(this is not strong enough for the Pit, I feel bad more than I’m angry about it)
Man, I just had a tough one. My first instinct is to WANT to hire the candidate. I go into the interview with an open mind and a general attitude of being positive. I know what it’s like being unemployed and needing a job. But damn, I just interviewed this guy who a) talked down to me (snickered rudely at the questions I asked) , b) told me what I was doing wrong when I explained a few little morsels of our environment, and c) talked way too much and way too fast. Not only that, but the interview was to take place at 12:00 PDT. He didn’t answer the phone until the 5th ring and he was in his car apparently with the TOP DOWN on the HIGHWAY. I found myself repeating questions several times (because he couldn’t hear me).
I ended the interview 20 minutes into the call. Come on, are you serious?
I am not looking forward to this. In about a year, if things keep going well, I’ll get to hire someone to do my job so that I can become a lady of leisure and sort of oversee things from a distance. I am not a good teacher, so no only do I have to sweat interviewing people, but if I do manage to find someone worth a damn, then I’ll have to show them the ropes. The whole idea gives me a stomach ache. People suck.
Exactly. A phone interview means sit quietly at home waiting for the call and then be as professional and well-mannered as possible.
I only interview as part of a committee here or there; I’ve never had to hire someone all on my own. I would be rather flabbergasted if I was doing a phone screen or interview and that happened. Yuck.
Yeah, I interview people. The thing I hate worst is having too many good candidates and having to tell someone I’m not hiring them. The next worst is having to interview assholes like your guy, or people who are obviously so nervous they’re sweating, and hmmmm-ing, and can’t meet your eyes.
I am not currently in the interviewing business but Mrs. FtG is.
Earlier in the year the candidate showed up outside the building. It’s a secured building so Mrs. FtG has to go down and escort her in. She opens the door. Candidate is on her cell phone, ignores Mrs. FtG and keeps talking. And keeps talking.
End of interview.
Back in my professor days, candidates would come in for a 1+ day thing. Half hour with each faculty member, gives a talk, go out to dinner. A lot of stuff. No real horror stories but the bad part was when it was clear by 11am the candidate was not anywhere close to being considered for the job. Then everybody has to still be polite, do the chats, go to the talk, etc. Dreadful for all involved.
Fortunately, I don’t have to interview that many people now, but you get the weird ones, don’t you? I was interviewing a guy for an English teaching postion at my Japanese friend’s school.
The guy who had a competely different background in modeling, had gone to modeling school, work experience in the States as a model, references from jobs, etc.
The English conversation position we were looking for required more enthusiasm than training, so I decided to interview him anyway.
He shows up, and explains he had sent the wrong resume, and gave me one with a completely different background, as a English teacher, of course, having gone to a Teaching English as a Second Language school in the States, work esperience, etc., etc.
I used to interview people on last two jobs. It is tough when you’ve got a few good candidates and you can only hire one. Then there are the others.
I called one guy 20 minutes after he was supposed to come to our office to be interviewed. His roommate answered the phone and, when I told him who I was and ahy I was calling told me he’d gone out and that he’d forgotten about the interview. My coworkers and I agreed that, even if it was true, the guy really should have thought of something else to tell us.
The worst, however, wasn’t a guy I even interviewed. We got over 100 resumes in repsonse to an ad for 1 entry level sales rep. I screened them and sent out a typical “Thanks but no thanks” letter to the ones who didn’t make the first cut, signing my name to the letter. (I was the CEO’s administrative assistant.) Sometime after the letter went out, a fellow called twice on my lunch break and a third time after I got back. He spent 15 minutes or so chewing me out for not considering him and for turning him down, throwing in a bit of profanity for emphasis. When the call ended, I pulled his resume and reviewed it further, as I’d promised him. Among other things, he was asking for quite a bit more than we were prepared to pay and had no experience in my employer’s field. I added a note to our records describing what happened and saying not to consider hiring him under any circumstances. I understand frustration about being turned down for yet another job (when I took that one, I’d been out of work for 7 months) but I don’t see how getting angry at people and being rude to them can do anything to improve your chances. What was I supposed to think? “Gee, this guy made his point so well and so forcefully we really should hire him so that I can put up with him every day?”
Quick story, not related to be in the interviewer, but the interviewee.
I attended the office of the recruitment firm, sat in the foyer until my interview time and was escorted by the receptionist to the interview room and left alone to complete a few pieces of paper work.
20 minutes after the interview was supposed to have started I received a call on my mobile phone asking whether I was going to bother coming into the interview because they were very busy and they would have appreciated a call to say that I couldn’t be bothered coming in.
When I explained that I was sitting, in their interview room, waiting for the interviewer to arrive, they were most sheepish and apologetic. I decided not to take the job if that’s how they were going to treat prospectives.
In the past I have interviewed people for positions. Most of the time it’s easy enough to count up the bad points with regards to people and discount them before the interview is over. They’re the easy ones.
The hard ones are where you get 2 or 3 candidates that are very suitable and then it’s a case of having to go over the interview to see which of the 2 or 3 rises to the top.
It’s a hard choice sometimes. Luckily for me, I’ve never gotten it wrong and have been very satisfied with that the candidates selected.
If anyone were to pull an interview while they’re still in their car, they wouldn’t have lasted 20 minutes. More like 20 seconds.
See, this was risky because why would you answer your phone (or even let it ring) while on an interview? They would have gotten voicemail and who knows how long you would have sat there! :smack:
LOL. I have had those interviews. I used to manage both the Windows developers and the Embedded team at my last job. I interviewed a guy for the embedded team. I let him interview with my staff and then did a follow up. I asked if he had any specific questions for me. He said:
The team teased me about it pretty much until I left. Just a Windows programmer indeed.
He didn’t get hired. He called later and wondered if I would use him as a consultant. I was polite when I told him no.
Several years ago I was hiring for a position and had my assistant set up several interviews. She brought a resume in to me and told me the applicant was waiting outside. I was busy, nodded and planned to get to her as soon as possible…and promptly got involved with something else. Three hours later I went to leave for lunch and noticed this woman out in reception.
She had never said a word. Just waited patiently for three full hours.
I hired her on the spot out of guilt.
She is still with me and is doing great although she loves to tell that story.
Don’t let these folks waste your time or brain space. A few of my ridiculously bad interviewees have been on unemployment. It seemed quite likely they were just going through the motions so they could keep collecting. These were folks who had enough work experience to know better, but were over-the-top bad in the interview, a lot like your guy.
My least favorite situation is having to turn down a good second-best, and interviewing people in very sad situations who don’t have the skills for the job. And, since these people don’t know much about how to interview well, the sad situation always comes up in the interview.
I had one guy who all-but put his feet up on the desk during an interview to back-fill my office-based position.
When I asked how the guy’s time prioritisation was, he said “oh, terrible. In fact, I hate working in an office.”
Then I explained the job involved giving presentations, and he said “If you wanted me to give a presentation, I’d be ‘off sick’ that day.”
Later, he said, with no trace of irony, “I have great people skills - as you can see.” My coworker, my interview-mate, visibly gave up and started doodling on her interview sheet.
When he left, she exploded laughing the moment the door shut behind him. I’m sure he heard her.
At my job, our boss has the workers of a similar position talk to a candidate, explain what the job is all about, and give a little tour of our area. We had one candidate who seemed like a good possibility - until his phone rang while we were talking with him about the job, and he actually checked to see who was calling, then put it away without any kind of apology/explanation. Just because the boss isn’t there doesn’t mean we don’t care about your potential work habits, and calling people on your cell phone when you’re supposed to be working isn’t cool.
Personally, I find nothing wrong with this. He didn’t answer the phone. He checked to see who it was. If my phone rang, regardless of the situation, I’d check. What if it was my wife (who knew I was in an interview) and she was stranded somewhere? What if she were in an accident? If the call was her, I would have excused myself politely and taken the call.
Sorry, but I’ve gotten cell phone calls that changed my life.
I don’t interview people for jobs right now, although I did interview them for voluntary jobs a while back. Many people were surprised that we didn’t just take anybody who volunteered, but we’d done this before and too many of them signed up and never really did anything, so we changed. Our interviews were through the net (in our same program, most of our workers had previously been our customers) - someone who’d been going afk during the interview for anything less serious than “excuse me, I think the cops just broke down my neighbor’s door” would not have made the cut.
I do get lots of phone interviews, as well as unexpected preinterviews (phone calls from agents at all times). If I’ve set a time, I make sure to be in a quiet place and to have done such things as get water and go potty beforehand. If it’s unexpected, I will move to a quiet place, ask the caller to call me back at X time (and then, see above), and if I’m driving I’ll stop on the shoulder.
Note that I said he didn’t apologize or explain. If he’d even just said “Excuse me,” that would have been better. Or “I’m expecting an urgent call.” Something, anything to assure us he wasn’t checking up on his friends, his GF, what his plans for that night were. Not to mention it wasn’t even on vibrate. It wasn’t an all-day interviewing process, we were probably 5-10 min from the end of a ~30 min interview, at most.
That was going to be my question too. The receptionist deserved at least a stern lecture on monitoring his/her reception space.
This is how it is at my company. The way it used to work, the candidate got an interview schedule including only the first two interview slots. Every subsequent interviewer was also scheduled, but the candidate didn’t have the details. If, after the first two interviewers had a crack, the candidate was an obvious non-starter, a collective decision would be made whether to continue, or flush the rest of the interviews rather than waste the time of the higher-ups with the later slots.
HR doesn’t let us do that any more. Now, even when it’s obvious within two minutes that we’re staring across the table at a slug, we still have to go through the motions for the entire day. Yuck.