“He Would Have Made Most Pathological Liars Blush”
“Several years back, I had the misfortune of interviewing a fellow for a role in a film shoot. Although the production technically had someone in charge of screening résumés, they were far better versed in the recruiting process than they were in what qualifications were necessary for the job. As a result, less than half an hour before I was supposed to meet with an applicant, I was handed a document that would have made most pathological liars blush.
According to the résumé, my interviewee had been an ‘uncredited consultant’ on over a hundred feature films. While there certainly are cases in which a given worker goes uncredited–it has even happened to me–the sheer magnitude of the fellow’s claims went well beyond the realm of believability. Furthermore, the guy had listed quite a few alleged skills that seemed to suggest a less-than-complete knowledge of the industry.
My favorite claim was that he had ‘expert-level apple box skills.’ For the record, an apple box is literally a wooden box. That’s it. There are a few different sizes, and they’re used whenever something needs to be stacked on top of a box.
I went ahead with the interview anyway, mostly because I was curious about how the guy would back up his various claims. He turned out to be maybe 20 years old, which was far too young to have worked on many of the films that he had listed. When pressed, he explained that he had ‘consulted’ on each of them by writing letters to the people involved in the productions, in which he outlined several suggestions on various things. Suffice to say, he didn’t get the job…though I’m certain that he listed himself as an ‘uncredited consultant’ on it, simply because he attended the interview.”
He Gave The Most Bizarre Presentation
“My colleague and I were interviewing for a construction role and the skills requirement was pretty specific. We had one guy who passed the phone screening and we asked him in for an interview. When he arrived, we all shook hands and sat down. He took off the satchel he was carrying and set it on the floor, and then leaned towards the bag on the floor and spent a full minute, head down, futzing inside the bag. He gave no explanation as to what he was doing or any eye contact or anything. It was just silence and a minute is a long time. My colleague and I glanced at each other and shrugged.
He then pulled an iPad out of the bag. Apparently, he’d been faffing about fitting a case to it. Again, with no explanation, he silently spent another minute setting up the iPad on its stand, which fell over several times until he got it perfectly balanced on the corner of my desk. He then set up the photo app and set a slideshow in motion. After all that, he launched uninvited into an explanation of the pictures in the slideshow, how they all showed construction work in Spain and why he had relocated from Spain to the UK. It was immediately clear that all the work was utterly irrelevant to the position.
We got going with the first few questions in the hope the situation might improve, but he interrupted just about every single question to explain each new picture as it appeared on the slideshow, all of it irrelevant. I was about to wrap up and kick him out when he found his stride and started giving slightly more in-depth answers without interruption as the slideshow carried on. We did our best to ignore it, but the bizarre hilarity of the situation almost got the better of my colleague and me multiple times. We quickly figured out that we couldn’t look at each other for fear of bursting out laughing.
After a few more minutes, the construction-phase of the slideshow ended without the guy noticing. There were some random picture of a car, then a picture of a night out with friends, then his kids, then a really closeup picture of his wife, then a slightly more zoomed-out picture of his wife getting ready for a night out. Pretty sure we weren’t meant to see that last one. By that time, it was all we could do to not pee ourselves laughing.
Then it happened. The next picture was of his dog. His dog was huge, a proper unit. It was reclining on a comfortable chair. On its back. With its legs in the air. With its massive, pendulous balls wafting in the breeze. I have no idea how I contained myself. We wrapped up the interview mere seconds later. ‘Thanks, that’s all the questions we have. We’ll call you, goodbye.’ We showed him the door and watched him disappear around the corner. Then, for quite a while, we died laughing.”
His Chance Of Getting Hired Was An Illusion
“I was hiring in pharmaceutical sales and it was a large launch for a newly approved product, so they were hiring around 200 people nationwide. The first step was a phone screen with us, then a video interview with the hiring manager, and then the final candidates would be flown out for panel interviews where they would meet with the vice presidents of each region, as well as the sales directors.
Because of that long process, we were very strict with the interviews and who got to move forward, which meant it REALLY sucked when a guy went into his final panel interview and started doing magic tricks. Very seriously, he started pulling flowers from his sleeves, and he tried to ‘vanish’ an interviewer’s coffee but ended up spilling it everywhere instead.
In that same round of hiring, we also had an individual who did the video call from his coffee table (he sat on the floor) and at one point someone rang his doorbell. During the conversation with the hiring manager, he asked politely if he could go answer the door in case it was an emergency. She said, ‘Sure, no big deal,’ and the guy stood up, flashing his tighty whities. She didn’t say anything about it when he came back, but needless to say, she couldn’t stop laughing when she told us about it.”
He Was Astounded That She Thought She Could Work In The Field
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“I work in software development and as part of the interview process, our candidates interview over Skype using a code-sharing website so they can complete a small and relatively simple problem to help weed out candidates who are dishonest on their resumes.
In one of my interviews, I started with the usual introduction of myself, my role within the company, so on and so forth. I introduced her to the task and explained that it’d be on a code-sharing website so she’d need to follow the link that I sent her. I pasted the link into the text window and explained to her how to access it (some people haven’t used Skype before and don’t know how to access text chat in a video call). She smiled and nodded, then asked me when I was done, ‘Will you be writing the link on the whiteboard?’
I looked behind me and remembered that yes, there was a small whiteboard behind me, and this woman was expecting me to handwrite the (not so short) link, and she would read it off the webcam to type it into her browser. ‘No,’ I explained, ‘I sent you the link within Skype itself. If you’ll just click…’ I was forced to trail off as she reached forward and picked up her webcam (which I’m assuming was mounted to the top of her monitor). I got a nice closeup of her eye as she peered inside the camera, then turned it on its side to observe it some more.
I asked her what she was doing. ‘Trying to find the link,’ she replied.
Dumbfounded, I once again explained that the link was sent over Skype and wouldn’t appear behind me nor on the webcam. She resumed the smile-and-nod routine as I asked her to follow my directions to access the Skype text chat window. I told her to wave her mouse cursor over my face until she saw some buttons appear. She took her hand off the mouse, raised it, and waved it over the screen. I explained to her again that she needed to use the mouse, and again, she smiled and nodded. After about 15 minutes (of a 30-minute interview), she did finally discover the link in the Skype text chat, but she proceeded to type it into her browser by hand. She did not make it to the next round.”
He Turned The Interview Into A Show And Tell
“I was doing a video interview with a candidate for a new office we were opening in another country. For background, it’s a tech company so we’re a bit informal and I was wearing a company printed t-shirt, so you could easily see my tattoos.
This candidate called in a few minutes late, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt on that. We started talking and discussing the role when I heard his doorbell ring. He got up immediately, yelling back to his computer that he’d just be a moment. I could hear him let the dishwasher repair person in, be guided to the kitchen, and told all about the problems with the dishwasher. I sat there entirely dumbfounded, but decided to continue the interview out of sheer curiosity. The candidate came back about five minutes later, answered some more of my questions, and then I asked what questions he had about the role so I could wrap it up. Apparently that was what he was waiting for.
Candidate: ‘It’s so cool that you’ve got tattoos! Did you do them yourself?’
Me: ‘No. Do you have any role-related questions?’
Candidate: ‘Well, I’ve done all mine myself. Let me show you!’
The candidate proceeded to take off his shirt and point out each of his tattoos, telling me his age for each one. He even pulled his pant legs up to his thigh to show what he had done on his legs. I was befuddled. He offered to send me his portfolio, but he did not get the job.”
He Couldn’t Have Been More Embarrassed
“I recruit for the blue collar industry and one time, there was a poor guy who spoke imperfect English and kinda struggled to understand me, but we had Samoan and Tongan speaking staff who were assisting the recruiting process.
We finished the interview process and I explained the pre-employment urine sample screening in depth (‘Pee in the pot up to here, close the lid, and bring to me for test’). He took quite some time to issue his sample, which can happen if people are a little nervous or shy. I called out to see if he was ok, and he replied, ‘Yeah boss!’
About 10 minutes later he appeared with the pot securely wrapped in hand towels so as not to be on display. I found that odd, as the amount of urine samples we administered meant we were so used to handling pee it didn’t bother us in the slightest. He looked a little sheepish and coy, which is very telling of someone who’s a little nervous they might fail.
I took the cup from him, with sanitary gloves on of course, and proceeded to unwrap the pot in order to do the test. I gagged when I realized he had shoveled his poop into the pot, assuming he needed to provide a fecal sample. What possessed him to think we wanted to analyze that is beyond me! Fair to say we couldn’t employ him on that basis. I sent him away after some explanation and he was quite embarrassed.”
He Didn’t Seem To Understand The Concept Of Work
“At the time, I was running a painting crew. I had an applicant who begged me for a few hours of work, saying nothing was beneath him because he just needed a real paycheck to get his parole officer off his back. I told him, ‘I have a bunch of grunt work you can do, I’ll pay you fair but the work sucks and I can’t promise you a role as a painter. If you want it you need to prove yourself as a hard worker.’
He said, ‘No problem! When can I start?’ I told him to show up the next day, and bring clothes he could get dirty as well as plenty of water.
The next day rolled around and he was 45 minutes late (you could walk to the job site in 45 minutes and he drove) and dressed up. Not a good first impression, but I gave the kid a chance. I set him up with a 5 in 1 tool and about 200 square feet to scrape old paint off of. Even for a new guy, it’s at best four hours of work. I checked up on him after about 45 minutes and he had scraped about 3 square feet of the area and was texting when I walked down. I retrained him, gave him a specific target for the next hour, and left.
When I came back an hour later, he was still texting and had done half of what I asked him to while acting like he’d done me a favor. I told him, ‘This is unskilled labor. All you need to do is move your tool over the old paint. You aren’t keeping up. I don’t want to see you on your phone again.’
The third time I came to check on him, he was sitting down and texting in the shade. I asked, ‘What’s up?’
He said, ‘Scraping paint sucks, when do I get to be a painter?’ I explained to him that I didn’t need any painters and hired him as a favor, so he better pick up the pace. I drew a line and told him and told him that I expected him to scrap up to there in the next hour. I came back down an hour later to find him texting, having accomplished about 25% of what I had asked.
He asked me if I had any water because he was thirsty, and also inquired when lunch was. I told him, ‘Lunch is right now and a storms coming, so take the next few days off.’ I swung by his house with a paycheck for the few hours he had worked that day, told him I found a more experienced guy, and wished him the best.
A few weeks later, he asked me to launder his pot-dealing profits into paychecks from my company and he would give me the grand rate of $5 for every $200 I paid out to him. I declined. He’s supposedly a successful real estate agent now, but I’d never buy a house from him.”
He Had An Air Of Total Disrespect
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“I’m a hiring manager at a fast food restaurant, but at the place I work for, I don’t have a uniform which distinguishes me from the average team member. We also run with only a handful of people at a time, so I’m on the floor doing the same work as the crew (as I think it should be anyway, but I digress). One day, a college-aged guy walked in and started trying to get my attention while I was talking on the headset, taking an order. I told him I’d be with him in a moment.
Rather than waiting, he decided to lean over the counter and half-yell, ‘CAN I GET A PEN?’ with an application in his hand. I motioned to one that was on the counter and when he turned it in, not only had he worked in fast food before (for less than a month, but enough to know not to bug someone taking an order), but he had applied for manager despite having no previous management experience. For bonus points, he handed it to me with the same abrupt, loud, obnoxiousness, ‘Give this to your manager.’
I thought about throwing his application away in front of him (I’ve done it before for similar reasons), but I decided I’d let him show up for his interview with me and explain to him in detail why he wouldn’t be getting a job. It may seem like a minor thing, but nobody wants to work with a punk who thinks he can treat people like that because they’re not a manager.
He came in in a dirty t-shirt, sweats, and a winter hat in 85-degree weather (I don’t expect people to dress up, it’s a fast food restaurant, but come on). He told me that he had worked as a manager before, but it was short lived because he couldn’t get along with the general manager (big red flag). The GM gave him ‘vibes’ (eye roll) that she just hated him because he was gay. Not impossible, but we live in a very liberal state and I doubted that any employer was going to make their feelings on that matter any semblance of obvious. He also talked fast enough to get through what’s generally a 15-minute interview in 5 minutes. I thanked him for his time, but he didn’t get a callback, because to be honest, he was most likely untrainable.”
Her Past Indicated That She Might Be Off Her Rocker
“When I was hiring manager, our application had the standard, ‘Have you ever been terminated from a position, and if so, why?’ Now, I’m not gonna lie, you can get around that question if you’re clever enough to coordinate your references to avoid it. I had other positions to fill, so I wasn’t gonna look into every place the applicants had ever worked, I just wanted to see how they’d answer the question. If they gave a thoughtful, honest answer, cool. If they said no, I wasn’t gonna question it unless they gave me a reason to.
But I had one lady who answered with a full rant that basically went, ‘Well, I was TOLD that I messed up a date on a calendar, which I did not, but what I THINK happened…’ and then proceeded to detail paragraphs worth of gossip about her previous employer that she learned from opening her mail. Yeah. Can’t imagine why they didn’t want her around anymore.”
He Couldn’t Believe What The Candidate Brought Into The Interview
“I once interviewed a guy for an entry-level retail position. I called him in for an interview and after introductions brought him up to the break room for the interview itself, as the training room was in use. He was a kinda sketchy looking individual, wearing a beat-up black cap and what looked to be a dirty hoody. But I didn’t think too much of it because: a) I did call him in on short notice, b) I don’t like to judge a candidate solely on how they look, and c) it’s retail, what do you expect candidates to look like?
I excused myself for 30 seconds to check in on my trainee and when I came back, the candidate looked a little uncomfortable. Not thinking much of it, we started the interview, with me asking the standard questions about what he’d done previously, why he wanted to work with us, etc. I noticed he was continuing to look uncomfortable, and it almost seemed as though he was hiding something in his hands. I eventually asked if something was wrong, and he came clean.
He explained that he had a fistful of candy (jelly beans) and he wasn’t sure what do do with them. I was a bit gobsmacked, and had several questions I wish I would have asked: Where did he get this candy? Why did he think it was a good idea to eat candy in an interview? What was he going to do with the candy?
As I tried to articulate a response, he exclaimed, ‘I know!’ and proceeded to shove the entire handful into his mouth. It was not a couple of jelly beans. It was a massive handful of sweaty, sticky candies that he threw into his mouth. He started chewing…and chewing. His hands were stained and he was really working his jaw due to the sheer amount, as well as their chewy nature. I swear thirty seconds passed before he finally gulped them down and calmly asked, ‘You were saying?’ Needless to say the interview did not continue much longer than that, and the candy man did not get a job with us.”
He Had A Real Gripe Against Millennials AND Women
“One time I had to hire a photographer for an event, so I placed an ad in the local paper. One guy decided it was acceptable to leave me a voicemail in response to an ad that asked for ’emails only between 9 and 5.’
He called me six times while I was at work and left several increasingly nasty messages about how it cost him money to call me and how I shouldn’t be wasting people’s time with an ad if I wasn’t prepared to speak to them. His first one started with, ‘Now I’m not sure you millennials understand, but running a business can be expensive…’ and they steadily got worse from there, implying I was lazy, deliberately ignoring him, and waiting for permission from my husband to speak to another man on the phone. The ad had been up less than 24 hours.
I messaged him and ‘deeply apologized that my having a job interfered with (his) ability to harass me, as I did not realize that it cost (him) money to view an advertisement and leave ugly messages,’ so to save him further hassle, I shot straight and said I definitely have no intention of ever working with him.”
He Judged A Book By Its Cover…And Was Totally Right
“I had a guy come in for an interview and my first thought was that if he was going for the creepy vibe, he had it nailed down to the mustache. I asked him about reliable transportation and he said he had a van so it wasn’t an issue.
In my head, I was like, ‘A van? Do you have no self-awareness?’ But then, out of the blue, he said he needed to tell me something. He had been convicted of possessing inappropriate child material and was registered with Megan’s Law.
I thought to myself, ‘Holy crap, how do I handle this?’ The job was in a mall. You know, where young teenagers run around by themselves to feel cool and be social. I was honest with him and said that I didn’t feel comfortable hiring him since the job was in the mall and wished him luck in his job search. Two weeks later, I saw him working in the mall’s food court.”
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