Worst job interview you ever had.

[ghostman]

I was fresh out of high school and looking for a part time job to help pay for my college tuition. I applied to several tech support jobs and was called for an interview for one. I forget what the company did, but I think it was in the fashion industry. I had a middle-aged female interviewer who looked over my resume and mentioned that she went to the same high school I did. Stupidly, I said, "Oh? What year?" After I said it, I knew I had goofed up. I didn't get the job. But all was well, since I ended up getting a much higher paying job on-campus that completely covered my tuition.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: 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."

So, did he get it?

 

[BuMMiE]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: 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."

So, did he get it?

He went 0 for 2

 

[RandomFool]

Originally posted by: 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.

I had a similar interview.

The interview was about an hour an a half away and I was working second shift at the time so I figured I could drive there interview and get back in time for work. I only had a day notice about the interview so my first task was to find a suit. I ended up using a grey suit I got a year or two earlier at a thrift store mostly as a joke.

When I got there it turned out to be a interview day with like 15 other people. Everyone else there is wearing a dark suit and I look completely out of place. I took one look at the schedule and realized there was no way I was making it to work on time.

The first guy I talked to hit me with all sorts of technical questions. Then asked me to code Fibonacci's sequence on the whiteboard. My mind blanked. All I could remember was it had something to do with rabbits multiplying. I was like "oh that's the rabbit problem...where they multiply right?" After getting a weird look he said yeah, but he hadn't heard it called that. I couldn't remember exactly how it went and spent about 15 minutes trying different things on the board before he said let's try something else and asked me an SQL question. Since I suck at SQL I screwed that up too and he ended up explaining what I did wrong.

After that interview they had a written test. I ended up guessing on about 50% of it. After the test I had a few minutes of downtime and managed to figure out Fibonacci's on the back of it and felt pretty stupid.

After that failure I was ready to go home and see if I had a chance of making it to work on time. But figured I might as well stick it out and at least get some practice from the other interviews. I ended up being 3 hours late to work and my boss was pissed. I didn't have an excuse so I told him I was at a job interview which really threw him off. The next day I found out I managed to get the job, I'm still not sure why.

 

[TuxDave]

I was in the process of destrying every question on the interview until the guy asked.

"Derive the requirements for latch-up to occur in a CMOS gate".... *blink blink*

The other question that I didn't like was after I designed a circuit on the fly to answer his question and he liked it... he asked "ok, assume this isn't fast enough... make another one". Ugh

 

[NuclearNed]

I went through a day-long interview with a local well-known technology company.

When I got to the interview, I found out the reason that the lead interviewer's name sounded familiar: he was a guy who I had known in college. He and I had the same major, and we had a lot of classes together. Even though he is actually a pretty good programmer, he was the guy who always leeched programming code from the people like me who actually knew what was going on in their assignments. Strangely enough, in spite of this he had a massive ego; he thought he was some sort of a programming god. Because of this, there has always been some friction between us.

My bad luck dictated that the first interview of the day was with him, and it was miserable. He asked me an impossible programming question that I'm convinced he spent days creating, just so that I wouldn't be able to answer it. The other later interviews that day went ok, but by that time my nerves were shot because of how badly the first one went.

Then at lunch my "good buddy" and all the other interviewers grouped together to "get to know me" at their cafeteria. The jerk spent most of the hour deriding the small town where I live. Unfortunately for him, I somehow remembered that he is from an even smaller, even more hick town, so I began cracking on him for it in retaliation. That didn't go over very well.

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

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: 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!

Haha, I had a similar experience with BAH. Their recruiting process is really broken, from what I hear. Mind you, thats from ex-BAH at my current firm, but they're pretty objective about the things they liked there too.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

microsoft

last time i ever go into an interview unprepared

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: clamum
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.

You mean like how software jobs tend to be more than just programming? I think my CS degree included one class on the software process that while not bad, it just isn't enough. I think at times, people were given similar things to requirements and such, but they don't really know it. I kinda wish that for a program where we had requirements (even simple things such as adding two numbers) that we would've had to write and exercise tests on them. It's good practice. Also, possibly turning those rough program directions into actual requirements. So just throw a couple of shalls in and you're good to go .

Oh and I did have a sort of interesting one. It was an interview that I had where I currently work as you may be interviewing with multiple people. I end up talking to this guy for some embedded things (I think that's what it was) and during the interview he pretty much tells me, "You don't have the skills for this, so I don't even know why you're here." Ouuuch. I was tempted to say, "Me neither, you guys assigned me to these interviews." Amusingly enough, I saw the guy about half a year ago and he said, "You look familiar" and I just kind of smiled and said, "You kind of do too!" (of course I never forget... never...)

 

[queenrobot]

I interviewed at a credit card company once, and I had to go through about 3 different people during the process. I get to the last interviewer and am led to a room with a table and a telephone. The interviewer tells me that she needs to hear how I sound on the phone and that she is going to go to her office and call me to ask some questions. No big deal, I sit in this room for a good five minutes and the phone never rings. She finally comes to me and yells "WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING THE PHONE! I HAVE BEEN CALLING YOU FOR FIVE MINUTES!!!!" I tell her the phone never rang, she at first doesn't believe me, then realizes she had been calling HERSELF the whole time. I actually got that job.

 

[spamsk8r]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: clamum
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.

You mean like how software jobs tend to be more than just programming? I think my CS degree included one class on the software process that while not bad, it just isn't enough. I think at times, people were given similar things to requirements and such, but they don't really know it. I kinda wish that for a program where we had requirements (even simple things such as adding two numbers) that we would've had to write and exercise tests on them. It's good practice. Also, possibly turning those rough program directions into actual requirements. So just throw a couple of shalls in and you're good to go .

What kind of crappy CS programs are you people in? At my school we had all kinds of classes on the software engineering side, including one where you spent the whole course going through and designing, implementing, and testing a novel piece of software, using source control and everything. There's no way I could have even gotten a job in this industry (not a decent one, at least) without knowing a lot of those principles.

To add to the topic: When I first graduated college I was looking for work as a junior level developer. I manage to get an interview with this company, and I show up, they have me take a written test, then they send me home. I'm like "Okay, that's kind of annoying" but I'm new so I figure that's just how it works. They call me back later that day and tell me they want me to come back down the next day to take another test, and to actually interview with a person. So I do, I ace the test, and I talk to the manager. He explains what they do, and has me meet the team. Everything seems to be going well, and he invites me to join them for lunch at a local restaurant with the whole team. We eat lunch, everything seems great, and they tell me they will talk to me the next day. I figure I'm totally in, everyone seemed cool and it wasn't awkward at all, and they hinted very strongly that I was in.

So I wait for them to call. 3 days pass, and nobody calls. I continue to wait. After a week I say wtf and call them. The manager curtly tells me "we found someone else." So they dick me around, get my hopes up, then don't bother to let me know that they've hired someone else already. Dicks.

 

[TXHokie]

4 hours interview with 3 different departments for a senior IT position. Each dept (Sales, Dev, Engineering) triple teamed me peppering all kind of questions from technical to how would you respond scenarios. I made the mistake of scheduling it in the afternoon so I was tired and was barely able to form words during the last hour. Had the biggest headache when I left that interview and didn't think I got the job but I did. It was the best job I've worked at since that place had tons of crazy smart people but it succumbed to the dotcom bust.

 

[S h o o B i E x]

Originally posted by: markgm

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.

rofl I was actually just laughing out loud in my office.

 

[Gothgar]

I honestly can't think of a bad interview... I've been told that I don't have the skills for a job, but that doesn't really constitute a bad interview, I can make people like me pretty easily and usually do so in interviews.

 

[AndrewR]

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: 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!

Haha, I had a similar experience with BAH. Their recruiting process is really broken, from what I hear. Mind you, thats from ex-BAH at my current firm, but they're pretty objective about the things they liked there too.

I've talked to a couple other people who have gone through the BAH recruiting process in one form or another, and both had similar stories to mine with regard to the recruiters (not necessarily the regular employees)...negligent in keeping contact, misinform about pertinent details, slow to respond in general. Just rather unprofessional for people supposedly intent on hiring professionals!

 

[jaybert]

1. microsoft in college, asked me to write code on the spot on a piece of paper. I pretty much blanked and couldnt think of a good solution, though the problem actually wasnt that difficult. didnt get a 2nd round.

2. 2nd round with IBM for a IT consulting position. one of the technical leads on the team asked me a bunch of questions, none of which I knew the answers to. Oddly enough I still got the job, which I took and worked at for a year. Pretty sure I got the job solely based on the non-technical interview/recommendation from my old boss at IBM where I had co-oped

3. goldman sachs. interview I took when I was thinking of leaving the ibm job in #2. I sat in a room for 4 or 5 hours, and people rotated in every 30-45 minutes asking me either brain teasers or technical questions. I even went on the phone with the managing director in London since the MD in NY was out of town/not available. The MD then asked me some finance questions on P&L currency conversion in different currencies which I have 0 experience with (and there is no indication I knew any of it on my resume either). I had also already gotten 2 job offers at a couple of hedge funds the last couple of days, so the entire time was just hoping the interview would end and I could go home.

 

[Genx87]

I had an interview with some leech software firm in Fargo for an internship. They sucked off the bottom of Great Plains before Microsoft bought GP out. Anyways the first person I met was a nice enough lady. Gave me the run down on the company. Then I met with what I assume would have been my boss. Things started out great until he asked me about NDSU football. I am going to assume this guy was one of those jealous fatties in highschool who wanted to be on the football team and get the girls but failed. The second he learned I played for the Bison he got condescending and turned into a real ahole. Knowing the interview was going down hill and I didnt give a shit if I got this non-paying internship anyways I started firing back bullshit his way. Just started making stuff up. I got equally condescending. I think at the end he wanted to keep me around in the interview to see how long we could BS back and forth.

Needless to say I didnt get a call back but couldnt care less either. I got a job at Bobcat HQ about a month later for the summer that paid 15 bucks an hour. Which is a lot for Fargo and gave me some nice spending cash on the weekends. And the people at Bobcat HQ and my boss were great, one of the best places I have ever worked at.

That bottom feeder went out of business shortly after MS bought Great Plains. I have no sympathy for them.