Ever had a bad job interview? Maybe you had a spot on your suit or bumbled an easy question? It happens to everyone. These 25 applicants had some pretty horrific job interviews, but not due to anything they did. Let this story serve as a warning: Be careful where you interview.
Thanks, But No Thanks!
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“As a very naïve 18-year-old, I responded to an ad that said they were looking for masseuses and were willing to train. I gave them a call, and the woman I spoke with was very nice and said lots of positive things about the job. She must have caught on to how clueless I was though, because at one point she just kind of bluntly asked, ‘You do know this job involves sex, right?’ Flustered, I thanked her and hung up”
Well, Yeah
“Mid-way through the interview, the President (small company) comes into the room and introduces himself then says my interviewers, Bob and Rich, should bring me up to another building to see a good presentation. They agree and lead me out to the parking lot. It was raining so they decide to drive up to the other building.
I open the back driver’s door to Rich’s CR-V, get one foot and maybe half of my body in the car when Rich starts driving away. I get thrown out of the car, fall to the ground, and look up to see Rich roll down the window apologizing profusely- I get up and tell them good luck with the other candidates and go straight to my car”
Leave It Blank
“The interviewer didn’t know what position I was applying for. We had just talked 15 minutes. Then he quoted me an hourly rate way less than what was advertised, then tried to get me to sign a piece of paper where the hourly wage was blank so he could ‘fill it in later'”
What A Jerk!
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“When I was 15 or 16, I had an interview at San Francisco Sourdough Eatery in my hometown. I showed up, excited at the prospect of making an extra 50 cents an hour and was told the owner would be right with me by one of the most frightened-looking, sweet teenage girl I’d ever seen.
After waiting for nearly 15 minutes, she asked me if I’d like something to drink while I waited. As she was bringing me just a small glass of water, the owner comes up from the back. First, he apologized for the wait, but then fixated on the young worker and asked if she charged me for the water cup.
Then, proceeding to take it from her and pouring it down the drain, tells her that he’d fire her if it happened again. He came back to sit down and start my interview finally, and I just asked if it made him feel bigger for bringing an 80-pound girl to tears over a piece of paper. I threw a quarter on the table to cover the ‘cost of the cup,’ and never went back”
What A Creep!
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“My wife walked out on a job interview once.
She was applying to be a cake decorator at an Albertsons grocery store. She brought a portfolio of cakes she has decorated and as the guy interviewing her was looking at the cakes
When he came to some pictures in the back that were covered he asked what they were. She told him that they were adult themed cakes and they contained nudity to which he replied, ‘Cool may I look!’
My wife said yes and when he found a cake of a female body vagina and all he looked at her and says did you model this after yourself because it looks great I would love to see it in person. That’s when she walked out”
So Much Freedom
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“I interviewed and was hired at Kaplan (a major US test prep company). I have a high school teaching license and years of experience teaching everyone from sixth graders to college seniors. I was told that there was plenty of opportunity for personal teaching style. On the first day of training, the trainer gave us instruction on exactly which color of highlighter markers were approved for teachers to use in our own notes: Purple, orange, and green.
I walked out- YELLOW HIGHLIGHTERS 4 LYFE!”
Isn’t This Kidnapping?
“My wife did, sort of.
She got roped in by one of those ‘marketing’ companies that basically makes you go sell coupon books door to door. In her defense, she was young and didn’t know much about how to read between the lines on those types of job listings. She goes to the ‘interview’ and there are seven other people in the room with her. The speaker throws around some buzzwords and exorbitant promises of salary expectations and then tells all the applicants that they’re going to go out in the field with ‘seasoned staff’ to evaluate them.
Turns out this means the ‘seasoned staff’ will drive the newbies out on door to door sales calls with them. Into parts of town they have never been to before and with no idea where they were.
My wife calls me in tears around noon because she’s exhausted and wants me to come get her. She’s at a gas station calling from their office phone. I go pick her up, she’s sunburnt as hell and has two ugly sores on her heels where her shoes had been rubbing. She went to this interview in her business suit, so she had sweat through it during her Bataan Death March interview.
She got a call from the ‘interviewer’ later that day telling her that since she hadn’t finished the interview, they weren’t going to extend a job offer to her. She broke our home phone during this call”
A Vaccuum Salesman By Any Other Name
“I was desperately hunting for a job during college and found myself answering ads in the paper. I responded to a few vague ‘no experience necessary’ ads, and was surprised to find that all three of them were for Kirby vacuums. Annoyingly, none of them admitted it over the phone and I wouldn’t find out until arriving for the interview and wasting my time and gas.
I decided that it was likely all the vague ads were commission-only scams and responded to an ad looking for a secretary. They promptly scheduled an interview, and I arrived to find they were Kirby vacuums. They justified themselves by saying that I would be filing some paperwork during the course of sales, so it somehow was a secretary position. I walked out.
I responded to an ad that clearly stated they were looking for people to help load and unload electronics at a place called Aloha Sound Systems. When I got there, they too were Kirby. They met me with a lame excuse about occupying a building that had once housed Aloha Sound Systems, so they were somehow justified in using their name, and that vacuums were electronics, so they never lied. I walked out.
I was mostly through college, and had some limited knowledge of computer animation, and took a chance and responded to an ad looking for an assistant to help with some animating. I drove out for the interview and was shooting the breeze with the secretary, and we came to the series of job interview bait-and-switches Kirby had pulled on me and how happy I was to see an ad for a job that couldn’t possibly be Kirby. I looked over and the secretary was staring at me red-faced and tight-lipped, and I just said, ‘No f—ing way,’ as she launched into a hasty justification about being allowed to make multi-media presentations to help me sell vacuums…
It was like a scene out of a sitcom”
Professional Catfish
“I should have walked out- I was living overseas for a while in Israel and applied for a job off craigslist that was seeking native English speakers. The position was described online very vaguely as some kind of customer service or tech support job.
The interview went on for 20 minutes before the interviewer began describing my job as being some kind of text message catfish for lonely men in Scotland, Wales, and England; pretending to be a chick and carrying on a text message relationship with some creeps in the UK. Later I found out this is an adult entertainment company that runs some porn and dating sites and adult chat rooms.
The interviewer told me this was a position that allowed for creativity as I would have to create different ‘characters’ and tailor them to guys into different s— (like a divorced housewife, smart college girl, s—-y stripper, etc) and reminded my sternly that I would be required to ‘keep in character so I don’t ruin the fantasy.’ The whole time I’m thinking ‘WTF’ and think I should just decline this and get out of here, but am too scared to just get up and leave. So they end it and tell me to call them the next day to schedule a second interview (which was basically an orientation) but never did and never answered their calls after that”
No Sane Person…
“I interviewed for a position at a company and the interview with the HR rep went great: the job seemed similar to what I was already doing but for much more money, she told me she wanted to bring me back for a second interview, said she thought I’d be a good fit, etc. Then she brought in the person whose job I would be taking for a chat (she was promoted). She spent the entire 10-15 minutes we were alone together looking down at her hands while she spoke to me, spoke very quietly, constantly looked over at the glass walls of the conference room, seemed to be afraid someone would catch her talking to me.
She basically told me that no sane person would want this position and that the people she worked under were awful, horrible bosses: unorganized, never in the office, relied on her for everything, expected her to work overtime with no notice, etc. I thanked her for her time, called my recruiter and asked them to take my name out of consideration for the position”
Nice Come Back
“When I finished college, I applied for an Accounts Payable Manager position at a petroleum company. The ad stated ‘Bachelor’s Degree REQUIRED.’ I had a Bachelor’s in Finance. Since I needed to get my foot in the door, I was going to settle for $40,000/year salary when the bottom 10% in my state earned $46,000/yr.
When the interviewer asked my salary requirements, I told him $40K. He literally laughed in my face and said, ‘$40,000? We were looking to pay $8/hr…tops.’
I said, ‘$8/hr with a Bachelor’s Degree?’ He said, ‘Hey, gotta start somewhere.’ I ended the interview with, ‘Did you start out at $8/hr?’
The interviewer said, ‘We’ll be in touch,’ and didn’t shake my hand out the door. A friend of mine ended up getting the job and got paid $8/hr. She only lasted 6 months because they overloaded her with work and the company was really s—-y”
It Had Benefits!
“I interviewed as an 18 year old high school graduate for a receptionist position in a law firm. I thought it was strange that they’d even interview me, and even stranger that it paid $16 an hour (1992, pretty unheard of for someone with my complete lack of skills or qualifications). I also thought it was strange when I showed up and there were half a dozen other young, pretty girls in the lobby waiting to be seen. The woman who took me to the back mentioned they were looking to fill ‘several’ positions. How many receptionists does one law firm, with one partner and a handful of associates, need?
The interview lasted several hours and consisted of questions surrounding my availability on evenings and weekends, how comfortable I was among strangers, how social I considered myself, if I’d ever served (waited tables) before, how comfortable I was with ‘other girls,’ etc.
Eventually it was relayed to me that I wouldn’t be the firm receptionist so much as the managing partner’s hostess for private events at his home, and my hours would be, basically, from 6p to whenever and I would need to be willing and able to devote my weekends to him as well, as I would be hostessing his parties, ‘interacting’ with his ‘colleagues in the industry’, providing ‘entertainment,’ etc.
Around the time he told me that I’d sometimes need to be able to stay overnight, I thanked him for his time and basically f—ing ran to the elevator.
Basically, he was hiring sex workers.
YEARS later I ran into him socially in a very famous bar we both frequented, and it turned out that was EXACTLY what he was doing. He was surrounded at all times by four or five glassy-eyed young women. I pulled one aside and asked her how she knew him, ‘He was hiring receptionists, and I got the job.’ She went on to explain that she basically allowed herself to be turned out to his friends at parties, ‘But the money is good, and all the coke I want!’- yeah”
She Wanted Someone With A Future Mindset
“The interviewer was 25 min late.
She was rude and b—-y.
Asked questions that were extremely irrelevant. ( more so than normal job questions)
The interviewer had no knowledge of the job or technologies involved, misspoke and used incorrect words to describe things.
She stated their leadership style was essentially do what I say or leave.
They also had a strict dress code of suits/tie even though the department was not customer facing at all. I asked why – she said that wearing casual clothes is a bad practice because employees wouldn’t be serious and get work done. When I asked her what she thought would happen she basically ( in so many words) said we would all just forget we’re at work and goof off all day because we would be relaxed. She was dressed like s— wearing a moomoo.
Stated they wanted someone who had 5+ years experience with windows 8/8.1 and MS office 2013/ One drive. When I explained that these technologies had only been out recently ( at the time) she became furious and stated plenty of people applied with more experience than she was asking……so….
Basically, this lady was incompetent, not sure how she got her job but she basically told me there was no work life balance no team work or camaraderie and she knew jack s— about software dev”
Office Culture
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“There was a promotions company that needed a graphic designer to add to their team of 4. We were walking and interviewing, so they could show me the office, and they got to where I would be working. It was a closet.
There were four people in there, desks pushed along every wall. The back of their chairs touched they were so crammed close together. Their Mac screens were edge to edge all the way around. There were no lights. I repeat: literally no lights. They looked up at us as we opened the door with like, giant macscreen-glowing eyeballs. It was the creepiest and most bizarre workspace I’d ever seen. When we started walking back to the interviewers’ office, I basically said I had to go- They offered me the job the next day and I said no”
Go To Lunch!
“Well the first ‘interview’ was spent with me being told how wrong all of my answers were, even the ones that would obviously need some kind of training to know. Then they told me to come back with my college transcripts in a few days since they were ‘very busy.’
I left the second ‘interview’ after the person who had told me to show up on that date and that time met me in the lobby, asked me to sit down and look over the guidebook and they would be right back. About 15 minutes later another staff member came by to ask if I was waiting for Person #1. I said yes and they informed me that Person #1 had gone to their hour long lunch and then would be going to the hospital to visit a client. They told me I could go get lunch and come back, instead, I informed her that I would not be returning and to please let Person #1 know how unprofessional this waste of time had been”
Billing Address
“The Sears manager tried to get me to sign up for their credit card during the interview- Not doing that”
Juggling And Other Stuff
“When I was 20 this woman tried to hire me for ‘juggling lessons’ for her 17-year-old autistic son. I perform at a music therapy event every year and do a group lesson for all the kids, most of which suffer from some disability.
So I drive 45 minutes to her house and she starts talking about how, ‘This is a full-time job, we need to to be on call all the time, you are going to have to stop taking college classes, your duties include helping him wipe and giving him a bath every night, the pay is $8/hr.’ Yeah no thanks, lady”
Broken Dreams
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“Shortly after arriving for an interview, I was escorted to the interviewer’s office. Introductions were made and we shook hands across his desk. After the handshake, I managed to knock a photo cube of his family pictures onto the floor, smashing it into a dozen pieces. He was visibly annoyed. ‘I’m probably not going to get this job, am I?,’ I asked. ‘Probably not,’ he replied. I left after that- it was the shortest job interview I ever had”
No Means No
“I was doing a phone interview with a company in Florida Keys. My interviewer told me the salary (not nearly enough to pay for the cost of living), said I would always have to work weekends, and I would never, ever get a raise. Ever.
Then he tells me that if I am considered one of the top three candidates, I would be expected to fly out to Florida on my own dime for an in-person interview. Then he asked me if I were picked for the top 3, when would be the soonest I could fly out to Florida. I started explaining to him that I need to give two weeks notice to get a day off, so two weeks from now?
Then he said, ‘Well, what about Wednesday?’ It was Friday, so I was like, ‘Five days from now?’ When he said yes, I started laughing and said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Dude got mad and snapped at me, ‘Yes, I’m serious! We are trying to get this position filled as fast as possible, we don’t have time to wait two weeks! If you don’t think you can fly down here sooner rather than later than maybe you’re not the right candidate for this position!’
To which I replied, ‘Yeah, you’re right, I don’t think I’m the right candidate for this position.’ My interviewer immediately softened and started saying stuff like, ‘Well, wait a minute, let’s talk about this, we seem to have gotten off track, tell me more about your experience?’ And when I kept saying, ‘Look, I am clearly not a good choice for your company –‘ he kept cutting me off and insisting that we continue the interview.
A few days later, I got a call from the company again, informing me that I was one of the top 3 candidates! Congratulations, way to go! So when should they expect me for my interview?
Cue another 5-ish minutes of insisting that I didn’t want the job, before finally cutting them off and hanging up”
Seems Legit
“I had an interview with a marketing company. I walked into their office, and on the wall it said ‘Marketing Company’ (that was not their name). Everything looked like it had been set up the night before. At the end of the interview, the interviewer gave me a business card. Not his business card, but the business card of some other company that used to have his current phone number. He crossed out their name and put his own”
Ministry Of Garbagemen
“Well almost ten years ago, I was really suffering for a job. A municipality a couple towns over from mine was looking for somebody to man the dump, they were advertising it as ‘Transfer Station Attendant’, and I was desperate. I decided I would apply to be the King Of The Garbage Men. I was brought in for an interview and came to the address given.
The room was straight out of Harry Potter. I sat in a chair surrounded by all of the council members up on a raised dais. I was given papers to read and potentially fill out but only had my lap to write on and I had to supply my own pencil. I was already a little sketched out by this, but then they started talking about the job.
I was responsible for the dump seven (7) days a week.
I would not receive any days off.
If I wanted days off I would have to hire my own replacement.
I would be responsible for my replacement’s taxes and wages.
If I wanted to take anything home I had to submit a written request to the council to be read at the next monthly meeting.
I would be on call 24 hours per day.
The pay was $20,000 per year.
I took it all in. I nodded my head. I asked a couple of clarifying questions. And then I suggested they look at hiring an illegal immigrant and left”
Congrats! Wait, What?
“A year ago I responded to an ad looking for a general manager of a popular local café. I had lots of experience so I decided to apply, even though I had just started another job at the time. I planned to give notice immediately upon hearing word back from this café.
I came in for the first interview and waited one hour for the owner to free up. He handed me a stack of paperwork which had me reiterate my résumé and finally sat down with me for 5 minutes. In this time he noted that we graduated from the same program at the same university. We got along alright and I liked my chances.
I didn’t hear back for a week.
He finally called me for a second interview. This time I waited half an hour and he gave me some paperwork. This time it was how I would react in different situations as a manager. Afterwards, he brought me behind the bar and I made coffees for the café for an hour (without pay, which is very illegal in Canada.) They were impressed with my ability and I finally excused myself and left.
I didn’t hear back from him for two weeks.
Finally, one day he calls me and asks me to come into the café. I show up and there is one other guy there. This a–hole of an owner informs us that the position is going to one of us. He then spends half an hour interviewing us both. We leave the room as he thinks about it and finally invites us back in.
As we sit down he announces, ‘(Other Guy)! Congratulations! You are the new General Manager! And Filecake, congratulations on being our new barista!’
I literally laughed at him. I then told him I was leaving and he cursed me out, claiming that I had been wasting his time”
Wow
“When I was in college, I applied for an internship at a marketing company. After about 20 minutes of a group interview/sales pitch, I caught on that they were not marketing but sales. Not just any sales, but CutCo knife sales. I knew they were not a great place to work and I was looking for an actual internship. So after the presentation was over I informed them I was leaving and started towards the door.
The guy giving the sales pitch could not handle this, apparently, and blocked my exit asking me why I wanted to leave. I told him frankly but politely that I wasn’t interested and was looking for an internship, not a commission based sales job. He let me pass and I started out towards my car. At this point sales pitch guy and a second guy from the company jogged out to my car in the parking lot and started grilling me again about why I was leaving. I gave my reasons again, which prompted sales pitch guy to pull out my resume and asking me what I thought I was going to able to do with my life, ‘Psychology degree? You think you can get another job with that? You’re on student council, that’s worthless.’
At this point, I’m in my driver seat and they are blocking my door so I can’t close it. I start saying how this is making me very uncomfortable. Finally, they relent and let me leave. Over the next 48 hours, I get 2 or 3 calls from the company that I ignore, but the voice mails essentially say they saw a lot of potential in me and wish I stayed. I am soooooo glad 20 year old me saw through their bulls— and high-pressure tactics. After that ‘interview’ I would write ‘Sell CutCo knives!’ in big letters on their fake internship program flyers that were all over campus”
McDonalds Is Better
“I interviewed at Cisco as a manufacturing troubleshooter, had to interview with the 3 different people company policy, I know this because the third person told me, had no desire to ask me questions and we shot the s–t for 1/2 an hour. The other two were asking me questions that didn’t seem like they were for the position I’d been told. But I shrugged because I knew the HR person that got me in there.
Two weeks go by and they offer me a position as a line assembler for 1/3 of what I was currently making. I was a technical sales person at the time and they called when I was in a hotel working a convention. I explained that there must be some confusion and that I thought the interview was a little weird for the position I was applying for. They confirmed that was the original position but they’d gotten someone else for that. So I apologized and I wasn’t interested in a line position. She then started to argue with me. I explained I have no desire to take a position at 1/3 of what I currently make, and that even if I was unemployed I couldn’t pay my monthly bills on what was a little more than McDonald’s Pay. She continued to argue, saying there was stock options, I said I had to go and hung up.
So the HR person calls and is like, ‘What are you doing.’ and I told her what the hell are you doing. I don’t need a line workers job. She continued and brought up the stock option thing. I told her if she called my landlord and convinced them to take Stock Options for rent I might consider it. There started to be some tension.
In the end, she sent me the resume of the guy they gave the position I thought I was interviewing for. His name redacted of course. He had been a line worker at HP, before that Mcdonalds and Walmart. She said that my resume didn’t include ‘building computers’. I told her A. It didn’t include using a screwdriver either, I considered both a normal skill for someone in my position, 2. She knew me and knew my technical abilities. and lastly, I had been specing the parts and building custom industrial computers almost a decade previously.
She was the mother of a friend I saw fairly regularly. Things were tight for awhile when I saw her, she tried to be more social, but she never offered another job opportunity, and I’m very pleased with that.
The twist. about 2 or 3 months after she was basically yelling ‘Stock Options’ to me, Cisco stock tanked. Next time I saw her I said, ‘Those stock options don’t look so good now.’ She was heavily vested in stock options and I don’t think she appreciated the comment”
This Is Not Okay!
“I went for an interview at an art gallery when I was 21. The interviewer happened to be a very old friends dad and I mentioned that I knew his son. This automatically said to him #1 I’m Jewish and #2 I grew up in a middle class suburban background (not unlike him and his son, but the difference was…. I’m a girl) . From this, he decided to tell me that he knew I would never work hard because Jewish princesses don’t work hard and only get things ‘from their parents’ and that I would get married, have kids and leave his company within a year.
I calmly told him that I have worked for everything I had and had had a job since age 13 working in a bakery for minimum wage and doing paper rounds. Unfortunately, I wasn’t like his lazy arse son and he’d pigeon holed me incorrectly. I told him to stuff his job and walked out.
Since then I’ve run my own business for 5 years and am about to open my first cafe.
I still think about it and it makes my blood boil.
Incidentally, his son still lives at home and is unemployed”