Job interviews are always nerve-wracking, but sometimes they go so bad you just got to put your hands up and walk away. These folks share the time they walked out in the middle of a job interview. Maybe they dodged a bullet!
Stuck Up Brats
I was interviewing for a position at a very expensive, very famous restaurant in NYC while I was still working another job. I told my boss that I had this opportunity and he and I were totally cool. I’d been working with him at his place for a while but he really just wanted the best for me and gave me his blessing.
‘If you can make more money, go for it dude! Good luck! Lemme know how it goes!’ was his basic sentiment.
So I go into the interview and the guy immediately starts talking to me as though I should feel lucky to be there. He asks how many years I can commit to working there.
‘It depends,’ I tell him. ‘How much can I expect to make in that time?’
He was completely stunned.
‘Well, I’m not going to discuss that with you,’ he says.
‘It seems like you might not be used to this kind of thing for some reason, but if you can’t tell me how much I’m going to be making then why on Earth would I quit my current job?’
‘How would your current employer feel knowing that you’re here interviewing for a different job?’
‘Well, he knows. He and I have professional respect so I was right up front with him about it. I told him I might be able to make more money somewhere and he wished me good luck in the interview. But this isn’t just an interview for me, it’s an interview for you, too. I think it’s fair to talk about what our professional exchange is going to be and to discuss it with mutual respect for each other. So you don’t want to tell me how much people tend to make here?’
‘You would have the honor of working with one of the best chefs in the world.’ This guy used to be a personal chef for Richard Gere or something. I did not care at all.
‘Yeah? Are you telling me you took this job without asking how much you’d make?’
The guy turned red and started to say something that was likely going to be ‘This concludes the interview’ or something like that but I beat him to it.
‘I think I’m gonna head out,’ and I left his turnip-lookin face there.
If the Gods be smiling down upon me and that d-bag happens to read this, I forgot to tell you to lick my salty nuts.
Moronic CEO
“Man I had something similar, the interviewer (who was the CEO) was 25 minutes late, and right when I dropped out of the Webex, he called my cell and asked, ‘Oh you ran off so fast, you need to be more patient.’
I got back on the Webex, and no he didn’t apologize but made fun of me for leaving ‘so quickly.’ Moron. Then next he asked me what he thought the position was, where I read him back the job description, and said I actually had questions about it. His response was ‘everything you need to know is in the job posting, if you had paid attention you wouldn’t have questions.’ He asked me again what the role was for, and didn’t accept my answer. After trying to move on, he was insistent I answer that question. I tried again to no avail (reading back the position he had posted), to which I just said ‘I don’t think this is a right fit, thank you for your time.’
Complete prick, glad the interview went so poorly. I’m sure the position is still empty.”
These People Sound Like Weirdos
“Applied for a receptionist/office assistant position at a health care office. It was presented as a standard interview of one candidate at different interview times, as it was for a professional office assistant – not a position that seemed like it would be appropriate for a group interview – and I walk with around 20-30 other women with the waiting room set up auditorium style.
The medical professional that owned the practice came out and started to give a PowerPoint about how great the practice was and what all the expectations of the role were, and then it started to get weird. They said that the candidate would need to be a morning person, which made total sense as the practice opened early, but then they basically said that you could never sleep in past 6 am, even on the weekends (when the practice was closed) or your days off, as it would affect your circadian rhythms.
They also said that you needed to have a genuinely positive aura or something along those lines and that in addition to the receptionist and office admin work you’d also be expected to do sales including a quota, by upselling more expensive services or additional services, which was never mentioned in the job description.
After all that, they said that people would be called two by two into a back room for a further screening process, but that if it didn’t sound like the right fit for you, you were welcome to get up and go. Only me and one other woman left, and about 15 minutes later on my drive home, I got a voicemail from the healthcare professional saying that he felt I had genuinely positive energy (without ever speaking to me) and that he would be up for me coming back to interview. I did not go back, and a month later they sent me a card in the mail thanking me for attending but letting me know that I didn’t get the job.”
He Didn’t Even Make It To The Interview!
“This happened eight years ago in Boston, MA, USA. I honestly don’t recall the name of the company or industry. I was scheduled for the interview through a temp agency and had really only been told the bare minimum.
I wasn’t informed about the evidently very strict building security prior to the interview. The front door was practically unmarked, and you had to swipe a card to get in, but there was no intercom. The elevator required a card as well, but the stairs didn’t. HOWEVER, no one informed me that the stairwells are locked from the outside, meaning I was locked in the stairwell with no way to get out.
I called the recruiter over and over, and even called the front desk, but they just kept putting me on hold instead of sending someone to let me in at the correct floor. I ended up getting a call from the recruiter while STILL STUCK IN THE STAIRWELL telling me they would not be going forward with the interview because I was late.
I almost screamed, and asked her as calmly as I could manage if she had gotten any of the messages I left for her letting her know I was presently stuck in the stairwell with no way to get out. She said she hadn’t, and said it was too late anyway because they had gone with another candidate. She almost hung up before I could yell (probably too loudly), ‘THEN CAN SOMEONE PLEASE COME FREE ME FROM THE STAIRWELL SO I CAN LEAVE??’
They sent security to get me, and I was treated like a criminal as I was led from the building. I have never been so confused, humiliated, and angry in my entire life. I left them a scathing review on Glassdoor.”
I Lost My Interview So You Can Lose Your Job
“A jumpy security guard made me walk away before I even got in the building for an interview. I followed the instructions I was sent by the hiring manager which was to park in the designated guest spaces. I pulled in when along comes this security guard on an obvious power trip.
This fat bozo came charging out of the building yelling at me when I was barely out of the car about how I couldn’t park there. The dude was seriously blowing spit everywhere. Like calm down buddy, but he wouldn’t stop. Then when I raised my voice just to try and get him to listen he started yelling at me even more for yelling at him. It was like trying to talk to a yapping dog.
Eventually when I got to tell him that I was told to park there, he called the hiring manager and started yelling at them about how I’d been yelling at him. I mean I know the security guard is with the building and not the company, but I was so ticked off and it completely threw off my balance for this interview. Part way through that phone call I thought ‘Nah, forget this,’ got back in the car and drove off.
The hiring manager called me to apologise and asked if I’d come back. I politely declined saying I wanted nothing to do with that security guard again. I get the feeling that guy definitely got fired.”
Perfect Response
“Happened fairly recently. Made it to the third interview for a large company. The first two they told me what my role would be, base pay + commission, told me they were so excited to have me on board because of my experience.
So I sit down for the third interview. They again go over my role, my pay, etc. They say they’re prepared to offer me that job right now and had the paperwork ready since this morning. BUT THEN. They say, ‘But we already hired someone for that. So instead what we’d like you to do is..’ and proceeded to tell me the pay was less than half what they were already offering me prior for a lot more work. Basically, I went from being offered a management job to just being asked to train all the new employees they just hired then step down to cashier for $10 per hour. And no guaranteed hours. My jaw dropped.
I stood up and told them I was worried I was wasting their time prior to this interview because I wasn’t entirely sold on the job yet. But after today, it’s become pretty apparent you guys were the ones wasting my time instead. No thank you. So I left.
About an hour later I got a phone call asking for a fourth interview. They called almost every day for two weeks asking me to come back and talk to the owner. No dice, folks. Ya’ll had your chance!”
Gatekeeping Girlboss
“Showed up to this office for an interview and the woman at the front desk greeted me while I waited to be called in. I introduced myself and handed her my resume, waited and kind of just twiddled my thumbs for a few minutes. That’s it! Once I got into the actual interview, I saw that she had taped a bright pink note to my resume that read, ‘Has the personality of a rock.’
Okay, lady. All I’ve done is hand you my resume and say hello? How this judgemental woman determined that from our brief introductory exchange was beyond me at the time. The interviewer saw my facial expression when I saw the note. I thanked him for his time and left.
I later found out (a couple of years later, when I worked with a former employee of that firm) that the woman at the front desk was in fact the boss’s wife. Talk about stuck-up nepotism. No wonder I didn’t get the job. That insecure hag apparently had a husband with a wandering eye. So instead of dealing with her own drama, she made it to where any woman who was thin, young, or single, couldn’t get a job. Just completely spiteful stuff. So glad I didn’t get the job anyway.
This happened close to 30 years ago when I was starting out in my career. I assume the boss and his wife are deceased or at least retired by now. The firm still exists, but clearly, policies have changed as their staff is quite diverse – including several younger women.”
“I Don’t Work For Free.”
“I have one. A while back, at a time when jobs were somewhat tougher to get, I landed an interview for a pretty decent job. I’m not usually all that great during interviews (who is?) but the first interview went great, couldn’t have gone better. I really hit it off with the guy and as it was wrapping up I thought I had it in the bag. Then he asked me to come in at six o’clock the following morning to ‘meet with the guy you’ll be training with if you get the job so he can show you around.’ I had no problem with that so I said OK, fine.
I show up at six on Friday morning, go inside and ask for the guy. He comes over, looks at me and says ‘that’s what you’re wearing? You got work gloves?’. I said uh, maybe in my car, but I don’t typically bring work gloves to job interviews. He proceeds to start barking out orders, like get this, get that, carry this, put this over there and etc. I’m confused but OK, whatever. Then he leads me over to his work van, we get in, and he starts driving his daily route.
I’m thinking OK, he’s just showing me what a typical stop on a route is like, so I’m sitting there, paying attention. He’s continuing to bark out orders and getting exasperated, like I’m slowing him down. Then we go to another stop, then another. Then he says ‘we gotta pick up the pace here, I want to get done by 3 because I’m going skiing this weekend.’
So I say ‘whoa, whoa, you do realize that I do not officially work here yet, right?’. He gives me this look, then says this is like their audition and they do it all the time. So I reply ‘oh, I’m sorry but I don’t work for free. You were supposed to show me around and you did that. I haven’t signed anything, no one knows I’m even here, I have no recourse in the event of a mishap and I’m not on the clock. So let’s wrap this up, bring me back to my car now.’
He was fuming and saying ‘guess you don’t want the job that bad’ and etc. and complaining about how his Friday was ruined now. I was even more angry, though, about the scam they were running there. I went home and ratted them out to the State Department of Labor.”
From Interviewing To Arguing
“I used to work at one of the corporate Bank of America offices in business operations, left for another job, and wasn’t happy there so I wanted to come back to BoA.
Got the interview, went in, and there was the hiring manager and one of her colleagues/peers.
Manager: ‘So… tell me about yourself.’
Me: ‘I most recently worked at a blank, doing XYZ, etc etc etc and before that, I actually worked here. You know that office as you round the security desk? That was my office. I did XYZ, this was who I worked with, before that I worked in this other dept at BoA before I got promoted.’
Manager: ‘hold on… why isn’t that on your resume?’
Me: ‘My resume is already two pages, and I only listed my last position as that’s the title I had when I left.’
Queue to her staring to argue with me about concealing my job history and me arguing back with her about how resumes are written, I put all three positions I had held previously when I applied, and it went on for 10 minutes.
After her colleague finally interrupted us and calmed her down and agreed that I was right, I got up and said ‘I’m not interested in working for you nor do I want this job. If this is how you are in an interview I can’t imagine reporting to you and how miserable I’d be every day I worked here.’
She started to try to say something, and I cut her off to say ‘I’m done here, bye.'”
A Little Discriminatory Aren’t We?
“I was 19, and pretty crafty. I thought it would be cool to work at a store that fits my interests. So, Jo-Ann Fabric here I come. I get to the interview and something seemed off. I show up dressed nice, for an interview and just got the stink eye from the manager. I am led back to the office, all the while the manager is trying to get me to tell her something. I didn’t catch on until later in the interview. It was going well, and she seemed like she liked me and my experience. That is until the little hints didn’t work.
She straight up asked me if I was gay, and if my partner knew I was here. I am a straight man. I was in shock until I realized she was being serious, and I wasn’t getting further in the interview if I didn’t tell her I was gay.
Flabbergasted, I got up, told her I thought her preconceptions were going to hurt her and left.
It was the weirdest thing I have experienced in an interview. After talking to others that worked there, the guys straight up lied to get the job. She only hired gay guys, because straight guys wouldn’t know anything about crafts, and were only trying to hook up.”
“You Can’t Quit!”
“I was interviewing as a preschool/daycare teacher. When I arrived, I walked down a dark stairway and found two plastic chairs in a hallway. (There was no door between my car and the chairs – I was kind of still ‘outside’).
One of the chairs had a clipboard on it with the same blank application I had filled out online. I figured that was for me and started filling it out (again). I hadn’t seen anyone or been greeted, and it was eerily quiet.
While I was filling it out, a room teacher (early 20s) walked out of a room with a long line of 5-year-olds holding hands. The teacher didn’t make eye contact with me, but every single one of the kids did. I smiled, but they didn’t. No one said a word.
(Do you know how difficult it is to get a group of happy 5-year-olds to be silent?)
At that point, I realized that an adult (me) was on the premises and no one seemed to know or care. That’s a bit of a safety issue at a school/daycare. It’d only been about 15 minutes so I just kept observing and filling out the redundant application.
That’s when I heard the lady who I assume was the director ask to have someone put on the phone. From behind her closed door, I could hear her start screaming at this person things like ‘You can’t quit!… You know you need the money!… It’s better than nothin’, innit?… Who else am I supposed to get?!’. When I say screaming, I mean full-on sweaty Chris Farley LOUD. She was also berating this person in between trying to convince her to keep working there – the whole (half) of the conversation was just beyond unprofessional and desperate and bizarre.
At that point, I realized that whatever was going on at this place, I didn’t want to get involved. Since no one had acknowledged me yet, I set the clipboard quietly down on the chair and started back up the stairs. Then I realized that my name/contact info was on the paper so I grabbed it and took it with me. From my car, I couldn’t see the teacher who’d walked up the same stairs a few minutes before me, and I couldn’t see or hear any kids at all.
I kind of wish I knew if whoever was supposed to interview me ever tried to. The teacher had to have at least seen me sitting in the hallway when she walked past, and the paper application that was on the clipboard would’ve been missing. No one tried to reschedule with me though, so maybe the director-lady was convincing over the phone. Or maybe the whole thing was a fever dream? IDK, but I’m glad I had the sense and the confidence to NOPE outta there.”
Don’t Hire Kids
“As the Interviewee, never.
As the interviewer:
My boss signed me up for a surprise interview for someone whose resume I already rejected. The guy was still in college, lived 120 miles away, had no relevant experience, and somehow got into our recruiting system for a full time engineering position. My boss (who was an absolute maniacal idiot) gave me zero notice for the interview. The candidate stepped out of a taxi (he didn’t have his driver’s license and the company paid for a taxi), looked like he hadn’t showered in a while, slouched, and didn’t even shake my hand. I brought him to a conference room. He sat down, slouched more, and acted disinterested. I gave him the typical “test questions” and he failed all of them spectacularly. I could barely understand his English, so I asked if English was his primary language. He replied with “Yeah, only language” with an attitude. I had enough and couldn’t stand this guy. I walked out to the receptionist and told her to send my boss in to deal with him.
Here’s the kicker. My stupid boss sent him a job offer for $90k/yr, full benefits, even after I told recruiting that the candidate was not qualified, not able to drive, still in college, lived 120 miles away, and had a bad attitude. The kid declined the offer because he couldn’t commute. My brain wanted to implode.”
What Do You Mean There Is No Position?
“It was also a mailroom manager position. A very high level person was leading the interview. She’d flown in from HQ in another state to help out with staffing this location, which was new and not open yet. A couple of local people were also present.
It was going very strangely. All the questions were incredibly easy. After not even 10 minutes, she said to me, ‘Frankly, I have to ask – why do you want this job? You’re way too overqualified to be in this role.’
I paused. Then I said ‘You know, your questions have kind of made me wonder if we’re discussing the same position. What job do you think I’m here about?’
She told me it was a job where I’d basically be a gopher, distributing mail, and picking up food and acting as a courier. But mostly, I’d be waiting around, and be available to do whatever task might be presented to me. It would also be lots of busy work an admin assistant might do.
I pulled the job ad and my application for it up on my phone, and showed her what I thought I was there for. Mailroom manager.
There was no such position. An error had been made. They had copied and pasted all the stuff from when a different location had opened, and applied it to this location, overlooking that there was no need for a mailroom manager this time – the operation at this location was not large enough to warrant one, or to warrant even having a mail room. That job wasn’t supposed to have been posted. Nobody knew it had been. And nobody knew how I’d even made it to this point in the hiring process. I’m guessing a lot of it was automated, and then finalized by someone out of the loop in another state.
She was irritated. Not with me, of course. She apologized, took my information, and said she was impressed enough with me to find me something somewhere in the company, but didn’t know what yet. I never did hear back from her, though.”