your worst job interview?

[snugtop]

I'm about to go on a job interview...so humor me...what was your worst interview--either as interviewer or interviewee?

 

My mom once interviewed someone who left a puddle of urine on the seat when he left...but someone's gotta be able to top that...

[iain]

Wow, that would be a tough call - ask to use the bathroom or just pee on the boss' furniture...

[Thadsboner]

i just had one 2 weeks ago in front of a board of 8, pretty scarry when they go around each asking questions and "hypothetical questions."

 

i didnt even expect to get it though, wasent really that intrested anymore bieng that i applied for it about 9 months ago.

 

must have done pretty good though, got offered the job a week later, but ended up turning it down because if i took it, pretty much the last 3 years of my work was for nothing at all.

 

[cj001f]

When I was asked 20 questions (and the interviewer had 20 written technical questions) on E & M and Quantum Mechanics. Highlights included "write down Schrodingers Wave Equation". (didn't get the job)

 

I once showed up at the airport to pick up a rental car to drive to the interview; Avis wouldn't rent to me because I was under 25 so they had to send a delivery van (didn't get the job)

 

For me conducting interview there's the person who answered his cellphone call, from a friend, in the middle of the interview.

[ken4ord]

Well just don't do what this one ding-dong did that I interviewed and you should be all fine. First off looking at the guys resume, I was shocked 1. that HR even schedule him to come in for and interview 2. how crappy his resume was. First off on the top in bold it said resume, good thing cause I would have been able to figure it out on my own. It had his name and address, that was ok. He had three jobs listed that he had had years, company, position, no other information. He had his high school and college listed and no other information. He had three references name and phone number and guess what no other information. His resume consisted of 11 lines and plenty of whit space. At that point I figured I was wasting my time, but what the hell, we'll see.

 

So I walk into the room and there he is sloached in the chair with jeans and t-shirt on (this is for a professional job mind you). He wave but doesn't make an effort to stand up and introduce himself or even shake hands. So since there was so little information on the resume the first thing we asked was for him to tell us a little bit about himself. "Well not much to say, I am microbiologist.....hmmm I play in a band.......hmmm that's it." I couldn't believe it. It just kept getting worse. On his resume it said he was still at his most recent job, but when he was talking about it he was talking in the past tense. So I asked him is he till working or what? He said that his last day was Friday before, but when talking to other people who interviewed him earlier he said that he was done the next week. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

[snugtop]

I confess..I once staged a fake interview as a practical joke against a colleague...we had the guy light a candle with a torch, play with action figures, eat kim chee, and yes--take a few calls on his cell phone. He told the interviewer he had to "make it snappy" because he was parked in an illegal spot. We got the whole thing on video tape too. The poor guy doing the interview was sooo relieved that the guy was a fake--he'd been told it was the CEO's college buddy.

[ken4ord]

Damn that is an awesome joke.

[catbirdseat]

My worst was with a little diagnostics company in Santa Monica. At the time, I was living in Laguna Beach. It took me over an hour and half to drive in in the Santa Monica Freeway into the worst smog I'd ever seen. I get there to find the most overcrowded building I had ever seen. You practically had to turn sideways to walk down the hall for all the filing cabinets they had jammed in there. The first thing they asked me was if I had ever done radioiodinations of proteins before. No I had not. I wanted to tell them, "don't you think I would have put it on my resume if I had"? So even though I had experience working with C14 and H3, they didn't want to train me. Recently, I learned how to do the iodination procedure at the UW and it took like one hour to learn. Jeebus H. Christ! Anyway, it was just as well. The job would have sucked.

 

Second worst job interview. I'll go ahead and name the company- Immunex. I had a severe case of the flu and was home in bed when I got a call from someone in the HR department. Can I come in tomorrow? I told them, "I have the flu, can we make it in three days"? "No, we need to talk to you now!" So I really needed a job and came in. I almost fainted walking down the sidewalk. I get into the building and they don't even offer me so much as a glass of water. I feel like shit. I talk to the one and only chemist who works in a company with hundreds of people. Immediately bells are going off. This is not good. He wants to know if I know how to run a Protein synthesizer. Huh, again, they could have asked me this on the phone or it would have been in my resume. What a F'ing waste of my time. Anyway, there is a very good reason why it took that stupid company 15 years to get its first drug on the market- not enough chemists. Again it was just as well, the job would have sucked.

[selkirk]

Well, wasn't actually a job interview, it was for graduate school in an engineering program at Penn State. I was supposed to fly out Friday afternoon, interview Saturday and Sunday, and fly back monday morning early. (I was at Univ. of Idaho at the time). So I drove up to Spokane, and hopped my first plane to San Francisco. I get there and find out that the plane has mechanical problems and is going to be an hour late, which means that there is no way to avoid missing my tight connection in DC to catch a puddle jumper to State College. So i'm pretty much screwed at this point, the next flight out of DC is the next morning, so I get to kill 12 hrs in the SF airport, fly all night to DC, catch the puddle jumper and finally get to Penn State, only 12 or 15 hours late or something. Anyway, one of the Prof's picks me up at the airport, and starts the interview! I've barely slept in 24 hrs, haven't had time to shower, or change either as everything was in my luggage. He drops me off at the dept. and i'm talking to profs and interviewing all day. The interviews were actually ok, it was just everything surrounding it. For the 2 nights I was there I spent the first night on a grad students couch and the second at the most expensive hotel in town, because low and behold the national collegiate wrestling and swimming championships were both in town that weekend so everythingw as booked. Was a great program, but I couldn't bring myself to move to a state where the highest elevation point is 3,000 some ft. That's the elevations backpacking trips start at!

[lummox]

i interviewed at one place all fukin day. at night the guy who would be my boss took me out for beer. after considering what i was sposed to do and all i asked him what the fuck he would do once i started working. he musta thought about that one. he rigged the interview summaries to make me look bad. like lied aobut shit and everything. what a prick. and am i ever glad i dont work at that place.

[Kevin_Matlock]

One time I was waiting for an interviewee for a production job we had. He never showed up out in the plant and so I called HR. The HR chick said she did the preliminary interview and didn't want to bring him out to me and waste any of my time.

Seems he previously work at some Lynden Farms chicken processing place. When asked why he left that place he said he was fired for getting pissed off at his supervisor and throwing his carving knife at him.

 

I still owe that HR lady a beer!

[minx]

i started coughing so hard in one interview that i nearly peed my pants. that portion of the interview was with a the chief scientific officer. fortunately, he kind and understanding and took me for a cup of water. oddly, i got the job.

[Thinker]

My worst was in Wichita, Kansas about 6 years ago at an engineering firm that installed water and gas lines to (and in) small communities in Kansas.

 

The receptionist was a chain smoker; the whole office REEKED of stale cig smoke, and so did I after about 10 minutes...kinda reminded me of the Zoo Tavern in Eastlake.

 

Of course I was offered the job. I literally prayed that something else would come through before I felt forced to move to that dry dusty hellhole. Thank goodness a job in Idaho Falls came thru shortly thereafter.

[slothrop]

I interviewed with a software company in 2000, right at the tail end of the Internet Golden Years. This company was a real boilerroom-type operation: 100-hour weeks, sleep in your office, party hard. Not my kind of scene, but hey, they flew me out on their dime.

 

They took us out for a fancy dinner the night before the interviews. I had a $14 glass of wine and ogled the escorts decorating the bar. This was followed by bar-hopping in downtown Austin and a quick nap (6 hours?) before five straight hours of interviews. I did OK in the first four, but I was slightly hung over and didn't fit in with the culture. The last interview was a humiliating sufferfest. I think I was borderline, so they threw me to the most condescending interviewer to see if I would pass the test. Nope. They still flew me back home the next day, though.

 

Worst interview, most fun.

[catbirdseat]

This one was a non-interview. I had had a phone interview with a Kirkland-based biotech. They liked me so they bought me a plane ticket to fly me up from California where I then lived. The day before the trip, I got a phone call from their HR manager saying that a number of people were out of town at conferences and they wanted to postpone the interview. She said she would call me back to reschedule. A week later no phone call- so I called her. Now she gives me the true story: they had offerred the job to an insider. This person at first turn down the offer but then changed her mind. I told the HR manager that where I come from people don't lie and make up stories and they follow up when they say they will.

 

I ended up in Seattle at a different company and heard numerous stories from past employees about this dishonest person who by now had risen to Vice President of the company. Yet again, it was a good thing I never went to that company. Lately, their stock has been trading between $0.95 and $1.63.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

You guys work for evil, fascist corporations. The horror!

[Peter_Puget]

Once I was interviewing with a small CPA firm and after a friendly chat I was being shown around the office and asked if I found pornography offensive. I said “no not really” and was told good because “one of our largest clients” was a producer of pornography. This was before the age of video and the internet. We walked a few doors down and he opened a door showing me a room full of porno mags! A couple days later there was a message on my answering machine. I never responded.

[Loose_Brie]

My worst interveiw (or maybe best) lasted all of 5 minutes. I was scheduled to interview with 4 people, about an hour each. The first was supposed to be the HR manager, but she couldn't make it. So my first interview was with an engineer. The guy looked at me and explaied what his company did. After a few minutes looking at my resume he said "I don't think you want to work here?". I said judging by his explanation of what they did, no wouldn't be taking a job. So he said "OK, lets not waste each others time. Goodbye."

[cj001f]

You guys work for evil, fascist corporations. The horror!

The former CEO of my company is facing 17 federal counts.

 

The CEO of the prior corporation I worked for has hemorhaged $19 billion (that's billion with a b!) in shareholder equity in the past 4 years. Sure he's lost too - now he's only a centimillionaire

[KaskadskyjKozak]

You guys work for evil, fascist corporations. The horror!

The former CEO of my company is facing 17 federal counts.

 

The CEO of the prior corporation I worked for has hemorhaged $19 billion (that's billion with a b!) in shareholder equity in the past 4 years. Sure he's lost too - now he's only a centimillionaire

 

Case 1 kind of runs counter to the govt=company theory, assuming the guy is guilty, and gets convicted and punished as is due. I'd like to see a little more of that...