Worst job interview you ever had.

[ICRS]

This was 5 years ago when I was in college. I was intervieing at Frys electronics. The interview seemed to go well until I had a disaster of a question asked.

"Pretend I am a customer who is purchasing a compaq notebook, try to sell me the protection plan".

My response "Compaq makes real flimsy notebooks. Our protection plans are a must have for these computers. They are made of cheap plastic and will no doubt break on you. With our warrenty you can bring it in and have it fixed and if we can't fix it we will replace it. For these computer a warrenty is as vital as the operating system. I can sefely say that if you don't buy this protection plan you will regret it when this computer breaks, because it will beak"

The interview quickly ended there.

People I have spoken to have express disbelief that I would say that. Saying not only would someone not buy the warrenty they wouldn't even buy product. It was like I was trying to convince them not to buy the notebook.

What about you.

 

[ELopes580]

LOL, wow..... I hate to see how you use to go door to door selling girl scout cookies.

 

[Akiba]

Interviewee: So why do you want to work for XYZ company?

Me: I don't. I'm just using this as a practice interview.

Guy didn't get the joke and I didn't get the job. All the better, don't wanna be working with a bunch of frowning whinos anyway

 

[KillerCharlie]

I had a full day interview (8 hours) for about 4 different engineering position at NASA JSC. It was there I realized how lame NASA actually was. There's nothing worse than pure silence after they ask if I have any questions and I say no.

 

[grrl]

It appears sales is not the field for you.

 

[nageov3t]

burger king in high school.

the friend who recommended me to the store manager had been caught stealing the day before my interview. lol. I got the job, but it felt like I was undergoing an interrogation.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: KillerCharlie
I had a full day interview (8 hours) for about 4 different engineering position at NASA JSC. It was there I realized how lame NASA actually was. There's nothing worse than pure silence after they ask if I have any questions and I say no.

Why? What was lame about it?

 

[AndrewR]

I went for a job interview last year for Booz Allen Hamilton (consulting firm), and I was assured that the fact that I didn't have an engineering background wouldn't be a problem. "BAH hires the person, not the person for a specific job."

First statement from the boss: "So, I see that you're not an engineer."

Pretty much went downhill from there. The good thing was that I received a call about 60 minutes after the interview concluded offering me the job I am currently holding. Otherwise, I would have been really ticked!

 

[Grunt03]

Military Recruiter office......

 

[Ramma2]

Nothing terrible from the interviewee side of things, but as an interviewer I once had a guy tell me that when things were slow at his last job he would watch TV or sleep.

 

[Drakkon]

I was at an interview and the guy interviewing me was about the most unprofessional I'd ever met. He was wearing dingy blue jeans and a polo with stains of some sort. He would not stop answering his PERSONAL cell phone. He would be getting calls from his wife, friends, and I'd have to sit there for 5 minutes while he chatted with them. On top of that he'd come back to me with some illegal question like "do you have kids?" or "do you have a wife?" or "Are you old enough to remember...?".

Recently the most disturbing interview was one I was a part of where after the candidate had left and we were discussing his qualifications my boss actually said "well he has kids so we know hes reliable." And then she started making qualifications based on his family status and a bunch of other personal considerations that she got out of him in no way relating to skills/abilities. I immediately excused myself from the conversation as I sure as heck didn't want to get in trouble.

 

[tfinch2]

Look at the bright side. At least they didn't ask you to spell warranty.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Look at the bright side. At least they didn't ask you to spell warranty.

 

[clamum]

Nothing too bad. While in my last semester of school I interviewed on campus for a software position for this company and I didn't have enough knowledge of certain things regarding development to answer their questions very well. It was a short interview, maybe 20-25 minutes.

Looking back on it and having worked software development for almost a year and a half, I think schools, well at least where I went to college, should definitely include some important topics in their core Computer Science curriculum.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Look at the bright side. At least they didn't ask you to spell warranty.

LOL :laugh:

 

[D1gger]

I was interviewing for a position as an econometrician with the Bank of Canada. It was an all day interview, where I was handed from department to department for intensive exam like questions. Late in the day, they tossed me a softball question:

"Draw a Phillips Curve on this paper and explain the relationship between wage inflation and unemployment"

I totally blanked and ended up drawing the inverse of what the relationship should have been, and then obviously couldn't explain the relationship. Even after a couple of hints I didn't get it right.

I left there feeling exhausted and very embarrassed.

Needless to say, I didn't get the offer.

 

[markgm]

Originally posted by: ICRS
This was 5 years ago when I was in college. I was intervieing at Frys electronics. The interview seemed to go well until I had a disaster of a question asked.

"Pretend I am a customer who is purchasing a compaq notebook, try to sell me the protection plan".

My response "Compaq makes real flimsy notebooks. Our protection plans are a must have for these computers. They are made of cheap plastic and will no doubt break on you. With our warrenty you can bring it in and have it fixed and if we can't fix it we will replace it. For these computer a warrenty is as vital as the operating system. I can sefely say that if you don't buy this protection plan you will regret it when this computer breaks, because it will beak"

The interview quickly ended there.

People I have spoken to have express disbelief that I would say that. Saying not only would someone not buy the warrenty they wouldn't even buy product. It was like I was trying to convince them not to buy the notebook.

What about you.

What's amazing is that's the sales technique that I hear used all the time.

Mine was an interview where I was bored to death. I don't remember the company. When the boss showed me around people were too lazy to even turn around to say hi. When I went back to his office I started to day dream and wondered what would happen if I just got up during the interview and went through his desk drawers. If he asked what I was doing, I was going to say looking for a piece of gum, but I somehow doubted he would have said anything. I remember yawning a few times, not even bothering to cover my mouth or cover up that I was yawning. I was offered the job.

 

[m1ldslide1]

I had an interview set up through a placement agency. It was a sort of commercial type of building near the airport, and I wasn't sure what kind of business it was. I showed up at my interview time, and ended up waiting for over an hour. During this waiting period, it became apparent that the Korean owner worked more or less by himself, except for the guy hanging out in the reception area. This guy explains to me the nuance of the name "Nguyen" and how to pronounce it, tells me how the owner works himself too hard and needs help, and so on. I'm told that the owner is spending time in back with his family and will see me as soon as possible. Then the dude proceeds to pick up a hammer and start banging on a waiting room table for no reason, and smiling at me.

I get in to see the owner finally and he starts asking me questions like "How much experience do you have brokering multi-million dollar deals?" and stuff like that. I'm of course 21 at that time and have given him my resume (the highlight of which is my business degree and typing speed). I try to stammer through some positive answers like "well I've never done that but I'm a great researcher and can learn quickly" and stuff. Never heard from that weirdo operation again. I wonder what their business really was...

 

[sourceninja]

When I was looking to leave my last job, I had some funny interviews. At one of the interviews I 'hired' on the spot during an interview by the HR rep. He said all that was left was to get the papers signed by his boss and give me a start date. I called to check every week to see what the status was. Finally after about 6 MONTHS, I gave up and found my current job. About 6 MONTHS after that I get a call from the HR rep. He wants to know if I can start that next monday. I informed him that I had found another job and was very happy with it. He was offended and sounded angry with me.

 

[BuMMiE]

I think the worst interview story that I've heard was from one of my friends. He's not originally from here so his english isn't perfect. Anyways, during the interview, he was asked "Why do you want to work for this company?" My friend was thinking that he wanted a hands on experience type of job. So he verbalized his reply by saying "I'm looking for a hand job."

 

[RandomFool]

I've had a few interesting interviews. The worst was at Best Buy. They advertised for a computer tech job so I sent them a resume and letter saying I was looking for a summer job doing computer repair. Later in the week I got the call back scheduled an interview. When I got there they took me into a office smaller than my car, that didn't have AC. It must have been 100 degrees in there. Anyway, after a few basic questions I find out:

A. They aren't hiring for a computer tech
B. They aren't hiring anyone for the summer
C. They didn't even look at my information

Apparently, I did good on the personality test thing they give you while filling out the app. After I figured all that out there was like a minute of awkward silence and then I said thank you and goodbye. It was pretty much a complete waste of time and I got all sweaty.

 

[RichUK]

I?ve never had a bad interview. I?m not boasting when I say this, but self-confidence is something I've never lacked in.

 

[PepePeru]

i went into one interview completely unprepared for what i was about to face.
chalk it up to naivete

expecting 1 on 1 or maybe 2 people. i go in theres about 7 people gathered around a table. that threw me off.

first part was technical, like a skill set interview. that went fine. i was able to answer most of their questions, a couple ones they seemed impressed i knew.
then came the 'personal' interview and i completely blew it. bad.

it was so bad, i was so flummoxed, the final question was 'do you have any questions for us?' i couldnt even think of anything and just said 'no, i cannot think of anything'

i didnt get the job, obviously. but i did learn some lessons from that experience, at least.

 

[ElMonoDelMar]

Originally posted by: RichUK
I?ve never had a bad interview. I?m not boasting when I say this, but self-confidence is something I've never lacked in.

It's not always about a lack of self-confidence.

One time I had an interview where I spent a good 5 minutes arguing with the interviewer about whether or not one of my acquaintances was dead or alive. The interviewer was trying to catch me in a lie the whole interview and he really thought he'd found one here. In the end, we agreed to disagree on the "life" status of the person in question. I left that interview stressed and pissed off. I found out later in the day that I was correct and my acquaintance was in fact still sucking air.

 

[evident]

i was interviewing for an exclusive program at my company, but i had to go on business travel on last minute notice. i came back the day of my interview in the morning and had no sleep. they wouldn't reschedule it either... needless to say that didn't go too well at all.