrase is synonymous with negative old asshole. He was to meet and take me to dinner- this wasn’t a courtesy but a standard part of the interview, one I’d frankly rather skip. In any case, he and his supervisor, who would be my supervisor if I got the job, met me to take me to dinner. The entire way there and through the meal he talks about the monumental imposition of having to do this because “I have family here for Thanksgiving”. At one point I volunteered that I wasn’t the person who scheduled the interview for tonight, to which he responded “I know, but the person who did didn’t clear it with me”, a jab at his supervisor, a humorless Nancy Grace type who told him “You were the only person I thought would be free”. Made me feel really welcome already, especially when she volunteered “I have family here too but I’m here for the candidate dinner and not complaining!”

I mentioned that by coincidence this was the same weekend when my family celebrated Thanksgiving and I’d left them to be here. I was very polite but the “get over it” irony fell on deaf ears.

The next day it gets worse. Curmudgeonhole shows me around the library, introducing me to an army of unsmiling and disinterested people and stopping to complain about this or that new policy or employee. The difference between Schindler’s List and the Nancy Grace woman is that the former had a couple of scenes with humor and warmth- she not only doesn’t make humor, she doesn’t like it. I know this because she said she didn’t like it, this during my presentation when I’d made an ad-lib about something or other. (I give constant bibliographic instruction [BI] presentations in my job- for those not in the know, a BI is a lecture on how to use library information sources- it can be one of the most boring and dead subjects on earth- push this button and click that box to limit it to full text and the asterix will truncate the worl dadj aoifj aoij doijf aoijd f-

except when I teach it. I’m very proud of the fact I’ve been called “The Elvis of Bibliographic Instruction”. I say with no embarrassment or shame that I use humor, theatrics, odd bits of trivia, and anything else to keep attention and make it interesting, because if I’m bored the students are going to be comatose and I learned a long time ago that they’re never going to remember which buttons you pushed anyway, but they WILL remember the truly important things such as the difference in scholarly v. popular periodicals, the availability of Interlibrary Loan, what a reference librarian does, what types of things are available, etc.- the rest they can get from handouts and online tutorials when they need it because until they need it they don’t care and aren’t listening- but they listen to me.

Sorry for the aside above, but it’s relevant, because when asked my philosophy of BI I mentioned a variation on it. Nancy Grace Woman: “I prefer that we remain businesslike and use scripts to standardize.” I couldn’t disagree more; I was actually rather restrained for me during my presentation- I didn’t go into an imitation of a Pentecostal minister while explaining Boolean and I didn’t imitate Don Corleone when discussing Interlibrary Loan, both of which I’ve done before- but being told “no personality please, we’re librarians” was already infuriating to me when I have gotten RAVES from both faculty and students (I had a problem at the U of AL with professors going over my head to make sure that “only he teaches my classes their BI sessions from now on” which MAJORLY pissed off the person assigned to that department- but Nancy Grace Woman is a “That’s the way I see it so that’s the way it is” folks and since she has no humor or warmth she doesn’t believe it serves a useful purpose in others.

But, while a bit irritated already, I’m still interested in the job because it’s less than an hour from Montgomery where I was being summoned back due to my mother’s failing health, and it paid extremely well (about $8,000 more than I was making at the time), and I’ve won over bitches before, so I went on with it. Until the Reference & Instruction committee interview.

That’s when she explained what my job would be and what she expected. “I want somebody who will take our BI to a new level in making it reach our students…what would you do?” Well, that I can buy, and I’d recommend this and that and blah and yadda. She actually liked my answer and said “That’s good. That I like. Instruction has really suffered here in the last year which is why I want the best person for this position. Stuart’s been overseeing it since the last coordinator left and he hasn’t done near as much with it as I’d like. In fact he’s hardly done anything with it at all.”

This offended me for two major reasons. One is, I don’t know Stuart- and now you’ve flavored my opinion of him before I even get to know him, which is dirty pool. More offensive to me than that is that Stuart is in the fucking room and at this fucking table… bitch.

I look at Stuart who’s seething but keeping it professional. I ask this question: “Has Stuart been overseeing instruction instead of his regular duties or in addition to his regular duties?” Stuart (I call him that because it’s not his name) looks at me and says “Thank you! I have been overseeing it in addition to my other duties and I just don’t have time to do two full time jobs and do them both well.”

Now let me explain what happened here for those not familiar with Dixie Bushido:

She has made a serious faux pas- you never criticize somebody in front of others. It’s a very grievous fault. But, perhaps it was unintentional- we’ve all said things that sound worse than intended, or even said things unthinkingly that we only realize after we vocalize it, “damn, that was offensive… even if true”. Now what I have done, with Stuart’s aide, is brokered a diplomatic resolution- I have said to her without saying it 'You know you have punctured the silky skin of etiquette, I know you punctured it, so does Stuart… but I have repaired it with the needle and thread of tact, and now you have the option of pretending it did not happen- a very delicate apology would be nice, I would recommend “I’m sorry if that sounded a bit harsh, but my point is that we need somebody whose main responsibility this is…” and all will be salved and solved.

What she says is “I know it’s in addition to his regular duties, but I still think he could have done more. And what I want in a candidate is adjfoa ajdo foia oa doij apoij dfoa adfja pdfj ao asfj g”

I literally didn’t comprehend most of what she said immediately afterward. Ironically she seemed to be on my side at this point, but all I could think of was “What a rude and insensitive bitch! If she’s like this when presumably she’s on her best behavior, what the fuck is she like to work for on a term’s end Thursday when she’s being pulled 14 ways and her kid needs braces and you’ve displeased her?” and all I thought of for the rest of the interview, literally, was “Should I get up and leave now with a curt ‘Thank you but I withdraw my application’, or should I finish the interview and then send an email withdrawing my application when I get back to Georgia?” I opted for the latter as academia is small and inbred and to leave in mid interview might be unwisely offensive.

Anyway, I’ve since heard it confirmed that “the woman is a bitch”.

55

Thanks What Exit?.

I left out the fact that when I decided to leave I had to “break up” with him to get away - literally, using lines like “Its not you, its the job” while backing away. I also did not mention what lead to me finally walking out: which would be when the gentleman exposed his shortcomings to the world. Remember this was in a public park, with another lady walking a dog coming past - after I got out of the park she came after me and gave me directions and a lift.

Even beats the interview where the interviewer got called out to an emergency, and left me locked in the interview room. I ended up calling their reception to let me out.

56

Sampiro, why didn’t you marry that woman? You just seem so right for each other.

In an opposites attract sort of way, I mean.

So, what does one do in this situation?:

You get interviewed by eight people. The first seven love you and indicate that they are willing to hire you. The eighth is a jerk who obviously hates you and makes no attempt to hide it. There is an excellent chance that his no vote will keep you from getting the job. What do you do?

Put up with his shit, realizing that you’re now in time-waste mode?

Call him on his shit and tell him you’re not going to put up with it?

Walk out?

57

That reminded me of an interview I went to not too long ago. It was an office assistant position for a physical therapy clinic. I was really happy about getting the interview, but as soon as I sat down the woman said “Your resume says you worked in a vet’s office for a while. I’ve always wanted to be a vet so I called you in here. What was it like??” Ugh…she just called me in because of that? Fine,whatever. I humored her and told her just the gritty, depressing details about what working in a vet clinic can be like. Apparently she wasn’t impressed since I didn’t get the job.

58

Is it Godwinizing if you compare someone to a movie about the Nazis? :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

59

I once picked up a candidate for a two-day interview. As she approached me, I knew it was all a waste of time. She was wearing a mini-skirt and hooker heels–to an interview at a Quaker college.

My own personal worst interview was with a psychologist in private practice. I had spoken with his partner, but not him, which was a big mistake. At lunch, he spent his time gazing at the TV above my head or talking to his partner. Maybe one sentence to me. In our one on one chat, he expressed the opinion that compared to those in private practice, psychologists who work in institutions (which he knew decscribed me) are “pussies who don’t know how good they have it.”

I thought this position was my ticket out of Detroit, and was devastated. And to top it off, it was my birthday.

When his partner called me the next day to see if I was interested in the position, I told him I couldn’t work with his partner.

BTW, I ended up opening a practice of my own and love it, so it ended well. :slight_smile:

60

You know who else commented on making comparisons between films and people in job interviews? HITLER!!!
:wink: