Someone asked for people’s ‘bad interview stories’ and these people were only too happy to oblige – 23 recruitment shockers

‘Was interviewing for my first job in London many, many years ago at the old Times office. Was just a kid really, found myself to deepest east London, checked in with reception but she wasn’t really clear on next steps so I kinda felt like I was expected to make my own way to the interviewer.

‘Blagged my way into a lift up to the floor, then basically just asked random strangers if they knew who such and such were, eventually got pointed to who my interviewer was who was like wtf are you doing here, we collect you from reception. Then when I was walking to the room to do the interview I tripped over and face planted in front of the entire office. Great times.

‘Didn’t get the job.’
–arenaross

‘I once sent my CV to a recruitment agency. Rang me saying they had a position but the interview was in a hour since a candidate dropped out. Put the place into google maps and I was an hour away. Managed to get there.

‘First question was ‘What can you tell me about the company?’. I knew nothing. Had to admit it and tried to explain that I was only invited for interview an hour ago and just got in the car.

‘Interviewer said that wasn’t good enough of an answer so I ended the interview there. Driving an hour home, I rang the recruiter and told him what happened. After the call ended, the recruiter blocked my number. Now I refuse to go through agencies and always apply direct.’
–Sad_Breakfast_5596

‘A long time ago when I first writing my CV, someone told me to write “Proficient at HTML coding” on there. I was applying for general customer service/call centre jobs, and they convinced me that they would never ask me about it, but it would show I was decent on a computer.

‘It was on there for so long that I completely forgot about it, until one day I actually applied for a position at a software company, where it was brought up pretty early. I had so little knowledge of it that I couldn’t even pretend. I told this exact story to the interviewer. He found it funny and I ended up getting the job.

‘To this day, I couldn’t even tell you what HTML stands for.’
–ProfessionalZebra384

‘I was once asked the “if you were an animal, what animal would you be” question. Apparently the right answer is not to laugh and ask “really?”.’
–Tetslou

‘I once interviewed for a different role in the police. Stood up and my skirt was tucked into the top of my tights! Excellent day.’
–Patient-Lab-7668

‘Went for 4 (!) rounds of interviews for a Junior IT support role within an investment bank. At the end of the of the 4th interview the chap went “yeah your IT skills are great but you don’t seem to know much about finance”.

‘No shit… if I knew about investment banking financials I’d not be going for the £20k junior IT support role. Didn’t get the job.’
–Independent-Tax-3699

‘I interviewed a young, clearly very nervous bloke alongside a (female) colleague once; at one point he intended to say ‘I’d like to work somewhere that will let me spread my wings and show you what I can do’.

‘What he actually said was ‘I’d like to work somewhere that will let me spread my legs and show you what I can do’ – cue a very embarrassing silence that we quite enjoyed.

‘The interview ended shortly after and he tried to open the glass sliding door to the room by pulling it towards him, then pushing, then pulling again, making a hell of a racket so the whole of the outer office was looking at him.

‘As I showed him out he said ‘that didn’t go very well, did it?’, and I had to agree with him!’
–P5ammead

‘I had an interview, the interviewer asked me to sing a song, I said no thank you and left.’
–Alive-Requirement111

‘In the early 2000s a young lady turned up at the call centre to interview for a sales job dressed for a rave, knee high fluffy white boots, a white fur bikini, face paint and giant fluffy bag, it was 10:30am on a Wednesday in January. Alas she didn’t get the job.’
–Benreh

‘My friend who somehow made it to interview for a job which required fluent French, despite having at best GCSE level French.

‘Apparently they did the 2nd half of the interview in French. She didn’t get the job.’
–Harrry-Otter

‘I had an online one last year. The person leading it was really abrupt and they were running late so felt a bit rushed. The rest of the panel couldn’t get a word in.

‘Someone walked in to their room about 10 mins in to complain the speakers were too loud and it was interrupting their meeting. Then they spent 5 minutes working out how to turn it down.

‘Finally restarted but just felt flustered after that. Then the questions had nothing to do with the field I was applying for and were solely about people management, which threw me especially as she kept cutting me off.

‘They’d also asked me to prep a 15 minute presentation in the interview invite but the lead interviewer said “no, you’re mistaken. It’s 5 minutes”. So I tried to rush through but got stopped after 5 mins, got told that was enough and they were out of time. And was then told I hadn’t covered the full criteria in my time.

‘I checked the email after. It bloody was meant to be 15 minutes. Was not a fan.’
–starfishwantscoffee

‘”What’s your biggest weakness?”. Apparently laughing and jokingly saying “everything” wasn’t what they were looking for.’
–Several_Show937