Weirdest or worst job interview?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My worst job interview is when I did a group interview. The company brought all three candidates in and interviewed us together. In the same room, at the same time! Brutal!

My weirdest was covered in another post where the head of HR and the two Vice Presidents of the company googled my house and discussed it during the interview.

How about you? What was your weirdest or worst interview? Post and make me feel better, like I am not alone. TIA!

I had an interview in which all three of us were interviewed together and one of the interviewers was texting.

[Anonymous]

Worst job searching experience was early in career. Interviewed for a software development position for a small company based on ad. I had a resume that listed my supervisors. The owner of the company called my BOSS 2 days later and asked if I was any good. We worked in a big room and my boss got the call while we were all in the room coding. Luckily he was relatively young and was looking also but it was a f'cked thing to do. The company went under in a year so it was a good decision to stay away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a panel interview just last week in which I was asked, "if you were a food at a picnic, what would you be"

What answer could they possibly be looking for with this?

I haven't had any really bad interviews, but I have heard some stories of bad interviewees at our company. It's amazing how someone can go from being a great candidate on the cusp of getting hired, and then they go into the "relaxed" (lunch) part of the interview and start saying WILDLY inappropriate things. Mostly sexist comments. One guy apparently made a comment about how nice one of the female interviewers legs are.

[Anonymous]

DH's story here.

DH was interviewing for a network admin position at a small IT contractor. It is not uncommon for NA's to have to do a simulation troubleshooting exercise during interviews. No big deal for DH - he was very experienced and had done a number of these things during certifications and other interviews. So he gets to work on the sim and it sems odd - like it was not a sim at all. Turns out the "sim" was an actual issue that one of the contractor's clients was having. Under the guise of an interview, they were having him do actual work. DH asks the guy about it and the guy makes up some BS story about wanting to see him in action in a live environment. DH, having already realized that he would never work there, asks point blank "is this client paying you for MY work?" Akward silence. DH gets up and walks out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH's story here.

DH was interviewing for a network admin position at a small IT contractor. It is not uncommon for NA's to have to do a simulation troubleshooting exercise during interviews. No big deal for DH - he was very experienced and had done a number of these things during certifications and other interviews. So he gets to work on the sim and it sems odd - like it was not a sim at all. Turns out the "sim" was an actual issue that one of the contractor's clients was having. Under the guise of an interview, they were having him do actual work. DH asks the guy about it and the guy makes up some BS story about wanting to see him in action in a live environment. DH, having already realized that he would never work there, asks point blank "is this client paying you for MY work?" Akward silence. DH gets up and walks out.

Wow! That is so wrong. This is the second small contracting company horror story I've read on here in the past few weeks. My large contracting company employer drives me crazy sometimes but at least I know there are ethical practices in place. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

My DH had a panel interview in which a woman spoke up during the interview and said "I hope you don't think you're going to get my job." After she left the interview someone told him to just ignore her. He practically ran from that office.

[Anonymous]

Any interview for a federal job is going to be weird. No real social skills.

[Anonymous]

And anything where potential peers are involved gets weird. Sometimes they are defensive or threatened.

But at the best place I worked, a potential peer interviewed me and turned out to be the most amazing person to work with. We got along really well. So that chemistry is nice to see too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My worst isn't so bad, really, but it was a pain. federal job interview, and within minutes is became clear I was part of the panel of candidates they had to interview, but someone else (probably someone internal, though I can't remember how that was apparent) was going to get the job and this was just a charade. To their credit, they asked me all the questions and one of them nodded every once in a while, but it was just so clear this was mostly a waste of my time and their time.

I suppose every interview is good experience, but this one just felt like a waste of time.

Oh and I've had this experience too. HUGE waste of time. Interviewers were completely un-interested.

I used to be on the hiring committee at my old job. My boss would make snap decisions about candidates within five minutes. If he didn't like someone he completely disengaged as was visibly obvious by his body language. I always felt badly for those candidates (who were often really good) and tried to go the extra mile to demonstrate interest to make up for his rudeness, even though I knew he would never hire them.

I had a boss who told me that he would know about whether or not he would hire someone or not in 5 minutes of speaking with them (We had been talking about the fact that he sometimes had people come in for interviews that were literally 5 minutes before dismissing him). When I asked what he thought about "entertaining" them for another 20 or so, since it's a SMALL industry we were in, he was against the idea.

[Anonymous]

My worst interview was with the Inter-American Development Bank. My experience is well documented over by Glassdoor.

Enough said.

[Anonymous]

Once when I was interviewing a law student for a summer associate position, she asked if she could touch my hair. Um, no.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a panel interview just last week in which I was asked, "if you were a food at a picnic, what would you be"

Obviously you are supposed to be copped liver!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH had a panel interview in which a woman spoke up during the interview and said "I hope you don't think you're going to get my job." After she left the interview someone told him to just ignore her. He practically ran from that office.

Lol what a fucked up place.

[Anonymous]

DH's story here.

DH was interviewing for a network admin position at a small IT contractor. It is not uncommon for NA's to have to do a simulation troubleshooting exercise during interviews. No big deal for DH - he was very experienced and had done a number of these things during certifications and other interviews. So he gets to work on the sim and it sems odd - like it was not a sim at all. Turns out the "sim" was an actual issue that one of the contractor's clients was having. Under the guise of an interview, they were having him do actual work. DH asks the guy about it and the guy makes up some BS story about wanting to see him in action in a live environment. DH, having already realized that he would never work there, asks point blank "is this client paying you for MY work?" Akward silence. DH gets up and walks out.

Had something similar happen. Interviewed for a nonprofit for a role in digital marketing. Was asked to complete an exercise afterwards writing some email copy for them. Didn't get the job, but liked the organization and had even previously donated to them so I was on their email list. Saw an entire paragraph that I had written as my exercise show up in one of their emails a couple weeks after that. Decided that if they could steal my work, I didn't need to ever donate again.

[Anonymous]

My worst one was where I had to take one of those personality tests. I had already interviewed in person and they made me go home and schedule a time to have this personality test. Then, someone called me and asked me all these weird questions for over an hour.... like "tell me of a time when you left work feeling happy"..."tell me of a time when you left work feeling sad". WTF. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.