I had a realization about job interviews today...

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

They’re freakin’ boring. It’s no wonder I don’t particularly want to go to them.

Interviewer: “Blahblahblahblah. Blah. Tell me about yourself. Blahblahblah. Blahblah.”

Me: Nodding. Smiling. Saying whatever happens to come out of my mouth.

Interviewer: “What salary are you expecting?”

Me: “Why don’t you tell me what you’re planning to pay and we can both stop this ridiculous dance?”

Interviewer: “I don’t like your attitude much.”

Me: “You’re boring.”

Interviewer: “Well, thanks for coming in. We’ll never call you again.”

Me: “No, thank YOU. I was wondering how I would get rid of two hours* of my life in the most boring, pointless way possible.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t say all of that out loud.

*With commuting time to and from interview.

#2

So… when do you start the new gig? :smiley:

#3

I agree completely, but maybe I have a biased opinion because I am a corporate recruiter, and interview a half-dozen people a day minimum, generally following the same scripts of questions. Although on first impression, your answer on the salary question seems crass, annoying, and over the top, it would sure be a nice beak from the montony of doin the salary dance.

#4

Oh lord, yes. Especially at the phone interview stage. And those group interviews, where everyone takes a turn asking a question. Aauugh!

I know I didn’t advance past the phone interview stage at one place because I couldn’t keep my amazement at the inanity of their interview process out of my voice.

#5

Commenting on an applicant’s nose size will almost certainly lead to an EEOC complaint.

#6

Heh. I honestly think this is why I am just not interested in looking for a new job. I loathe the interview process.

Funny thing is, one time I did actually say what I was thinking. Backstory – I was looking for a position in an office environment, and sent out several resumes. One company called me within 10 minutes of me faxing my resume and asked me what salary range I was looking for – I told them a figure about $10K more than I would take and point out that that is only so long as there are benefits offered, the girl said “hold on a second, please” and when she came back asked if I would come for an interview that afternoon. “Wow,” thought I, “could it really be this simple?” The answer is a resounding “HELLZ NO!” To the best of my recollection, the interview went something like this:

Me: “Hi, I am here to interview with Lisa.”

Receptionist: “Oh, ok, let me go find her.”
20 minutes later…receptionist returns.

Receptionist: “Follow me, Lisa and Todd want to interview you in the break room if that’s ok.”

Me: “Sure, that’s fine with me. I only brought one copy of my resume, though, so hopefully the faxed one is legible enough that they won’t have to share. I really wasn’t expecting to be interviewed by a group.”

Receptionist: “Oh, they always interview people together, don’t worry about it.”
She leads me into a (very filthy) break room. I sit down at the table indicated, taking care to not touch it, as god-only-knows WTF that sticky looking brown stuff is! By this point, based on the interview conditions and the facility conditions, I am thinking there is no way in hellz that they can afford me. After about a 20 minute wait, Lisa and Todd and Charlie walk in and introduce themselves. Uhmmm, ok, I was supposed to interview with one person, now it’s 3? Ok.

Me: “I apologise, but I only brought one copy of my resume, I didn’t realise that there would be 3 of you. I hope you don’t mind.”

Charlie: “Oh, that’s ok, we don’t need to look at your resume, really, we already did. We just want to talk to you.”

<insert a bunch of standard interview questions here, me answering like a dutiful wannabe employee for another 20-30 minutes>

Lisa: “Now, we really like you and think you would make a great addition to our team. We would like to offer you the position. It pays $7 per hour and unfortunately, we don’t offer insurance yet. We’re still a small company and are not required to offer insurance.”

Me: :dubious: …

Todd: “What do you say?”

Me: “Well, let me just say that I am truly impressed. I have never in my life been so impressed.”

Todd: “Yes, we felt you would be.”
Lisa and Charlie both nod approvingly.

Me: “No, I don’t think you understand. I am impressed with the size of your balls. I mean, honestly – I was asked on the phone what my salary requirements are and I stated them very clearly. I also explained that the figure was based on there also being benefits. I was asked to come interview – as a fairly intelligent being, I assumed that that meant that this position had the budget to pay me what I asked for. I was wrong. You cannot afford me. You asked me to drive 20 minutes to your facility for an interview, knowing that you could not afford me, had me wait at least an hour before even acknowledging my presence, put me through the interview process and then have the nerve to insult me by offering me $7 an hour?!?”
Right about now the 3 of them are re-thinking their strategy, I think. They are all 3 looking for something to say. I reached out and picked up the faxed copy of the resume they had carried in with them and the nice copy I had brought with me and began slowly and carefully shredding them into the waste basket beside the table. Honestly, if I hadn’t been as pissed off as I was, I probably would have laughed myself silly, it was such a surreal thing to do.

Lisa: “I am sorry. We thought when you agreed to come in that you might be willing to negotiate. We could go up to $9 an hour?”

Me: “Look, seriously, that isn’t even close to what I asked for. I didn’t say that I was willing to negotiate on my salary, what in the world makes you think I would do that? I wish you luck in finding someone to fill this position, but I assure you, it will not be me. If I were in a foul mood, I would be sending you a bill for my time and wasted gas. Might I suggest the next time you are interested in a resume that you be up front with the person about your budget before asking them to drive down for an interview? Have a nice day.”

My husband and I laughed so hard over this situation. Honestly, I would never recommend doing this, but it was such a slap in the face that at that moment, I just didn’t care if I burned any bridges. Of course, it was probably the most un-boring interview I ever had…

#7

Phone interviews are a tricky little thing. For the most part, that is what I do, considering I recruit for positions nationwide. They are a necessary evil, but they are also a good filter if the people in the field are not good at assessing talent.

#8

yes, a definite EEOC violation. I really have to learn that proofreading is my friend.

#9

I’ve had perfectly pleasant and efficient ones. The one I was referring to was for a very well-known survey research firm that had apparently been taking too many sips of its own kool-aid. The bulk of it was asking me to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how much of a backbiting workaholic corporate drone I thought I might be. It was also way too long and delivered, on their end, in a whiny singsong tone.

#10

You use the phrase “backbiting workaholic corporate drone” like it’s a bad thing.

#11

For the interview I went to this morning, I had actually specified on my resume that I am looking for a part-time position. The people at this company work 6 days a week - he thought he might be able to get that down to five days a week for me. Really, not enough roll-eyes in the world. Why do you only want part-time? Because I don’t need full-time money and I like to have a life. I’m funny that way. I don’t think I have a proper attitude AT ALL. I don’t think he thinks I do either.

(Theodore, you made me snort with that. :smiley: )

#12

The worst interview I endured took a total of four hours of my time, not counting the half-hour commute each way, so let’s make it five hours wasted, wearing a stuffy and uncomfortable suit and tie the whole time. About a dozen of us gathered around a large table in a meeting/board room and were given a short orientation on the company, the usual Dilbert-esque corporate fluff about the company’s mission, philosophies, etc. After this we were interviewed individually, one at a time, while the rest of us waited. Once this was done we were herded into another room where we were given a ridiculously easy test of basic questions on math, English, etc. I figured, “Shit, if this is how they measure employee competence then I know I’m a definite shoe-in for the job!” Once the test was over with we all had to sit together in the same mind-numbingly boring room with absolutely nothing to do whatsoever while we were interviewed individually by a second person. For two hours I sat there amongst several people I didn’t know and didn’t feel close enough to for striking up a conversation with any of them. I didn’t see them as potential future co-workers, but as competitors as there were only so many openings available.

I didn’t get the job after all of this mental anguish. I got off easy. Some people reported having gone through as many as six interviews before getting hired. My sister managed to get hired on there. I told her to bring a thick book to read since there would be lots of waiting and downtime.

#13

Having a beak nose is not a protected class under EEOC rules. Of course, PETA might just disagree.

#14

Not all interviews have to be bad. When I interviewed for my current job, I was lucky to be interviewing with my (still) fabulous and beautiful manager, K. Although my other managers are not quite so fabulous as her, she is one of the main reasons I stick around at this job.

It was fairly cursory, she didn’t ask me any “canned” questions but just a few basic ones about myself, and was offered the job on the spot. Pretty painless.

#15

So just how big is your bill, Duckster? :wink:

#16

Most of the stuff people are complaining about here (particularly dwc1970’s experience) are because of rules foisted off on the HR department because management decided they wanted their company to qualify for some business excellence certification. dwc, they did all that stuff so they can put a check mark next to about nineteen different things and say, “Why, yes, of course all of our new hires have been through orientation!” Even if you remember none of it ten minutes later.

My experience with job searches in the IT industry show that interviews fall into three categories:

  1. The Cold Call. You get called by a headhunter because your name came up on a Monster or CareerBuilder search, since your resume has all the keywords in it that the jobs he’s trying to find people for have in them. He couldn’t care less about you, or the job, or your experience. All he wants is to make sure you know what all those things are, and that you can say so without laughing.

  2. The Technical call. Having passed the headhunter’s approval, you get handed off to somebody who actually knows what the job is. His job is to find out whether or not you can do the job. Not whether or not you want to, or if you’re an axe murderer.

  3. The HR interview. This is often the first time you see an actual warm body. This person has no idea what’s on your resume or what the job is. All this person cares about is whether or not you’ll get your time sheet filled out correctly and whether or not you’ll fit into the corporate culture.

#17

Noone can beat my older sister’s interview experience. She’s a geologist and applied for a job with a Saudi oil company - they PAID her to fly to Zurich for the interview and PAID for her accommodation for more than one night (she was coming from the butt end of the world) and upon arriving at the interview she saw an all male panel - who politely asked her a few questions, then said thank you. This took about 2 minutes. Then, when she was ushered back out of the interview room, one of the panel came out and said he was sorry but they were looking for a man!
Surely someone would have noticed that her name is a girls name, as far as I know, no guys get called Penelope.

#18

The worst interview wasn’t so much an interview as it was SIX interviews. Each time, I would go in, and they would interview me for 1-2 hours, then say “Wow, you sound like a fantastic candidate! However, we have an internal applicant…”

Every damn time! Finally, the last time, the HR person totally misrepresented the job, so all of my answers about goals and what I could bring to the position were completely wrong. Finally, that time I didn’t get the call back from HR saying “We’re so sorry, we have that job filled by an internal applicant, but they just loved you and passed your resume on to this other department…”

Ugh. The best interview was for my current job. I switched schedules with a night person and went in before work. The interview part was really short, but we (my current manager and I) spent a decent amount of time talking about my old job and the prospective new job. I spoke very plainly about how poorly run my old place was, just because I felt so comfortable with the guy. He gave me an offer right there, and when it was a little less than my current job, he called back that day with a better offer after talking to his boss. I put in my two weeks notice within 4 hours of the interview, and the new job’s great. :slight_smile:

#19

Doesn’t matter to me who initiates the rules - my time is still wasted.

MelC, that’s pretty danged close to insane. On so many levels.

#20

My all time favorite interview was the one where after meeting every single person in the department, which took several hours, I was told: We don’t have any openings, we just wanted to see what a women engineer looked like. :frowning: Thanks a lot guys, can you reimburse me for the hours you just took out of my life, assholes!!!