The interview was starting its 3rd hour. I had toured the office, met people. The interviewer (who would then be my boss) was obviously excited.
The position could not have been more tailor made for me if I had written a description myself. It was PERFECT! Even tangental skills/experience fit perfectly. I even had a friend who was very familiar with the company and so I knew that, while not perfect, it was a pretty good place to work.
She was so excited, that she confessed that I was perfect and wanted to know if I was interested enough to get to negiotating.
We play the ‘you name first’ game and I won. She then proudly announced that $28K was possible.
I thought I had misunderstood…and asked her to repeat it.
$28K
“A month?”, I ask?
She was now confused.
Surely you can’t mean annually, I ask. Do you have any idea of what I make now?
She was more confused.
I told her.
She was shocked. Absolutely shocked.
“No Way!”, she exclaims.
Turns out that she and her company had no idea that ‘statistician’ was an area that was paid above $28K per year…especially if they are establishing an analytics division and running it for a company with several hundred employees and international presence.
I was seriously pissed, tried not to show it but did have to ask if the salary of the people I would hire would be above minumum wage or not.
Before you think this was long ago…it happened 7 years ago.
I find it tremendously funny now…and it makes a great story.
I was interviewing this candidate. He seemed a bit nervous.
I made the mistake of saying “You seem a bit nervous”. For the next 20-30 sec, I saw someone almost unravel in front of my eyes. Total, complete anxiety attack. He managed to keep control, but could tell it was a struggle. He made it, calmed down. I asked him if he’d like some water. I came back with it, he was gone.
Another answered the question “Why did you leave your last position at xxxx”? with " I attacked and stabbed a coworker" hmmmm, ok…hey, at least he was honest!
There was the guy that kept blowing up (breath from mouth) hard so that his hair would fly up…
I had an interesting interviewing experience back around '94 when I was going through co-op interviews and had about half a dozen or so interviews lined up. I wasn’t concerned about being able to get a job figuring if I didn’t get offered a position I’d go into second-round interviews so I decided to have some fun with the process. At the time I had the sides and back of my head shaved and hair really long on top pulled into a ponytail. I also wore a couple earrings. I complemented my appearance with my “pimp outfit”, black dress shirt, funky bluish-green and black tie with dress pants of a similar bluish green and black plaid pattern, topped off with a burgundy sports-coat. It turned out that when the interviewer was late 20s/early 30s they took one look at me and I knew the interview was over they just went through the motions. It was the late 40s/50-ish interviewers who couldn’t care less what I looked like and I actually ended up with a few job offers.
A few years later in Texas I had the opposite experience. At that time all my hair was really long well down my back. This time I dressed conservatively and pulled my hair neatly into a ponytail. I went to a couple interviews and didn’t get an offer. I made one change, cut all my hair off. Dressed and behaved exactly the same and every intereview I was offered the position.
I know I’ve posted this to the Dope before, but it’s one of my favorites. It’s one from my wife, a number of years ago.
Interviewer: “Are you familiar with Lotus 1-2-3?”
Wife: “I’m familiar with 3, but less familiar with 1 and 2.”
::end of interview::
On the other side, I’ve interviewed tons of people over the years for Dev positions within my group, which, if you don’t already know is, shall we say, within an extremely large and propserous software corporation.
The number of complete and total imbeciles I’ve had to interview is staggering. A small sample:
[ul]
[li] Talking on the phone in the conference room when I walk in - gives the the extended finger “wait a minute” signal, then continues his jokey personal call.[/li][li] As proof of a bug she’s logged, provided me with a screenshot of a bug from her current employer’s proprietary internal bug utility.[/li][li] Answered quickly and repeatedly “I don’t know” to very simple development questions (“What’s an array”) in a defeated voice almost before I finished the questions.[/li][li] Began the interview by discussing at great length what exactly is wrong with my product and how we can go about “righting the ship” under his tutelage. He was a college hire for an intern position.[/li][li] Began the interview with salary demands; demands far exceeded my salary, having worked there at that point over ten years.[/li][li] Nervously jangled keys and laughed hysterically and inappropriately to the point that I became frightened.[/li][li] Sent mail on Blackberery the whole time - kept saying “Hold on…<tap> <tap> <tap> what was that?”[/li][li] My favorite: To put it lightly, he was drunk. Quite drunk. It was 10am, and I guess he was nervous or whatever, but after about two minutes I ended all his interviews for the day and walked him out. Literally.[/li][/ul]
And no, I’m certainly not immune to the occasional lapse in judgement. I was intervewing someone on July 31st, the final day of the baseball trading deadline, and had somehow managed to have the Sports Page folded under my briefcase so I could accidentally see all the deals that went down. There may as well been a mound of coke on the table in front of Tony Montana.
I asked the guy a question, started writing down his answer…then started glancing at things like “Rolen dealt to Cardinals,” then realized that he had stopped talking. I looked up and he said: “Uh…are you reading the Sports Page?” Oops.
In my last job I managed two sets of developers, the embedded guys and the windows guys.
We were interviewing for an embedded position. I interviewed the man and then had my staff interview him.
When he came back I asked him if there were any other questions that I could answer for him. He said: No, Jon <one of staff, not his real name> had told him that I was “just a Windows” developer. He and Jon had discussed all that would be needed.
He didn’t get the job. He called a few months later to ask if I would use him as a consultant. I didn’t.
Another time, shortly after college, I took the bus from NJ into NYC for an interview at an employment agency. As I was walking out of the Port Authority bus terminal onto 8th Ave. I felt something like a large rain drop hit me in the head. I reflexively reached up to touch the spot and came away with a finger full of bird poop. I’ve heard this is a sign of good luck. Maybe not so much on the way to a job interview. No problem though. I went back inside and cleaned my hair with some paper towels in the mens room. So I get to the interview and all is going well. They ask me to take a proofreading test, so I take off my suit jacket and hang it on the back of the chair. After the test I get up and go to put my jacket on and I see the rest of what could only be described as the deposit of a bird who had been out drinking all night and eating White Castles, down the back of my jacket. I’d been walking around the office like that for an hour. :smack:
About 25 years ago, an acquaintance went for an interview with a very formal corporation.
Instead of a suit (compulsory), he went in a sweater.
It went extremely badly and he got upset with himself.
On his way out, he opened a cupboard door and walked in. :eek:
I used to do interviews for my high-turnover call center. The stringency of the interviews would change depending on our desperation, but it was, most of the time, pretty much just screening out the obvious losers.
One gentleman had never worked in an call center or office, only in food service. But, we interviewed him just to see if we thought he could make a change (i.e. were really desperate).
“I see your last job was at McDonalds.”
“Yeah.”
“You were there for about four months. What made you leave that position?”
“I was fired…”
“Ah, okay, for what?”
“For stealing. But only stuff they were going to throw away anyway!”
What was he stealing?
Entire boxes of sliced American cheese.
At that time I had to explain to my manager via email any time we turned down a potential applicant. For once, I didn’t get called in for the third degree. “Reason for not hiring: Fired from last job for stealing cheese.”
