You should have shown her your avatar while insisting that humans are animals, Homo sapiens to be precise.
ETA: Kind of ninja’d.
I have conducted in-person interviews where the applicant was woefully inadequate, but cool people.
I have failed computer-based interviews for jobs where I was well qualified
My silliest interview, though, was the very beginning of my career. I presented a web design portfolio to my prospective employer and they immediately hired me to maintain databases and server-side code.
I have never done design since.
Turned out OK, I guess, it took me from a little bit of a nerd into a super-nerd.
Last year I was looking for a job and decide to apply for a programmer’s position in a company, the application was done in the company’s web site and I assumed that it was the usual “upload your resume here and we’ll call you for an interview if we’re interested”.
Nope, after uploading my resume they wanted me to record a little video of myself answering a question.
This bothered me but the job looked interesting, so I recorded the video and uploaded it… only for the page to ask for another video for another question, I saw that I could move ahead and se the other steps (but not complete the application without uploading videos), turns out there were about 10 questions, each one requiring me to record a video.
I left a comment saying that I was not going to do jump through all those hoops for applying to a job and cancelled the application.
She should have looked at me and seen that for herself.
Oh, those were just my silliest experiences as an interviewee. Some of my experiences as an interviewer are even sillier. I’ve told some of these in other threads before but here we go.
We were interviewing a male candidate for an internal supervisory position. He’d been in the department for a while, so we asked him what are some of the problems he sees in the area that needed fixing. He answered, “There are too many women managers.” We use panel interviews that includes the hiring manager, the subject matter expert, both women in the case, and someone from HR, me in this case. He didn’t get the position.
Another candidate for a different supervisory position was asked why she wanted to be a supervisor. She answered, “I like telling people what to do.” This was a strong candidate, but when the interview was over the hiring manager looked at me and said absolutely not. When the position went to another candidate, one of my VPs came to talk to me about why her mentee didn’t get the position. I was expecting a very uncomfortable conversation, but when I told her how the candidate answered she just made a face of revulsion and said she wouldn’t have hired her either.
I had an external candidate whom I interviewed in person as a pre-screen (he came in at a job fair type event) who seemed perfectly fine. When he came in for his actual interview either he was off his meds or on something. His appearance was disheveled, behavior was erratic, and he answered with non sequiturs. The hiring manager was pissed at me, asking why I brought that person in for an interview. I could only tell him the candidate was a totally different person the first time I met him.
Then there’s the makeup melting Jesus freak. This external candidate, male, came in for an interview absolutely caked in makeup, his hair dyed an unnatural black, and he was wearing a black suit. He looked like the Undertaker’s manager from the World Wrestling Entertainment. As the interview went on, dude started sweating more and more profousely, his makeup running off his face, and he began to talk about Jesus, becoming quite animated and loud. We didn’t hire him for some reason.
I interviewed for a job that listed skill in Photoshop. When I talked with them, they said it was just a temporary position because as soon as they could find a blind person who could use PS, they’d be hired. Whuuuut?
They then brought out the piss test kit. I said “I’ll fail” and left.
Auto correct strikes again
Sorry, it was a silly joke but I couldn’t help myself. I should have added-- I liked your silly job interview story and I think it does rate highly as one of the silliest in this thread. Was it close to Halloween? That would have at least made a little more sense.
I think mine was the woman interviewing me for a summer job at a cafe when I was at uni.
After a few fairly normal questions, she asked how I’d deal with a difficult customer who’s getting angry. Fine. I started to reply that ‘In that situation, first off, I take a mental step back, and…’ leading say something about not taking it personally and looking for a solution and she interrupted me with ‘NO, you can’t step back, you have to stay there behind the counter’. I tried again with a ‘You maybe misunderstood, I don’t mean I’d go anywhere, just mentally step back so I… ‘ and she starts yelling that ‘NO, it’s YOUR problem to deal with, YOU NEED TO STAY BEHIND THE COUNTER!’
It pretty much ended with us staring at each other then me leaving.
Also had one where I got on a little too well with the interviewer. I think we both realised once we got home that him as my boss wasn’t going to end in a HR approved manner. I did not get the job. He sounded extremely embarrassed and apologetic when calling me to let me know I hadn’t. Still slightly regret not suggesting a date instead…
A really weird one for me never made it to the interview. Back in the 90s, a headhunter from a recruiting firm contacted me, asked me a bunch of initial questions about my skills and experience, and then she said she would present me to some of her clients to set up some interviews.
That evening, her husband called me and said his wife thought I would be perfect for his MLM company, and would I like to discuss the opportunity. I declined.
The next day I called the recruiting firm and asked to speak to this woman’s supervisor. The person answering the phone said she no longer worked there.
At that point Id probably apologize (hey, I’m Canadian) and tell her that I’m not into role-playing interviews…
As far as silliest goes, mine was probably a former boss who was now at a new company, who called me one day to see if I wanted to come in and interview for a position they had open. I said I wasn’t really prepared and wasn’t properly dressed for an interview (I think I was wearing jeans or dockers and a polo shirt), and he said “Don’t worry, we’re pretty casual around here.” So I took a long lunch to go do the interview, and when I got there he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Casual indeed! (Also, I didn’t get the job.)
Trader Joe’s?
No, it was some mobile medical testing company. I don’t even remember the name.
I once went to a recruitment agency, and the interviewer kept wandering off to do other things, stretching the interview out to about four times longer than it needed to be. After I was heading home, he called me to say he had found the perfect job for me and to come in on Monday. This was a Friday.
I came in on Monday and told the receptionist I had an appointment with that guy, and she told me had left the company. They had no idea who I was and what job he was recommending me for, so it was a complete bust. I vowed never to trust recruitment agencies after that, as it was clear they all were there to snaffle the best job opportunities for themselves.
The weirdest interview was I applied to a local Best Buy for an entry level position.
They proceeded to call me back saying they were having their interviews at the conference room at a local hotel 15 miles away from where the location I applied too was. I went and they were doing group interviews for entry level positions, groups of 5 of us would all answer questions from a single recruiter then move onto a new recruiter. In my group I went through 4 different recruiters and was only asked a single question as everybody else in my groups got asked questions instead, “What’s your worst quality?'“ I replied “I’m Annoying”.
I never got the job but was completely baffled why they structured the interviews like this. This was in addition to in the online interview they made me take a 20 minute personality test where I had to answer over and over again variations of “Would you rather go out with friends or read a book alone?”
Somewhat similarly, I once interviewed at an aircraft manufacturer. It was for a technical writer, and I fit all qualifications. Our interview went well, and the interviewer was impressed with my portfolio of work. Naturally, she couldn’t make the final decision, but she was going to give me a strong recommendation to the hiring manager.
Then she asked, “How do you feel about joining a union?”
Well, I didn’t mind. I’d been in a union before.
Then she asked, “How do you feel about working a midnight to 8:00 AM shift?”
“What? I thought this was for a daytime desk job, like all tech writing jobs are.”
“It is, but we run three shifts a day here—day, swing, and graveyard—and as the new guy with no seniority, union rules say you have to start on the worst shift. Maybe you can work your way up to swing shift in about a year.”
Although not technically hired, I said, “No thank you” right then and there.
She had no problem with that. “You’re the fifth person we’ve really liked for the job, and the fifth person who has turned it down because of those union rules and that damn shift.”
That reminds me of another weird interview I had.
Back in college in the 80s, a Club Med type of beach resort hotel in Guam was looking for college kids to go over and work for a year. They catered to Japanese customers, so they prefered staff who spoke Japanese, and because there were a lot of Mormons who had gone to Japan on a mission, they came to universities in Utah to recruit people.
As there were too many applicants for the allocated time, they scheduled interviews with two or three applicants at the same time. The other guy really, really wanted the job. He dressed up in a Hawaiian shirt, dominated the time and wouldn’t let me answer anything. I was kind of ambivalent about the job so I kind of just sat back.
Just as the time was running out, the recruiters finally asked me specifically why I was interested so I told them I could speak Japanese and could do magic, and pulled out a magic trick and did it in Japanese. (They were also looking for entertainers as well as general staff.)
I ran into the guy later and found out they hadn’t offered him a job. I felt bad because they had already offered me a job, but I had decided I didn’t want to take another year off school.
Then there was the time a headhunter got himself in hot water because he lied to both his client and me.
He sent me on an interview. It was on a Wednesday or Thursday at a well-known building control company. I wasn’t impressed in the interview, and I could tell the interviewer wasn’t impressed with me either. No problem, shake hands politely and walk away.
Then, on Friday, at about 5:30 PM, I got a call from the headhunter. The company loved me! And they loved me so much, that they wanted me to start as soon as possible, on Monday! I still wasn’t sure, but okay, I’ll show up on Monday, and maybe get more information then.
On Monday, the interviewer was there, and I was grudgingly directed to a week-long orientation class. That was easy enough to get through, but I had questions all the way: why me, when the interviewer was indifferent? Why me, when I didn’t express enthusiasm for the position? No answers came from the orientation instructors, the best they could offer was, “Ask your boss.” Who was always unavailable.
Until he was. On the last day of the orientation class (Friday), the interviewer and I sat down again. He was puzzled why I was so enthusiastic for the job, when I didn’t seem to be terribly interested in it. I was puzzled as to why he’d want me to work for him, when he didn’t seem to be terribly enthusiastic about hiring me.
It took some conversation, but it all came out. The headhunter, trying to score the commission of a placement, deliberately called me after hours on Friday telling me that the company loved me and that I had the job and that I was to start Monday. They did the same to the company, telling them I was really enthusiastic, and to expect me on Monday. Neither one of us really wanted the other, but nobody had a chance to back out before I showed up on Monday.
I later heard, through the grapevine, that for that stunt, the headhunter had lost his job, and was pretty much blacklisted in the local headhunting industry.
In 2010 I returned to Toronto from Prague for the first of two attempts to reboot my life in Canada, and spent four miserable months looking for a job. Several of the openings I applied for were scams, such as fishing for people to participate in multi-level marketing.
One day, I found an ad saying that a company selling kitchen products had just opened a branch in Toronto, and was looking for candidates for a complete office staff for various positions. I sent my resume and asked for something like an HR position (I had had a brief marginal part-time experience in an HR-type position). I received a positive reply asking me to come in for an interview.
So I went to their location, which was in a small business park in North York. When I came there, there were quite a few other people. An employee showed us into a showroom that was equipped with chairs like a conference room or lecture hall. There might have been about 30 of us there.
Then these two dudes come in and instead of interviewing any of us, give a presentation. They explicilty state that they are only looking for people who are able to use their connections to sell some of their products. They demonstrate a few of these products. One of them is “Bohemian crystal”. I’ve just spent seven years in the country where Bohemian crystal is made. What they demonstrate is a far cry – it’s only ordinary wine glasses.
One of the guys demonstrates an exercise machine that supposedly allows you to lose weight while standing in one place. He stands on a black platform and lets himself be rocked back and forth.
Soon, people started silently leaving. It was obvious we were being bullshitted. I went to the Timmy’s across the street and had coffee with a middle-aged woman who had come with similar hopes as mine and we compared our impression.
BTW, a few people did apparently stay in order to sign up for their program.