Worst job interview you had?

I still remember one of my earliest job interviews. They gave me the usual “tell me about yourself” question. I went on a complete tangent for minutes and totally just blanked out lmao. They promptly walked me out of the building 😄 How about you, OT? Worst job interview you had?

All of them were equally worst. They keep giving me the positions, nevertheless, so I don't know why the disappointed faces after a few months in the role. I never said I'd be good.

My current one, when they asked why I had decided to apply, I was straight up and said "I'll be honest, it's not my dream job, after covid I just need something stable." Fine, hired. Lol.

One time, the interviewer wasn't interested in me, I had that vibe he didn't like me or give a shit. About 10 minutes into the interview, when I answered his question "No, I don't have experience in Javascript", the interviewer asked me a couple of questions after that and then escorted me out.

I attended this job interview for a lighting company via a recruitment agency.... turns out it wasn't an interview, it was an assessment centre with 20 other people! I knew I should have walked out, but I stayed and I was so unprepared.

This one where the interviewer asked me 'name a supervisor you had a close friendship with'.

I was like...umm...I never had a 'close friendship' with a supervisor before. And then he just snapped at me and said 'how old are you? and you never had a close friendship with a supervisor? You see here we are friends with eachother. We work as a team.'

It was so stupid.

Another guy was so racist. The first question he asked me was 'where are your parents from?' which was basically asking what my race was. Racist as hell and something you definitely arent allowed to ask on interviews.

@DarthaPerkinjan: Was his name Michael Scott?

Never had a disastrous interview. Just boring ones.

Edit: Although I had several interviews I ended abruptly due to the conditions offered.

so boss (business i was working at)interview me for management position.

what ever reason i had a did not feel right that day.

i said i will think about it.

was at a vocational school and was doing work on weekend.

same week i plan on picking up check and give answer.

police raid the place.

corporate culture is garbage. tell me about yourself is most idiotic question of the world.

I had my first job interview at my local movie theater. The woman who interviewed me asked me two puzzling questions: 1) What do you think of garden gnomes? And 2) How many hours are there in a day? The gnomes I said they're okay, I guess. Lol. And the second question I said 24hrs in a day, but she said there's only 23hrs. :/ Needless to say I didn't get the job. :o

I loathe most of the questions given at interviews. As a hiring manager myself, I tend to make questions that aren't generic. If I do ask why they want to work for me, I tell them not to give me the generic, "I love eating at (insert restaurant)," crap. Lol.

I've also found that when they ask you, "Tell me about yourself," people tend to have every other question they have answered by that one simple question. So then the interviewer doesn't know what else to ask because they inadvertently asked an all encompassing question. Dig deeper.

I once cut an interview short myself.

I went into an interview knowing I needed to submit a portfolio along with my resume and cover letter. I did not actually submit my portfolio during the initial submission and instead brought it with me in hand.

I got a call for the interview and when I met the owner of the business he was suggesting how I could only be there because I had an impressive portfolio and his recruiter must have liked it.

Knowing I did not submit it yet he assumed I did gave me the red flag that he must not be very organized or know what's going on in his own company.

I entertained him for a little bit until I ultimately told him I'm no longer interested in my candidacy and that he should find someone else. He seemed a bit dumbfounded over my own decision like I just insulted him, but I had no regrets because he was setting one red flag off after another and I foresaw if I worked for him that I would have probably hated it.

I do this thing called "soft submissions" when I am already working a good and stable job, but kinda poking around at other opportunities to see if I can find the next advancement. Soft submissions I tend to submit the bare minimum or a little less than what the description is asking for. That way it's a smaller chance I can get called back but in the end I'm still working a good job and I'm in no rush to jump ship. The fact I got called for this one and the guy thought I gave an A+ submission was an immediate turnoff to me because it painted a larger picture of his disorganization.

in college was flown down to austin for an interview with a company i had no interest in at all. just wanted a free trip down to austin for a few days and to practice in an interview environment. bombed it bad as i didn't really know anything about the company nor really cared.

but got to spend a fun weekend in austin on someone else's dime. so it was worth it : )

Fun thread. I like seeing all the responses here. My worst interview was pretty tame compared to most people but it still hurt back then. I had just graduated with my Bachelor's in Business mgmt in 2014 but I was unsure of what job specifically I should be applying for with that general degree.

I decided to try for an entry-level marketing assistant job and it was a panel interview with 2 employees and the CEO of the company. Most of what was said was pretty forgettable but finally the CEO just stopped me and said "You know I have a son at home just like you. He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life and I don't think you know what you want either. I think you should figure that out." Just kinda grilled me for a little bit like that. It floored me, like taking the rug out from underneath you, and of course it hurt on the drive home but it at least did prompt me to think "gee, I really didn't know what I wanted. Maybe I should figure that out now". So I went back to tech school twice and finally settled with finishing an accounting program and now I've been doing that for 3 years.

The CEO was not nice but it needed to be said, I guess. Could've been nicer about it and I was already thinking about going back to school anyway as I was having a very difficult time getting past the rejection emails and even making it to the actual interview process. But it is what it is.

Also a side note: Check out the movie Emily the Criminal on netflix. Most of that movie is a crime story of course but there are a few parts where Emily says stuff in her job interviews that I've wanted to say or thought about outside of the interview for years. Corporate bullshit questioning and judging at its finest.

Yeah, I hate that question. It's like has the recruiter or the interviewer not read my CV or cover letter?! That basically answers the question.

The recruiter or manager has to get through dozes, maybe hundreds of resumes. They all start to look the same and is difficult to try to mentally keep track about all of that.

Also, it's an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself from the aforementioned resumes. On top of that, it's a quick way to sus out communication methods and those who are serious about the job they're applying for.

Always been good experiences tbh, only recently did I have my first bad one. Not just the interview, the whole process was jank.

Was applying for a 3d artist role with an online retailer. I knew I was overqualified, but the job and hrs seemed laid back, good benefits, said screw it why not.

The guy doing the hiring just seemed lazy af lol. A week or more would pass between responses. Finally when I get the video call interview, get these two socially awkward dudes who seem like they've never conducted an interview. A lot of the questions had nothing to do with the work. "Why are manhole covers round?". "Do you play Call of Duty?". The few pertinent questions/comments they had showed a wild lack of knowledge in 3d asset creation and the tools involved. I had already seen the assets on their website, knew they weren't doing quality work, so guess that shouldn't have surprised me. Obviously didn't tell them that lol.

But then they decided to move forward with an art test. This isn't uncommon. At an entry level, they just want to make sure you're capable of doing good work on time. At a mid/senior level, sometimes they just want to make sure you can interpret their style well in 3d. Wasn't applicable here though. Just creating real world objects. My resume and portfolio are way more than a sufficient demonstration. Basically they didn't understand the point of an art test.

I do it anyways though, nail every detail, with less than half of the allotted polygon budget. Looks better than anything on their website, good enough to be a hero asset on the big screen.

Communication ends there. 😂

I do understand why they didn't want to hire me. That level of inconsistency would be damning for their team, marketing managers above them would wonder what the hell they're doing.

Just don't get why they wasted my time in the first place.

-Everything looks great! The last thing we need is for you to go to a drug screening. It's less than a mile away, straight down that road!

- Uh. OK.

No show The End

Lmao, they were worried you would take both their jobs.

I mean, in truth yes I could have replaced their whole team lol. I know that reads like a big ego, but in this case the skill/experience gap was pretty crazy. Their models/textures look like what you'd see from someone who's been learning 3d for a few months, an average 2nd quarter student. I honestly didn't know that people could find employment at that level.

But I really don't have those ambitions. Don't like being a lead or anything, just want to model and texture stuff. I would have been working remote anyways, dudes could've had me make everything, they take all the credit, I wouldn't care lol.

Probably for the best I didn't get comfy in a job like that tho. On that note, today I landed what should be a pretty fun contract! Creating sea creatures from the Ordovician period. More of a bid than an interview, but went smoothly all the same.

Nice, dude! Splendiferousnessess!

Oh wow, would be cool if we can see the finished product 🙂

During the recession in 2009 I was sending 10-20 resumes a day. I became disgruntled at the lack of replies so I started adding fake credentials assuming nobody reads the resumes.

For example, “UFO Abduction Insurance Salesman, Trained Pet Psychiatrist. For leisure activities I claimed to be a part time ninja.

Then I got invited to a job interview. Having applied to so many I had no idea what position it was. Arrive go in and start schmoozing and the manager is literally going over my resume asking questions about it.

I notice the fake parts are highlighted lol. The guy starts asking what those jobs entailed and who I worked for, and wanted to know if he could buy the insurance!

I told them it was made up as a joke and my reasoning. The manager looked disgusted & told me to leave.

I suspect his frustration wasn’t with my resume but that he couldn’t get UFO abduction insurance

@Skarwolf: Absolutely brilliant. Goes to show how moronic hiring managers can be. The fact that they can't take serious applicants seriously yet they call up for UFO abduction insurance thinking it was legitimate goes to show.

I literally just ended one maybe 10 -15 minutes ago because I found out it didn't pay anywhere near enough to bother with it. I really shouldn't apply places where they do not list the salary, but there's seems to be far more of them that don't list it than do, and sometimes I see the list of benefits and roll the dice.

@Serraph105: That's how it usually goes. If they can't be upfront about the pay on the job description, they're usually preying for desperate people or the high schoolers that don't know any better.

Employers are afraid to admit this but it's good for a job seeker to know: they are buying YOUR time and skill, not you buying their time. Many employers are too jaded to admit this fact.

A good job will respect your time and worth, and be upfront about their pay offer, and usually they'll give you a chance to negotiate. If they're hiding their offer until a much later step, that's one of the biggest red flags you can tell early on.

F interview (when about 16) my mother instructed me I couldn't go in my normal clothes, and had to borrow a funeral suit.

It was a factory cleaning job. Was in a room with 20 odd other people dressed normaly.

@uninspiredcup:

Very impressive, I'm sure you made your mom proud.

@uninspiredcup: Now that you mentioned it. At my high school prom, I wore a black suit (including a black shirt) and red tie. 16-year-old me didn't know the rules of wearing suits.

At first I thought nah lol. But screw it, not under NDA on this one.

Nowhere near final product, but nearing the end of the sculpt phase on the first creature. Lacking that last 10% of sculpting before moving on to the next phase.

Never done fish scales before and having them perfectly uniform was killing the look for me. Currently just experimenting with ways to break them up without being too obvious either.

Also, GS sucks with image file sizes, wtf?

@ConanTheStoner: you should call it MagiKarp!

yea, you can only upload up to 3mb images, it’s a nightmare.

@ConanTheStoner: Very cool, Stoner!

@DEVILinIRON: Thanks bro!

@SolidGame_basic: Ah, makes sense then. Had to reduce image size and lower quality a few times before they'd take. Is that a new limit? Seems I used to be able to upload whatever lol.

Not one in particular but back in the day, before man discovered fire, in high school I'd interview for minimum wages jobs and they treated it like I was going to get the launch keys to the nukes. It's sad but funny in hindsight when the interviewer takes their job that seriously.

Before I enlisted in the United States Air Force, I wanted to be a State Trooper. I passed the initial written test at the state capitol. The next step was a panel interview with 5 troopers. I was 21 years old and terrified. The panel interview consisted of 4 scenarios and I blanked out on every one of them. I was so embarrassed.

They recommended I join the military and gain life experience.

I joined the USAF and realized I have a brain.

I went to college after I left the service. Now I'm a Production Engineer for a semiconductor company.

I was trying to get a job at a place called Comp USA when I was 18 or 19. It was a bit of a chain that I think might have gone out of business. But anyway, I get the interview and I tell the guy that my friend's brother suggested I apply since he had worked there when he was younger.

The interview had been going well until I mentioned then, and now I am immediately interrogated.

What's his name? What store did he work at and for how many years? What was his position and immediate supervisor? Why would he suggest that I apply?

Well, my friend's brother was 12 years older than I was and not exactly a friend and I had none of that information. I was so flabbergasted by the rapid fire questions and just how angry this dude seemed that I knew someone who used to work for the company that I ended up stuttering my way through the rest of the interview.

And I'm serious that he was angry. Almost getting red in the face. In the end, he told me I could leave.

To this day, I still wonder what the hell happened.