Job hunts can be quite a challenge. Most people don’t even make it to the interview stage. For those that do, it can be even more disappointing once they realize how the job isn’t quite what they thought it was. Wasted time and terrible interviewers leave everlasting shameful first impressions for job seekers. Here, people share the one interview quickly made them realize the job in question was far from worth it.
All stories have been edited for clarity.
Money For Nothing
“I did an interview for a position at KFC. It was one of my first interviews and everything seemed to be going great. I got through all the basic questions about myself before the interviewer took me into the kitchen to show me around and introduce me to the other employees.
She guided me to the cooking area and showed me where I could find the different pieces of chicken in the fridge to cook. Then I was given a trial run as a chef which I completely messed up because I had no idea what I was doing. The interviewer yelled at me and said I had ruined a good batch of chicken, but she shocked me when she put the bad batch in the warmer to sell anyway.
The interviewer then excused herself and told me to just keep cooking until she got back. She finally returned three hours later. It struck me as rather odd but I was so caught up in learning the role to redeem my earlier mistake. By then, I was a master fry cook. She was impressed and told me the job was mine. She then said it was the cook’s job to stay behind and wait for the chicken delivery that came in two hours after closing time. It would also be my job to clean the entire kitchen which included scrubbing the grease off everything, sweeping, mopping, and a bunch of other things while the rest of the staff went home.
I told her that the tasks wouldn’t be an issue for me. I didn’t live far away and I desperately needed the cash. Then the interviewer told me I wouldn’t get paid for the two hours because the restaurant was closed so I wouldn’t be ‘doing real work.’
Stunned, I told her that she just told me that I would be cleaning and I thought that was actual work. I added that if I’m being asked to stay back I should get paid whether the shop was open or not.
The interviewer rolled her eyes and asked me how badly I wanted the job. After thinking about it, I told her not bad enough to work for free, so she asked me to leave.
Looking back on it, I was probably just used to covering a shift that someone didn’t show up for. She got three hours of work out of me for nothing.”
What A Waste
“I graduated college with a teaching degree and a bunch of video production experience.
During my job hunt, I interviewed with the Teacher’s Union Association for my state. They posted an ad in the paper looking for someone to cover their events. They wanted someone to work seven hours a day and write five articles a week for their website. The drive to the office was an hour and a half from where I was currently.
When I came in for an interview, it went on for an hour. When the interviewer finally asked if I had any questions, I asked if there would be benefits.
The woman burst out laughing.
I was confused, but then I asked about the pay salary. The woman stifled a laugh, before saying, ‘We were thinking three hundred.’
That number rolled around my head. In my head, I thought, ‘There’s no way she said three hundred.’
‘Three hundred?’ I repeated.
‘That’s right,’ The woman said with a grin.
‘A week?’ I said in disbelief.
That triggered the laugh.
‘Oh, goodness, No! We were thinking maybe three hundred a month?’
I couldn’t believe it.
‘Will you cover expenses?’ I asked. ‘Driving, hotels, editing equipment, filming equipment?’
‘We figured you’d bring that stuff from home,’ the woman said, her nose in the air.
I stood up, looked her dead in the face, and said, ‘You have wasted an hour of my time.’
I walked out to the sounds of her hemming and hawing about maybe bumping it up to three-fifty.”
The Hard Questions
“This happened way back in 2016 when I graduated as a computer engineer. I was selected to interview with a company that visited my school during placements.
The moment I entered the room, I faced a panel of three men who welcomed me. They asked me questions about myself, my skill set, my knowledge of HTML CSS, and other things as expected. The interviewers then started asking about my family. It was going extremely well.
Then one of the interviewers said he wanted to ask me a difficult question.
I thought the question was going to test my technical skills, so I asked him to proceed without hesitation.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ the interviewer asked with a smirk.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘What’s so difficult about that?’ I thought to myself.
The same interviewer then asked me where my boyfriend was located. I calmly told him my boyfriend was working abroad, and we are in a long-distance relationship. The interviewer then asked an even weirder question.
‘How would you react if you found out that he was cheating on you?’
I was stunned by his question. I blinked a few times and said, ‘I would leave him. There’s no place for cheating in our relationship.’
The interviewer nodded, then said, ‘What if he found out that you’re cheating on him? Do you think he would leave you too?’
‘Probably,’ I responded. ‘Why should the treatment be different?’
The interviewer kept asking weird questions before I interrupted him and asked, ‘What’s the point of these questions for an engineering job?’
The interviewer shrugged and said he wanted to test if I could take the pressure and if I could be grilled. I remember nodding my head but I still didn’t see the correlation.
Then he asked a question that still makes me cringe.
‘I want to understand the dimensions of your relationship with your boyfriend. Have you guys gone all the way?’ He had the same smirk as before. It was shocking. The other two men were scrolling on their phones while their creepy colleague kept asking extremely inappropriate questions. He was a creep!
I couldn’t take any more of his absurd questions. I thanked them for their time and stormed out the room. Later on, I found out I was selected for the position but I didn’t want it after what transpired. I said no, even after receiving an offer letter from them.
Years later, I was reunited with my friend from college who went to the same panel. That’s when I told her about the creepy interview that happened that day.
To my surprise, my friend told me almost every girl faced the same thing. One girl was even asked if she wore a tight-fit shirt on purpose because it showed off her boobs. It was downright disgusting.
I felt like we made a big mistake by not reporting that person to anyone. That interviewer got away with his lewd comments and disgusting judgments. My friend also shared how the company selected girls only, and many of them went ahead and accepted the offer because they really wanted a job. However, almost all of them switched to other companies in a year or so.”
Speak Up
“I worked as an announcer at a college radio station for two years before I spent a year abroad.
The radio station had a great reputation on campus because it was one of the harder jobs to land. Because the radio station received so many applications, they didn’t have much motivation to treat their staff well or pay them well at all. The quality manager was a complete nuisance to the student announcers. She never recognized quality work and was always hyper-critical of them every time they went on air. The only reason they took the abuse was that they didn’t know any better. I, along with the rest of them, was overworked and underpaid. I witness some of the girl employees crying regularly.
When I got back from my year abroad, I had an email waiting. After opening it, I quickly realized it was a request from the radio station detailing how they would love to have me back and if I wanted the job to come by and say so.
I was flattered by the invitation and decided to give them a chance.
So, I showed up and the quality manager greeted me with open arms. I was surprised by how nice she was behaving toward me. She then started asking how my year abroad was. As I answered her questions, the quality manager cut me off and started correcting my word choice.
‘You need to project your voice better,’ she said in a nit-picky tone.
Then the quality manager said I sounded like I had forgotten all my training and would have to go through it again and get paid a base pay rather than the pay I had when I left.
This was all because I hadn’t gone into radio etiquette during a casual conversation.
I smiled and said sure before I asked if the general manager was around. The quality manager paged his office as we continued talking. When he came to the conference room we were in, I greeted him and shook his hand. We talked for a while before the general manager picked up on my change in mood.
‘Is everything alright?’ The general manager asked.
I didn’t hold back.
‘I would love to come back to this job and work for you again, but I would rather die than work under this soul-sucking person you have as quality manager. The reason you have a problem retaining trained employees is her and her alone. If there is anything you want to do to help this station it would be to replace her immediately.’
Then I bid him a wonderful day and left.
I got a call the next day from the quality manager apologizing if she was too ‘harsh’. She then said she understood my feelings from the day before and she offered me the job at the same pay as I had before I left, but I politely declined and said all the money in the world couldn’t make it worth working under her.
That was the first time I stood up for myself in a work environment and the last time I was ever disrespected.”
Bait And Switch
“I was interviewing for a bartender position, at a very upscale restaurant. Usually, a position like this paid a small hourly wage because it was supplemented by tips.
Seeing that the manager was offering an hourly rate much higher than normal, I was really interested in the position. We went over my experience and my knowledge of spirits and wines. The manager expressed his interest in me and at the time I remember being excited because the job seemed in the bag.
The manager ended the interview by asking about my availability. Then, almost as I was leaving, he mentioned that I would only be in the bar for maybe two shifts a week. For the other three shifts, I had to be a server on the dining room floor.
I know my face said it all.
I had just spent the last twenty minutes talking about how I felt about how I had been a server long enough to understand that part of the restaurant business, and I wasn’t interested in doing that anymore, besides serving the guests who order food in the bar area. At the time the manager nodded along. Having this curveball thrown at me was more than shocking.
The manager talked fast and said that every bartender had to have server shifts too because he was really short-staffed. He then said becoming a server was the only way I could get the position. I didn’t accept or decline the offer right then. I simply said I’d ‘be in touch’ as I looked at my schedule in disappointment.
I was so annoyed by how the manager wasted my time. He left the area, so I took it upon myself to talk to the bartender on duty. Without hesitation, the bartender told me how he had fallen for the same bait and switch during his interview. He said there were a couple of favorites that got the best shifts, and everyone else either got stuck on the lunch shifts, which were not money makers.
That’s why they were always interviewing for the bartender position, and didn’t mention anything about serving too, because someone who wanted to strictly tend the bar, with a lot of experience and great references, wouldn’t apply there if they knew they would be serving also.
I had been to several interviews around the city, so I decided not to accept the offer. If that manager was acting that shady in the interview, who knows what else he would do once I was employed there.
I took a job at another place and was super happy there for a few years. I later heard from several people who went through the same thing with that manager and told me I was smart to not take the job. Once hired, some weeks they never got a bar shift, with the high hourly wage. Instead, they got the $2.35 server’s wage and kept waiting for the bar shifts that never happened.”
Inside Scoop
“I already had a job I was content with, but I interview with places that pique my interest every once in a while to refresh my interview skills and keep my options open.
Well, I met with the manager of a very large specialty practice in a large hospital. He started off by saying it was unusual to get applicants from the competitor I’m employed with because of the ‘bad blood’ between them.
‘Oh, really? I wasn’t aware of that,’ I responded.
The interviewer looked me right in the eyes and sarcastically said, ‘I bet you didn’t.’ His attitude put me off right then and there, but I figured I’d give the hospital a look around and see if anything felt right.
Soon after, the interviewer gave me a tour of the hospital. Everything was very new, sleek, and modern. They had beautiful equipment, a fantastic lab area, and a good amount of staff. Still, something still wasn’t sitting right with me.
Finally, the tour got to the good stuff. The interviewer brought me to a room with a specific set of machines that were known in the field to be the ‘golden standard’ of patient care. I was extremely inquisitive as I took in the sight.
When I started asking questions, the interviewer immediately became irritated and stated that my questions were ‘irrelevant’ because only ‘one person operates these machines and that is me. These are my machines and they require special training.’
I was taken aback by his comment because he was well aware I had extensive training and education on the machines, but the practice I was currently employed with only had room for one. The interviewer even went as far as to say that I probably wasn’t ‘doing it right’ since he has seen some of our work with patient referrals. In the back of my mind, the interviewer kept setting off alarms that urged me to reconsider the role.
Finally, we made our way into their conference room. The interviewer sat down and said the owner would be with us soon. He started going over my resume and asked a few more standard questions until he got down to my current employer.
The interviewer asked how my boss was doing to which I replied, ‘Well, I guess.’
He pressed more. ‘I saw you guys are expanding. Care to tell me about that?’
At that moment, I became irritated and said, ‘Is this an interview about my current employer or is this about me?’
The interviewer ignored my comment and was about to ask another question when the owner walked in. The owner briefly introduced himself before he started asking a few technical questions, asked went back to traditional interview questions. He then asked for the interviewer to join him in the hall.
They are gone for ten minutes. As I waited, I just happen to look across the small table and saw a list of questions on his portfolio that were all about my current employer.
I felt like such an idiot. They were using me to get dirt on my current job. That was the final straw. When the manager came back in, he had a surprised look on his face.
‘The owner actually liked you and wants to offer you a job.’
Obviously, I didn’t take it.”
Are You Good Enough?
“I went to a job interview for a hole-in-the-wall store that sold items that catered to tweens in the mall. When I arrived, I realized that everyone working was very nervous and on edge.
Suddenly, a very abrasive woman came from the back of the store and introduced herself as the district manager. Everyone clicked the moment I got a whiff of her personality.
Once we got outside of the store, the district manager and I sat on a mall bench to get the interview started. She started asking me basic questions but berated every response I gave her. She wouldn’t let me finish one answer before asking the next and kept putting words in my mouth.
‘How do you feel about opening the store?’ The district manager questioned.
‘I’m comfortable with an opening shift!’ I replied.
‘Oh, so you’re not comfortable with closing?’
‘What? No, I can do both!’ I said in a hurry.
‘How can you do both? That’s not possible.’
Her demeanor was so awful and overbearing, and I wasn’t even an employee. My breaking point was when the district manager asked me verbatim, ‘What makes you think you’re good enough to work for this company?’
At that moment, I chuckled, grabbed my things, got up, and left. I now work my ass off in a hospital emergency room and love every minute of it.”
Know Your Worth
“I had just been admitted to the bar and was looking for my first job as a lawyer. I conducted most of my job hunt through a well-known website that every lawyer here uses because it is dedicated solely to legal positions.
I landed an interview at a small firm for a position that was listed on the website as ‘an entry-level, no-experience, legal position for newly admitted lawyers.’
After the usual, ‘tell me about yourself’ portion of the interview, the interviewer, who was the managing partner of the firm, informed me that the position I applied for wasn’t actually a legal position. but more of a marketing one.
Marketing of what, you ask?
The interviewer unashamedly announced the role was a marketing position for his own newly formed hedge fund.
My job would be to set up meetings with potential investors and convince them to hand over their money for the fund he organized.
The interviewer then bragged about how he ‘was not an easy boss’, and that he didn’t like it when employees came to him with questions. Even though I was interviewing for an entry-level role, the interviewer said he required his employees to only approach him with answers and solutions to problems as they arise. He had no time for questions.
Throughout the interview, the manager was obnoxious and gave off a strong ‘terrible boss vibe’. At that point, I was pretty much over it. I resisted the urge to walk out the door.
The manager then asked me what kind of pay I was looking for. I told him I wanted a yearly sum that was about fifteen percent higher than what was reasonable for an entry-level legal position at the time because I didn’t really want the job anymore.
The interviewer raised his eyebrows before snapping at me. ‘Are you serious? Do you know how much people like you are worth?’
‘I know how much people like me settle for,’ I retorted. ‘I know what I’m worth, which is what I’m asking.’ The interviewer seemed impressed with my answer, but never got back to me, for which I’m thankful.”