Current Events > Have you ever had any job interviews that have gone terribly?

(+) Yeah! (+)

or any where you thought the interviewer was nasty or mean?

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I had one that was really awful for me. I sat in a room with like 6 people. They would just ask me questions and while I gave an answer they would silently write on their notepads. No follow up - additional detail requests, nada. After I was done speaking they would sometimes silently write for like 45-60 whole seconds. After 20 minutes or so of this the interview was done and that was it.

It was a really weird experience and felt like no interview I've ever done before.

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"How do you deal with people who disagree with you?"

"I explain to them my reasoning."

"So you bully them with logic?"

What the fuck is that shit

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i went into a interview for a promotion totally unprepared and that seemed to piss of the hr guy doing the interview. it was for a team lead position, he asked why i applied and i just blurted out i was tired of grunt work and want to lead the team...

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MC_BatCommander posted...

I had one that was really awful for me. I sat in a room with like 6 people. They would just ask me questions and while I gave an answer they would silently write on their notepads. No follow up - additional detail requests, nada. After I was done speaking they would sometimes silently write for like 45-60 whole seconds. After 20 minutes or so of this the interview was done and that was it.

It was a really weird experience and felt like no interview I've ever done before.

it was a group interview with many applicants? i've had that before

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Squall28 posted...

"How do you deal with people who disagree with you?"

"I explain to them my reasoning."

"So you bully them with logic?"

What the fuck is that shit

yeah a lot of interviewers ask stupid shit

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JebronLames posted...

it was a group interview with many applicants? i've had that before

Nah dude I was by myself with 6 interviewers. One by one they would ask the questions.

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Yes. What I perceived as an ambush interview where one guy sat on the side and tried to blindside me with questions to make me look bad and take me down a peg. I had one of those "NEED SHOWER, STINK OF FAILURE" sensations after leaving.

I interviewed with that company two more times and both times I brought up my bad experience that first time.

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Solid Sonic posted...

Yes. What I perceived as an ambush interview where one guy sat on the side and tried to blindside me with questions to make me look bad and take me down a peg. I had one of those "NEED SHOWER, STINK OF FAILURE" sensations after leaving.

I interviewed with that company two more times and both times I brought up my bad experience that first time.

why would they do that?

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They lost my resume so I said I worked at NASA

I didn't get the job

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JebronLames posted...

why would they do that?

I think it was because I was a fresh graduate trying to get a job and I was selling myself on skills I had learned in college, not in practical application. So they (well really that one guy) was trying to haze me, essentially.

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my potential boss kept asking me questions if Id be able to handle a time-consuming job where you can get called overnight. I kept telling him that Ive already had a similar job for 7 years, that I was young with no kids and had a lot of energy for work yet he still didnt believe me.

When I was like 15 or 16 trying to get a job at Burger King they asked me "if you could break a rule without consequence, what would it be?" and I immediately answered by saying I'd steal from the cash register.
The look the interviewer gave me told me right away I wasnt getting that job.

I interviewed for an outdoor sales role with a Japanese company. The hiring manager asked a series of sexist questions. His first comment when he met me was that he expected a man (my name is foreign and not exactly feminine). Then he started asking me why a woman like me would want a dangerous outdoor sales job, if I was married, if my husband approved (lol wtf), if we had kids, if I had a safe car, what kind of car, etc. Basically every illegal question.

In the end I got the job. For much less money than advertised and on the condition I worked a desk job for the first 6 months. Turned it down easily.

ffmasterjose posted...

When I was like 15 or 16 trying to get a job at Burger King they asked me "if you could break a rule without consequence, what would it be?" and I immediately answered by saying I'd steal from the cash register.
The look the interviewer gave me told me right away I wasnt getting that job.

I mean, why wouldn't you? Lol

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This is like 50% of software engineer interviews
-Assholes who are trying to trip you up with useless gotchas
-Really obscure problems with esoteric solutions that you are supposed to come up with on the spot (often on a whiteboard)
And a lot of times it's both lol

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I had one where I had to wait a good while for the person I was interviewing with to show up. Made me take a small test that made it very clear they needed a networking guy not a desktop support guy.

Then it got worse. The guy I talk to first seems odd. Job was to remotely fix the cameras the company sold. The job had an inventory component to it and I asked what database software do they use. The dude blankly responses that they have no digital inventory of what customer had what camera. Big red flag.

I was doing well apparently cause I get to interview with this dudes boss. And by now I know I wouldnt take the job anyway so I just use it as practice and answer as bluntly and honest as possible. Just to see what thats like.

Never did hear what happened to them but I doubt they are still in business. And its one reason I hate job placement agencies. They dont understand the nuance of certain things. If a job says computers they shove everyone related to computers at it.

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I contacted Google for a research position fresh off of getting my PhD and therefore expected a research focused job interview. Instead the first question I got was to verbally state the code I would type to calculate some shit in an array in the quickest way possible. So of course that interview went fucking nowhere right off the bat and I recall the interviewer sighing a few times over the phone. Then I got ghosted when I tried to follow up which sucks donkey dick when you're unemployed.

3.5 years later while having a job I enjoy, Google is hounding me where I ignore emails for 5 months (not exaggerating), I eventually tell them I'm not interested in changing jobs after they start leaving voicemails, and even then they send a message saying to keep in touch with them anyway because they're gonna check in again in a few months.

I'm trying to think of a professional way to tell them to eat shit because I'll never forget how it felt to be embarrassed like that in an interview and then ghosted while at a low point in my life.

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