Likable Enough To Not Get Hired
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“Shady dude was the only person there in a literally empty storefront (the job was for computer repair). We actually sort of hit it off, got into a long discussion about music production and he actually burned me a couple of CDs of pirated software for my studio. Then he explained that the job was really bad and I should find something else. Found out later that the whole business was a scam and he embezzled a bunch of money and ran off without paying his employees. He was working the Work to Welfare program apparently…he was supposed to be training welfare recipients in computer repair but was actually just pocketing the money, nobody got trained and nobody got paid.
Dude must have genuinely liked me so he didn’t hire me. Luckily the software was actually legit, I used it for years.”
He Got A Heads Up About The Company
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“Went in for a job in management. The interview went extremely well, the interviewer was pleasant to talk to, was offering about 75k a year and on the surface, everything looked great.
I had multiple interviews so the whole process took about 2 hours. At one point I went to the bathroom for a small break, and outside to smoke when I was approached by the manager of the communications department. We talked for a few minutes, I couldn’t help but notice the fact that this guy looked absolutely miserable.
Eventually, he tells me, ‘No matter what, absolutely do not accept this job, you’ll work 80 hour weeks, they’ll always have an excuse to why you can’t take your vacation days, they’ll never let you take a sick day, and you’ll get chewed out 24/7 by upper management.’
Surely it couldn’t be so bad. Feeling awkward I went back to the office 5 minutes before my break was over only to hear this crazy screaming in the office. I gave it a peak and the interviewer was screaming so hard his face was bright red and veins popping out of his neck.
Apparently, the intern was a minute late on his break???? So yeah, noped out after I witnessed that.”
All The Luxuries You Need So You Never Have To Leave!
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“I had a weird experience when I interviewed for a large (top 5) bank. I was met at reception and taken into the employee’s area where the guy interviewing me was showing me around before the interview. At first, it didn’t seem too bad:
Him: ‘We have a two-story gym with an Olympic sized swimming pool’
Okay, cool. I wouldn’t mind getting to work an early, dodging the commuters rush, and hitting the gym.
Him: ‘We have our own on-site doctor and dentistry office as well’
Okay, that could save you time if you’re not massively ill, I guess.
Him: ‘This is the canteen, it serves 5 different types of cuisine, which rotates weekly’
Okay, that’s cool, variation at lunch is always nice. Then it started to get weirder.
Him: ‘This is our own private Insert largest supermarket chain in the country store. So employees can do their grocery shopping here.’
Okay… I mean I saw one literally 2 blocks away, why would you need one in the building?
Him: This is our break room, we have televisions, sofas, tables, recreational games, vending machines.’
Okay… why do the recreational games look like they’ve never been used, why do the vending machines have toothbrushes, toothpaste, vacuum packed pillows and blankets, etc?
Him: ‘Here are the gender-segregated dorms, where you can take a rest if you need to.’
Okay, I see what this is… The shops are there because they’re 24 hours, the one down the road isn’t. The doctors and dentists are here because you don’t actually have time to go see your doctor or dentist. No one uses the recreational room, because no one has time for recreation. The dorms are because you’re not expecting people to leave.”
He Quickly Realized The Work Load Would Be Too Heavy… And Dangerous
“I’m an Engineer ’09 grad and applied to work as an engineer for a coal mine. They took us for an underground tour, essentially making sure nobody freaked out. One of the guys who had been there a long time was leading us… with a bad limp I might add and said ‘it’s not if you will be hurt, but when and how bad.’
This wasn’t very long after a safety meeting talking about a guy who crushed himself operating heavy equipment at another site a few days before.
I have to say, their offer was $65k to a new grad and that would have been sweet. Took a few years before my base salary exceeded that. But 12 hour days just wasn’t appealing either, including the fact that they can call you in at any time even weekends and they wanted to know when you were leaving town at all.
I will say it gave me a great perspective and respect for the guys that work in mines. They make good money and darn well should.”
She Knew Where She Should Be Standing
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“Worked as an announcer at a college radio station for 2 years and then took a year abroad.
The radio station had a great reputation on campus because it was one of the harder jobs to land, but due to the fact they received so many applications, they didn’t have much motivation to treat their staff well or pay them well at all and the quality manager was a complete and absolute hag to the student announcers. She never recognized quality work and was always hypercritical of them every time they went on air. The only reason they took the abuse was because they didn’t know any better. Definitely overworked and underpaid. Some of the girl employees would cry regularly.
Well, I got back from my year abroad and I had an email waiting for me saying they would love to have me back and if I wanted the job to come by and say so.
I thought I’ll give them a second chance.
Showed up and the quality manager greeted me with open arms and was beyond nice to me, asking how my year abroad was, etc. Well as I answered her she literally started correcting my word choice, asked me to project better, etc.
Then she 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 and asked if Scott (the general manager) was around. She pages his office as we continue talking and when he gets there I shake his hand and talk casually with him for a while so he knows I’m not just in a bad mood, and then I plainly said with her standing right there:
‘And while I would love to come back to this job and work for you again, I would rather die than work under this soul-sucking employee you’ve put 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, shook his hand, and left.
I got a call the next day from the quality manager apologizing if she was too ‘harsh’, that 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.
First time I stood up for myself in a work environment and last time I was ever disrespected.”
He Wouldn’t Believe How Strange This Place Would Be
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“I’m an accountant. I walked into this company for a job interview and knew something was off.
It was on the 40th floor in downtown San Francisco.
Had like 6 offices. Had 2 corner offices. Had a section of the office that had 10 cubicles. Had a boardroom that can seat 14.
Unfortunately had no employees. Just like 4. The ‘president’ was an expert in his field. At one time. Now he’s old and should have been in a nursing home. He had 3 ‘secretaries.’ These people were supposed to be servicing over 300 clients money. How? Something was fishy.
Turned out later I learn from someone that he was stealing money to finance his lifestyle. Which at one point was extravagant but he was at the tail end of his scam. He was borrowing money to keep it up. He was being investigated by the IRS (someone blew the whistle) but IRS never followed up until someone reported him because he was essentially running a money management firm without a license. Then it all came down. By then, he was so old he couldn’t stand trial. His secretaries pleaded ‘we didn’t know’ and had been bleeding him dry by making him sign random stuff. He died one day. It was sad. He got away with everything. S
I did dodge a bullet.”
Really? Just A “Way To Draw Potential Candidates?”
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“After college, I was desperate for a job and threw my resume everywhere. I got a call from a company and I thought it was a graphic design position (I majored in history but had a knack for graphic design, so I was amazed I got a call.)
Well, I got there and was immediately told it was a Christian telemarketing company and I’d be a telemarketer making commission. I said the position was clearly for graphic design and the woman told me it was to ‘draw potentially talented candidates in’. They showed me a list of all the charities they telemarket for and I recognized none of them. They weren’t religious either. They wouldn’t let me take home anything that said charity names on them, but I memorized a few and couldn’t find anything about these ‘charities’ when I looked them up at home.
I tried to be as polite as possible through the 2-hour ordeal which had me shadowing a telemarketer, who told me that elderly people were the best to get money out of.
I have absolutely no idea why they kept pitching they were a Christian company when what they were doing was so un-Biblical, but I digress.
It’s been 5 years since I interviewed there. I happened to go by the building a few months ago and it’s now a medical center. I wonder what happened…”
Sold To Him As A Life-Altering Career
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“I should have known better, but it was one of those door-to-door lawn cutting and window washing summer jobs, where there’s a recruiter that kind of just hangs around Universities looking for people to sign up.
The job is marketed as ‘managing a small group of workers, set your own hours, own your own section of the city, make up to $16,000 this summer! No door-to-door sales, great managerial experience, etc, etc.’
I was just like, ‘eh… whatever, let’s just see where this goes.’
As soon as I started the interview, the guy gave me a pamphlet with random stats about the company and said ‘read over this for a few minutes, then we’ll do a mock scenario.’
I read it over, and go ‘okay, I’ve read it over!’
And he goes: ‘Okay, pretend I’m a customer who just opened their door and you need to convince me that I want your window-washing service – GO!’
So I start panicking, fumbling the pamphlet, just reading off random stats… he then whispers ‘make… the… sale…’ and I’m just like ‘so choose us to wash your windows!’
He goes – ok looks like you’ve got the job! And then he gave me this giant contract.
I brought it home, showed my dad, and he was like ‘ya this is a complete scam and robbery – it says right here if you’re 1 minute late to work, you owe the company $80; you need your own transport, it’s definitely a door-to-door sales, no guaranteed pay, no overtime pay, no guaranteed employees. You have to buy your own supplies… this is like a really bad pyramid scheme.’
The guy called my house asking if I was still interested, and my dad just grabbed the phone and reamed him out: ‘Instead of preying on college students with fake promises while not providing even a website or a portfolio of work and then demanding a signed contract, why don’t you just leave us alone.'”
Multiply Strikes Against Them
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“Walked into a rapid-fire panel interview. Took about a half hour of me basically guessing my way through questions I didn’t know the answer to for the panel to ask me what position I was there for. I was interviewing for a position as a mechanical engineering intern (sophomore in college). They thought I was there to interview for an intermediate electrical engineer position. They apparently hadn’t even looked at my resume. Then I was given a tour by a younger employee that informed to me that there are daily 6 am and 6 pm meetings that you have to be present for or call into if you are taking a vacation day. Oh, and you only get paid for 8 hours a day. They were also the lowest hourly offer of any of the internships I applied for.
I told them no.”
What Was That Number Again??
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“Graduated college with a teaching degree and a bunch of video production experience (shot college events, cut them into presentations and posterity videos, ran the college television station, etc.).
Interviewed with my state teachers union association. They posted an ad in the paper looking for someone to cover their events; drive to the capital, film the event, interview attendees, bring the footage back, cut it into three different videos: one for internal use, one for TV and one for the website. Also, write articles for the website about said event. 3-5 days a week job, 7 hours a day, most weekends. Oh, and the capital is at least an hour and a half drive from here.
This interview goes on for an hour. Finally, it’s question time. I asked if there would be benefits. She laughed. I asked about salary. She stifles a laugh. Then she says, ‘We were thinking three hundred.’
That number rolls around my head. There’s no way she said three hundred.
Me: ‘Three hundred?’
Her: ‘That’s right.’
Me: ‘A week?!’
Her: ‘No! No, maybe three hundred a month?’
Me: ‘Will you cover expenses? Driving, hotels, editing equipment, filming equipment?’
Her: ‘We figured you’d bring that stuff from home.’
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.”
Pushed Over The Acceptable Edge
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“The interview was doing a corporate, behind-the-scenes kind of role for a shoe company. I wore their shoes (I had some in the back of my closet) and a corporate looking simple black dress and black jacket. This is important to note for later – I didn’t look offensive, I looked respectable for the role I was applying to, and the outfit showed their shoes.
So I get into my interview, it’s with a brother and a sister who control the brand since their granddad passed it down to them. We go through the normal questions, I pull up some numbers and campaigns they’ve run and discussed it with them as well as a vision for their future.
Then out of nowhere, the brother says, ‘but you’re not a FASHIONISTA!’ He practically spits out the last word. I’m really taken back because I don’t need to be in the role I applied for. ‘You don’t have a fashion blog, how can you understand fashion?’ and then he goes on a mini-rant wondering ‘how can I possibly understand their brand?!’
I knew it had tanked at this point, and it wasn’t an industry I normally work in so I took a risk and decided to burn future bridges. I took one of my pumps off and waved it in there. ‘What is this thing?!’ I said dramatically. ‘Does it belong on my feet? I don’t understand, is it feet clothes?’
His sister tried deescalating the situation at that point but it was done.
I have never, ever done anything like that. Lots of other interviews have passed me where we both knew it wasn’t the right fit but we’ve always gone through the motions.
I checked in a few months later. They promoted one of their shoe designers to the role. The brand is not doing well.”
They Needed A Lot More Help
“I prepared for an interview a few weeks ago, worked on what to say for a couple of days and as usual got pretty worked up and nervous beforehand. I go to the interview where the guy sits me down and tells me this is nothing more than just a quick informal chat (and here’s me in a full suit sweating so bad after having prepared 100 questions/answers in my head).
He then proceeds to say that I’m not suitable for the job I have applied for, he thinks I’m overqualified, but he is thinking about creating a different position in the company I can fill. I ask what the position is, he rambles for a good 20 minutes straight (no joke) about me filling a new job but the job doesn’t yet have a training scheme or any kind of official description/documentation. He wants me, as part of the job, to create the job’s training scheme for the job I’m literally learning to do.
I’m sat there confused beyond all reason, he hasn’t got any notes with him and is just improvising this entire ‘job description’ where I, as a fresh graduate, am in charge of 38 people’s IT systems on my own with no proper experience. I ask what the pay and hours are, ‘oh, I haven’t even thought about that yet.’
So I went for an interview that wasn’t even a proper interview or related to the job I’d applied for. Such a waste of time.”
The Worst Possible Twist
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“Applied for a job in Clearwater, FL. It was a medical device company and I was applying for the IT position. The in-person interview was normal enough got passed through to a secondary interview. At the start of the secondary was asked to take some tests. I think no big deal, been there done that with other jobs. They hand me a literal book-sized stack of papers with hundreds of questions. I look down at the bottom of the sheet and in small print, it stated that this test was created based on the concepts of L. Ron Hubbard and printed by The Church of Scientology…
I stood up…put the stack back on the ladies desk and noped right out of there. Honestly had a bit of a weird vibe when I got there…but the money seemed good so I stuck it out. Should have listened to the vibe in all honesty.”
He Thought He Should Probably Be Getting Paid More
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“I was being headhunted from my then current job as a manager in a small but busy and successful café to work for this large, posh hotel.
They phoned me and said that they had found my stored CV online (which I hadn’t removed since finding employment) and that one of their board members had been impressed with me as a customer in the café. They offered me an interview and a job with potential to move up etc and that I’d be starting as the restaurant manager on great pay, benefits etc.
It sounded great and I was quite pleased that I had just been headhunted for the first time, I went along to the interview which was within the restaurant I’d potentially be working. I turn up in my best suit and this guy comes to interview me wearing jeans and a polo shirt.
Very shortly into the suspiciously informal interview, the guy says to me ‘ok the job is yours, I can get you a uniform and you can start whenever it suits you.’ At this point, I’m like what do you mean uniform and he points out the waiters and waitresses walking about in pinstripe shirts with huge long aprons. I asked what he meant and told him I was asked to come here because of my managerial experience etc. The guy replies ‘yes, potentially, in the near future but you’d have to start out on the floor first.’
I thanked him and went home. Told my boss about it and he gave me a raise. When I left that job around a year later, he put an extra £250 cash in with my wages and threw a leaving party in the café for me. Told me to invite all my friends and family and it was a free bar all day and night. Best boss ever. So glad to have worked for him.”
One Of Those “Out Of Office” Interviews
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“First job interview out of college and it was for an account manager job that clearly said it was an office job where you make some cold calls, keep the customer happy, etc. Show up in a suit and tie and as I’m sitting in the lobby another guy shows up interviewing for the job as well. The lady then decided to take us both to Panera and interviews both of us at the same time. She then starts going on about the job saying it’s best to wear shorts and comfortable shoes since we will be going door to door 6 days a week, 8am-8pm trying to get people to switch their gas and electric provider…
After she said that I kind of tuned out and stopped caring what she said. As soon as we got back to the office parking lot she wanted us to come in and explain how after all this work we can end up being district managers making 80k and all this other bull crap. I instead said no thank you, went to my car and drove off depressed that I fell for that scam.”