Funny / Interesting Interview / Training stories

[Tweak155]

Inspired by: This thread

The story can be personal or about someone else. You can be the one hiring or you can be the interviewee (also the hiring manager can look stupid too ) Don't be afraid to look stupid, we have to be stupid before we can be smart... or something!

Interview:

When I was interviewing for my first job as a teenager, one of the questions the lady asked me was "If you found $20 on the ground, what would you do with it?". Being a dumb teenager I was thinking "pocket that!" but I responded like "return it to the desk (customer service desk)" but my face sure showed I was lying. The lady laughed at me but offered me the gig. Interesting enough - I ended up working for that company for 10 years as I worked my way to their world headquarters.

Training:

After I got selected for the job above (it was just a retail/service gig), one of the guys in the training room kept asking questions about the benefits. The trainer kept trying to teach us something (like how to use the register) and when she asked "Any questions?" the kid would raise his hand and just say "do family members get benefit x/y?". She eventually was like save all your questions for after the training session.

Story 2:
Years later after I was at the headquarters, I was training this guy for an IT position he was filling as an agency worker. The dude had serious flatulence issues that made the whole place smell REALLY bad. Since we were all professionals no one said a word at the time (his.. body functions were dead silent). But after he left we all had to talk about almost dying. The dude was real nice though, he just never excused himself for whatever reason...



Yeah my stories are lame but the ones in the other thread were pretty good - share yours!

 

[kranky]

Interviewed a woman for an entry-level position. There were 4 candidates, all of whom had just graduated from the same tech school. She was the last one to interview.

Wore her raincoat during the interview though I had offered to hang it up for her. Odd, but whatever.

Obviously was trying to give answers that she thought we wanted to hear, leading to contradictions. At one point she said how much she liked working in a team. A little while later she said she did better working alone. She didn't even notice the contradiction.

The nature of the job sometimes requires people to redo work because something has changed. Perhaps changing it 3 or 4 times. It can irritate some people and I like to know if that's the case. So I asked her "If you spent three days preparing a report that you knew was done very well, and someone told you much of the information had changed which meant you had to redo your report, how would you feel?"

She said she would be very sad because of the days of wasted time, and would want to know who was responsible so they could be reported.

That was a red flag - I never said anyone had done anything wrong. Sometimes things get changed, it's nobody's fault, but some work might have to be redone. And you don't wail about it, you simply redo it because that's what needs to be done. And the eagerness to report someone? Where did that come from?

Given that answer and the contradictions in her other answers, I hired someone else. And four months later got a call from the company lawyer because she went to the EEOC and wanted to sue because she had the highest GPA of all the candidates but wasn't the one hired. Once we met with the EEOC lawyer and I told the story they dropped it, but it cost us about $10,000 in legal fees.

On another note, I work hard to put people at ease during an interview as it helps me get a better picture of who they really are (not just their "interview facade"). I might even downplay my own role in the company to make it sound like I'm just one of the gang, which has sometimes gotten people to really let it all hang out.

Examples:
1. Hey, man, are they real picky about people being on time? I am usually out pretty late and mornings are tough for me.
2. I live 30 miles away and don't like driving in the snow. On days when it snows, can I use vacation days without advance notice?
3. Are you a clock-watcher or do you only care if the work gets done?
4. Can I work 4 to midnight even if nobody else does? That would be better for me.
5. I'm kind of a slow learner compared to other people but I do catch on eventually.
6. (After discussing the starting salary) I would be OK with that, but I would expect a 50% raise after the first year when you see how good I am.

 

[esun]

Had a guy a few months back that was so nervous he was literally sweating on my keyboard (for the coding questions we have them write some code on a laptop). He kept trying to wipe it off as he was typing, but I still had to wipe it down afterwards.

 

[Tweak155]

Had a guy a few months back that was so nervous he was literally sweating on my keyboard (for the coding questions we have them write some code on a laptop). He kept trying to wipe it off as he was typing, but I still had to wipe it down afterwards.

That's kinda nasty. I might put plastic over my keyboard lol.

 

[blackdogdeek]

When interviewing for a Unix SA position, my buddy was asked what his favorite shell was. He was so nervous he said Porn Shell.

One guy at one of the IBs I worked at got onto a production trading IRC Foreign Exchange channel and chatted "I buy 6 billion" thinking it was just a test environment. It took a while for them to back out the fake trade and he was forevermore known as the 6 billion dollar man.

Another time, this same guy got onto another production trading channel and asked "are there any pretty women here?" That earned him some HR time.

Good times.

 

[Tweak155]

When interviewing for a Unix SA position, my buddy was asked what his favorite shell was. He was so nervous he said Porn Shell.

One guy at one of the IBs I worked at got onto a production trading IRC Foreign Exchange channel and chatted "I buy 6 billion" thinking it was just a test environment. It took a while for them to back out the fake trade and he was forevermore known as the 6 billion dollar man.

Another time, this same guy got onto another production trading channel and asked "are there any pretty women here?" That earned him some HR time.

Good times.

Haha! These cracked me up for some reason... probably because they are funny. Maybe I should add funny work stories... but that could take eons to type out

 

[blackdogdeek]

Haha! These cracked me up for some reason... probably because they are funny. Maybe I should add funny work stories... but that could take eons to type out

The guy in the last two stories performed his feats while still training. He was gifted.

 

[Tweak155]

The guy in the last two stories performed his feats while still training. He was gifted.

Oh, wow, that's even more funny. You got a second laugh out of me.