At first glance, a job can seem like a dream fit. That is until the person gets to the interview!
Men on Reddit share the reasons why they walked out of an interview. Content has been edited for clarity.
Always Check Your Messages
“I had applied for a marketing company through an online job-finding website. Within five minutes I had an email, text, call, and voicemail from the company. I had applied for this job while at work, so I had to wait a few minutes to sneak outside to call back. I got no answer, so I left a message. Sent an email, no response. Sent a text, no response.
Two days later get a call and an email saying, ‘Hey we haven’t heard back, please visit this link to schedule an interview.’ I click the link and it has interview times from 9-1 every 30 minutes. The issue with this was I can’t leave for lunch until one at the earliest.
Again, I call to see if I can schedule for 1:30, and no response. I just ended up scheduling an interview and not showing up. They actually called the next day to see if I forgot. I told them my situation and the lady just said ‘Oh, sorry I haven’t really checked my messages recently.’
I just said thanks, but no thanks.”
“The Lady Interviewing Me Was Offended”
“I was interviewing for a software development job that I didn’t apply for, but contacted me. The job description was utterly ridiculous, it had a literal 30 something languages and technologies that it ‘required.’ The job also paid below entry level for my field but wanted above what a senior developer does. I didn’t want the job, but I figured I’d interview for practice.
I only matched five out of the 30ish languages/technologies they wanted. Since they called me, I figured they saw something in my resume they wanted.
Well, I found out shortly into the interview that they actually did want everything on the list. The lady interviewing me was offended I showed up to the interview without matching their silly qualifications. I politely reminded them they contacted me and thanked them for their time and left.
The job was still open for another two years after that day. I hadn’t checked after that so who knows, maybe it’s still open.”
Saving Others From The Job
“I was contacted for an IT position in a nearby town. I put on the suit, got ready, and got there about 20 minutes early. There were four other people in the reception area; no worries, I was confident in my skills.
Soon enough, I met with my interviewer. We went over my credentials and background, and I was asked career-relevant questions. Then about 15 minutes into the interview, the interviewer said something which I found a little odd, so I asked for clarification.
It was then that I was told it was for a sales job, specifically a cold-calling sales job. They started extolling the virtues of a career change. I said something along the lines of this not being the position I was led to believe and left the room. As I was leaving, one of the interviewers made a remark about me making a big mistake.
I stopped in the lobby on the way out and made the general announcement that whatever job they were here to interview for, it’s actually a cold-call sales job. About two or three of the people in the room got up and left with me, and I got a bunch of glares from the workers there.
When I got back outside, I parked my car near the entrance and told anyone who looked like they were going in for an interview that it was a cold sales job. I was there for about 45 minutes before a police car rolled up and had me move along; one of the people in the office heard what I was doing and called them.”
“It Was Super Weird”
“I was invited to an interview through an online job portal for a job I hadn’t applied for. I was desperate at the time, and I thought, Whatever, I’ll go and give it a shot.
Walked into a small commercial building, and there were seven or eight folding chairs in a small entrance area with a hallway and a couple of small offices attached. There were five older folks (mid-40s, I was around 23 at the time), and they all had clipboards. A woman walked through the hall and says greets me. She hands me a clipboard and tells me to fill out the info. It was super weird. They were asking for more personal and financial questions than I was willing to offer. Stuck around anyway for the interview. The office was set up super suspiciously like they’d thrown a painting on the wall, plant in the corner and that’s it.
Finally, I sit down with the dude interviewing me. He kept talking about this big opportunity and to get in now while the getting is good, blah blah. Never actually dictated what the job actually was. Realized it was a freaking pyramid scheme almost immediately. I stopped the dude mid-sentence and told him I appreciated the time but I’m going to have to pass. He was baffled. I then walked outside to the five or six people sitting there and told them all, while the dudes door was still ajar, that it was a pyramid scheme and to take the sheets of paper they were filling out and rip them up or take them with them.
They all looked, much like myself, desperate. I felt horrible for them. Didn’t stick around to see if any of them left or not. Totally sketchy.”
They Didn’t Keep Their Promise
“When I was in high school, the White Castle down the street was hiring. I lived in a bad area, and it was open 24/7. I went in and applied, but let them know that I was in school and couldn’t do overnights because of that and because of the area.
They assured me this was fine and they could get me in after school and out before midnight.
I go in for an interview and orientation on a Tuesday afternoon around six, and they’ve got the schedule set. I’m on after orientation, nine p.m. to three a.m. or something crazy like that.
So, I pull the shift leader aside and said, ‘Hey, I was told that because of my school situation, I wouldn’t be on overnights. I’m on the schedule for overnight tonight. I have school tomorrow, and I wasn’t even aware I’d have a shift today. I was told it was just orientation. How do we fix this?’
She goes, ‘Well, everybody gotta work overnight, it is what it is.’
I went, ‘Gotcha. Thanks for your time.’
Took off the apron, handed it to her, and left her and the rest of the orientation group, who were stunned.”
“Thanks For Wasting My Afternoon”
“Pretty early into the interview, she pointed out I had a ‘gap in employment.’ This was the six weeks between when I graduated in May and when I started in July. She asked me to explain it and I told her I signed with them in April before I graduated to start in July. I took those weeks to get all my moving done and to get settled into a new town. She told me I would have to resubmit my application with an explanation for why I have that gap in employment (at this point it was six years prior), and they shouldn’t have passed me on for an interview without it. She also had zero sense of humor, took everything very seriously, and was dogmatic about how the company operates; this was to be my supervisor.
She read some behavioral questions about a situation, and I asked her to elaborate on the circumstances. She just repeated the question verbatim without looking up from the sheet.
It was at that point I sat back, sighed, and said, ‘I don’t think this is going to be a good fit, but thank you for your time.’
She dumped my papers into the trash bin next to her desk and said, ‘Well thanks for wasting my afternoon.’
I shook my head and walked out.”
A Lot Of Red Flags
“I was a student applying for a placement in a financial role at an engineering company. The application clearly stated I would be working at a local site, about five minutes from my home.
I got through all the preliminary stuff, competency tests, online interviews, etc, and was asked to do an assessment center. I was completely fine with that until they told me it would be taking place in two days, nearly 200 miles away from where I live, starting at eight am.
I got in contact with them and they were willing to compensate me for my travel and accommodation, a total of $53. The train tickets alone were nearly $200, and the closest available accommodation at short notice was seven miles away.
The even more ridiculous thing was they said this was the first of multiple assessment centers they would require me to attend.
Naturally, I didn’t need to use my economics degree to figure out that spending hundreds of dollars on the chance of placement was a bad investment, so I didn’t attend.”
“Do You Like The Idea Of Being Your Own Boss?”
“I arrived for my interview on time. I walked into the office and sat down. It was empty – a small room with three chairs and a desk for a secretary. I could hear loud techno music blasting from the other room and that, combined with the eerie feeling of the empty office, began to creep me out.
A few minutes passed. Eventually, the door to the other room opened and a man in a suit walked out. The music was BLASTING behind him, but there were no people.
He was a bald man in his mid-twenties. He leered at me and extended his hand.
‘Hey, are you Jake?’ he asked.
‘I’m Mark.’ I said, shaking the outstretched hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘Oh. My bad. Good to meet you too. Read this.’ He handed me a single piece of paper on a clipboard.
Then he spun and left the room, saying ‘I’ll be right back.’
This time, as the door opened, I saw a group of awkward-looking young guys shuffling by. They all must’ve been about 18. One smiled at me – he was a big goofy looking kid. He looked like a sucker. Then the door closed and I was alone.
I started to read the paper.
It started.
‘DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF BEING YOUR OWN BOSS?’
Yeah, I thought.
‘DO YOU WANT TO BE IN A MANAGEMENT POSITION IN UNDER ONE YEAR?’
Heck yeah! I thought.
‘HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING?’
Oh.
There was a box under this line where I could check ‘yes,’ or ‘no.’
I wrote, ‘Forget you,’ got up, and left the room.”
This Doesn’t Seem Right
“I was in college, and a professor handed out business cards for a management internship for the summer that promised high pay and a great experience. No company name was listed, but I still went through with it. (That was my mistake, I should’ve noticed something was fishy at the start.)
I applied, and I was given an interview. I was given a time and location on campus because these people recruit from many college campuses. I showed up, and there were three other candidates there. I was never told it would be a group interview.
The interviewer was very kind, but many of the questions I was given were not experience-related at all and were quite vague. We were given info packets with the company name on it, a house painting service, which I was not expecting whatsoever. We were told we would be managing large teams of house painters, and we would be responsible for a large portion of a metropolitan area in the summer. We would be paid based on performance, with the promise of many other benefits like an island retreat and team-building weekends.
I started asking questions and was given very vague answers. Eventually, I asked the recruiter how he came into his position. He said he did this same internship and is now recruiting people for it, and is getting paid more for it. Everything considered, it sounded very scammish and MLM-esque.
I vaguely mentioned a business I was starting up, and he asked why I was looking here for an internship, then. I got up and said I didn’t think this position would be right for me. I left, him sounding surprisingly understanding.
I later researched the company’s internship program, and I found page after page of people who had participated in this program saying how it’s a scam.”
“A Billion Red Flags Here”
“I had recently left a serving position in a restaurant and was looking for another job. So, I was checking out restaurants in the area asking for their hiring forms.
I walk into this restaurant called Boston Pizza (it’s a bit of a bar/family restaurant chain that’s quite popular in Ontario), and noticed immediately that it was completely dead inside, except for a table in the back area with a few people who look to be employees and cooks, just sitting around on their phones.
An older guy notices that I’m standing at the door and is very eager to say hello, thinking I was a guest. I told him I was just inquiring about a serving position, and his eyes light up. Turns out he’s the owner, and he asks me a bunch of questions right away like; how much experience I had, what position I was looking for, and my potential availability. Since I’m a fairly experienced waiter, I seem to tick off every box he’s looking for and he gets noticeably excited as we speak.
Eventually, he asks, ‘Do you think you could start today?’
I thought this was a bit strange, and before I could mutter some excuse, he leans in close to me and says, ‘You see those guys in the back table? Those are my employees, and as you can tell, they’re lazy as heck and just don’t give a hoot, but I can sense you’re a leader and a hard worker and I would love you on my crew!’
Yeah, okay. A billion red flags here. You’re the owner and you talk trash about your employees to a complete stranger? Instead of doing anything about their ‘laziness,’ you simply allow them to sit there on your clock doing nothing? You’re hiring me on the spot because you’re desperate for someone who cares?. Clearly, if you’re hiring and allowing these ‘lazy people’ to continue to work for you, there’s no way anyone is set up for success here. No, thanks. The whole situation oozed desperation. I nod politely, and then after some flimsy excuse, noped the heck out of there.”
An Interesting Interview Indeed
“I showed up at an interview five minutes early only to discover the interviewer was clear across town and wanted me to go there instead. In heavy LA traffic. His assistant had tried calling me when I was on the freeway but I never answer my phone while driving. No texts that my phone would have read to me -just one phone message that I got after I arrived. I’m not thrilled about it, but I go to meet this guy at a freaking Starbucks. He’s just chilling there and as soon as I’ve introduced myself and taken a seat at his table, his phone rings. He asks me to wait for him because he has to take this conference call. He actually has the balls to ask me to leave the table. I walked straight to my car and never called the company back.
This was after being pre-interviewed by this guy’s underlings and recommended to him as THE candidate. I had an unusual skill set that perfectly dovetailed with their needs but this guy wanted to play games. Maybe he’d read some weird book on interview tricks and he wanted to see if he could make me angry instead of treating me with a modicum of respect. I have no idea, but his underlings left messages apologizing and asking me to call them back. I never did but I found a great job elsewhere.”
“No One Deserves That Treatment”
“I traveled for four hours to get to an interview, and I arrived 30 or 40 minutes early. Because there was nowhere to go, I just went straight to the offices from the train station.
When I got there, I spoke to the receptionist.
‘I’m a bit early but I’ve got an interview at 3,’ I told her.
‘That’s fine, take a seat and I’ll contact the interviewer,’ she responded.
So I sit down, look through my notes, and do some last minute reading to make sure I’m ready.
I end up waiting till 3:30 before the guy shows up. He does the usual pleasantries, but no apology. That was the first annoyance.
As we’re walking to the room, he introduces me to a lady who’ll be sitting in on the interview and then starts asking if I’ve come far. That also annoyed me, as I’d told them countless times I’d be traveling eight hours round trip and they were supposed to be reimbursing me. But again I let it slide.
As we get to the room, the guy says he needs to pop to the toilet but won’t be long, again annoyed.
The second interviewer and I walk to the interview room, and when we get there, there is a group of people using the room. She apologizes and says it won’t be long. Five minutes later and ~40 minutes after I was supposed to start, we’re in but no lead interviewer.
I just politely said ‘Sorry but I don’t think this will work, bad timekeeping usually leads to bad work. Thank you for offering me an interview, but I won’t be continuing.’
Left before the lead interviewer even came back and started my four-hour journey back home. I think because it was for an entry-level position they thought I was desperate and would take it. No one deserves to have that treatment.”
He Saw Through The Lies
“I went to an interview for what was advertised as a marketing manager job. Showed up and was shown into a room with like 15 other people. After about 10 minutes, some dude comes in and starts trying to sell everyone on this telemarketing job. As soon as I realized what it was I just stood up and headed for the door. The dude trying to trick everyone into taking his horrible job says something like, ‘Is there a problem?’,
To which I replied, ‘Yeah, I don’t think this job is for me.’
He made some smart response but I was already out the door.
Makes me wonder how many people get tricked into these jobs with false advertising saying you can make ‘up to’ $1,500/week, and calling the positions things like ‘sales managers’ when you are really just calling people that hate to receive your calls to sell them trash they neither want nor need.”
“I Just Made Up An Excuse To Leave”
“I responded to a listing for an ad nearby for a rubber extruder. There wasn’t really any detail about the job, but I was cool with a menial labor job just to make some money. They called me back, and the woman on the phone kept boasting about my impressive resume (it wasn’t impressive at all, it is actually mediocre).
So I get there and find out it’s a hiring agency. I am being interviewed by a girl my age who knows absolutely nothing about the job. They didn’t ask me any questions about myself, my previous experience, or anything. Then she started to talk about the position and said I would be working in an area with carbon dust and I would need proper PPE. I asked if it was provided or if I would need to pay for it, and she didn’t know. I asked if she could find out, but she said she couldn’t. I asked what the risks were with carbon dust, and she had no clue, I asked if there were any other dangerous materials, she didn’t answer.
She then tries to get me to go through all their online training modules on their computers, and I just made up an excuse to leave and never did it.”
Nobody Was Excited
“I had recently lost my job due to a disability and was looking for something better suited to my needs. I was contacted by email by a company called American Income Life. I’d never heard of them, but I was having a really hard time getting anywhere in my job search, so I decided to jump for it. When they sent me the address, I was skeeved by the fact that they didn’t have an official business address and that they were in a random business park without any signage. Again, desperate, I decided I was already there, so why not try it out?
As directed, I go to the top floor of the building, which is COMPLETELY empty save for one single office suite. My skeptic meter is going crazy at this point, but again, sunk cost. I walk into what I ASSUMED to be a one-on-one interview and was met with loud music (DJ Khaled comes to memory), surrounded by people in cheap suits filling out forms.
I’m mostly just curious at this point, so I decide to stick around for ‘my’ interview. I lie about everything during my interview, using all kinds of buzzwords, and I’m moved to the next interview in an hour. I was REALLY trying to leave, but I felt like I was undercover and I had already wasted my day to do this. So I went to the'”second interview’ and was led down a hall covered wall-to-wall in photos of men in cheap clothes posing with cars and money.
I enter a room that looks like a small college lecture hall and sit at a table. As soon as more people have settled in, I hear the loud party music again, and a dude with a terrible fade haircut runs to the front of the room and says, ‘ARE YOU GUYS EXCITED?’
At this point, I realize that this is an insurance scam/pyramid scheme.
Now, I’m shaking because I’m so angry. We’re instructed to take a pop quiz on what makes a great company that’s loaded with strange questions. I text a friend to call me and say I have an emergency. She calls me, and I get up to leave. Immediately, Fade Man stops me and says, ‘Where are you going?’ and I know I’m being called out. I mumble something about an emergency and bolt down the hallway and out the door.
I’m absolutely livid at this point, so I decide to use my quiz to make a sign for any unsuspecting suckers that might get roped into it. I write ‘AMERICAN INCOME LIFE IS A SCAM’ and post it in the elevator.
About 20 minutes later, I receive a call from Fade Man asking what happened. I freaking ripped him apart. I told him how difficult it was for me to be job searching in my condition and how much energy getting to a freaking interview cost me. At the end of my spiel, he begs me to take a position in HR as long as I don’t tell anybody. I hang up.
AN HOUR LATER, he calls me back begging me to take a job in HR. I’m dead freaking serious. I told him to stop insulting me and to take me off his call list.”