30 People Who Definitely Did Not Get the Job

1.

Had a candidate who came in and asked how hot my administrator was and asked if she was single or 'open to freaky Fridays.'

2.

I asked an applicant what kind of hobbies he took part in, and he told me he collected random things that 'pretty' women threw away. When the interview was over, I called the police and gave his résumé to them.

3.

He was naked during the interview, so we declined. When we brought up his video feed, he was laying in bed nude

4.

Asked a (male) applicant about a few specific projects he'd done with people I've met. His comments about male collaborators were perfectly normal and respectful. His comments about female collaborators were dismissive, condescending, and inappropriately familiar. I know there are lots of sexist people out there, but... not being able to conceal it for a 30-minute interview?

5.

A graduate sent his résumé in by email, had all the grades — assumedly a quality hire. He showed up...but with his entire family

6.

She listed all of her ex-boyfriends who currently worked there and said she couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces when she showed up to work

7.

They answered literally every question, 'I don’t know, man' or 'Can’t think of anything right now.'

8.

The applicant wrote that can do a backflip on his application. Then, unprovoked, he elected to demonstrate said backflip in my office.

9.

I had a guy tell me God had chosen him for the job. But I did not choose him

10.

This kid, probably 18-20, started picking his nose, like knuckle deep and digging for gold in the middle of his food service job interview. Wrapped that up real quick and didn't hire him.

11.

A few years ago, I was hiring for a new graphic designer. The guy didn’t have much working experience and was a little odd, but I liked his portfolio so I decided to interview him anyways. The whole interview was bizarre, but ended with the question “what do you think are your weaknesses?” He replied “ummm tbh. I have some pretty violent tendencies...”’

12.

Hiring for a Senior Dev position. Had a telephone interview and she seemed confident and competent so I flew her down for an on site interview. She calls not me but the front desk reception and says she can’t drive in a big city and needs a car to pick her up and she refuses to get the rental car we reserved (before Uber/Lyft). Call is transferred to me and I tell her to take the train (Atlanta, MARTA) no, she says, too scary. I tell her to go to the taxi stand and take that, nope afraid of taxis. She wants a corp limo to pick her up and nothing else will do. She is adamant. I put her on hold, have a chat with my boss who says just send her home, she's too much work if she can’t even handle this. I tell her thank you for taking the time to fly down but not even our own VPs get that treatment and to go ahead and change your ticket to fly home, now. She then starts telling me she will take a taxi, etc. i said please don’t bother it will be a waste of everyone’s time, thank you, goodbye. Not once when setting up her travel plans did she say she needed assistance getting from the airport. It was explained to her she would pick up a rental car at the airport. She was fine with it. No idea WTF she was thinking but ain’t nobody got time for dat nonsense!

13.

A man told us all about his mom’s Alzheimer’s, talked [bad things] about our company, and got upset when we didn’t offer him the position on the spot. It was a wild ride.

14.

While waiting in reception, the applicant wandered into the CFO's office. She was on the phone, so he stood in her doorway and stared at her while she was on the phone

15.

He showed up late. Then, he started checking his hair in the front camera as I was mid-sentence!?

16.

I interviewed a gal once and while we were talking, I was looking over her resume'. (Please note that English IS her first language or else this wouldn't have humored me so much) Her "mission statement" on her resume' was as follows: "Along with my detail oriented and organizational skills, I will bring encourage team to work cooperatively and creativity to provide an understanding the visual aspects of our work." This was for an admin position at a law firm. Not sure what "the visual aspects of our work" entailed in this position, honestly. I read it over about 5 or 6 times, worried that I was having a stroke so I didn't really hear much of anything she said during the interview. I haven't been able to make sense of it no matter how many times I read it. I actually cut it out of her resume' and have it sitting on my desk some 15 years later.

17.

I was interviewing a CDL driver candidate and this is how he explained his arrest for domestic violence. “You know how Cherokee Indians get”

18.

To start the interview, I asked him to tell us a little bit about himself. Thirty-five minutes later, he stopped talking

19.

My manager and I were doing this interview. When I called the applicant in, he gave me a huge hug and proceeded to talk to me like I was his best friend.

20.

We have a very simple “pre-employment” test. If you have been in our industry for more than a year you should get 100%. Some times we even give it as an “at home” test. We had one guy that took his test home had it for over a week. He brought it to the formal interview and got 90% of the questions wrong. Even though according to his resume he was an all star and knew everything. He had an excuse for every wrong answer to even the most widely known questions in our industry. It would be the equivalent of saying you have been laying sod for 20 years, and then put the green side down. He didn’t get the job.

21.

I once received a resume that was just a list of around 20 places someone had worked with the reason they had been fired next to each one.

22.

At the conclusion of the interview, we asked if he had anything else to add, and he said "Please like me."

23.

Once had the spouse of a prominent Soldier tell us that she was obviously the most qualified and if we didn’t select her, she would go to the IG and the General. She wasn’t selected.

24.

Me: I see you managed a vegetarian restaurant. Interviewee: What? M: It says here you managed a vegetarian restaurant. I: Oh, I guess I did write that. Not really though. My girlfriend had an art exhibition, and I organized the sandwiches for the opening. They were vegetarian. This was a candidate that was otherwise pretty impressive seeming, and had been among the favorites for a quite sought after position, the interview had even gone quite well up until this point. Met him later at a party, he had no memory of me.

25.

Probably the one who when asked why they hadn't declared their previous convictions which showed up in pre employment screening checks. "those don't count they are my deadname crimes"

26.

Some of the walls in the office were painted a vague brownish colour. Partway during the interview this guy starts looking around with a really spaced out look and says: "This office really reminds me of a cardboard box. But not in a bad way. Like the kind of box that you put things in, you know?" He then decided that he didn't want the job and left before the interview was over.

27.

This guy was really good, but he kept bringing up his vacation in the Finger Lakes like every four sentences. 'Just making sure the Finger Lakes thing is OK.' I mean, for real?

28.

I had a video interview with a candidate. They were clearly in a large room/bedroom, with most of it visible in the background, but it was clean, so I didn't mind. In the back right corner was a closed door. A few minutes into the interview, I saw the door open slightly. Some dude poked his head in and then closed the door. About 30 seconds later, I saw the door slowly open again, only this time the dude came crawling out the bottom. He continued to crawl across the floor, making his way to the opposite side of the room. I assumed he thought he was out of the camera's focus, but he was visible. He got to the far end of the room and turned to fiddle with something — ass in the air facing the camera.

29.

She cried three times during the interview about how much she hated her current job. My coworker had to get up and grab a box of tissues for her. When she finally calmed down, she informed us that she'd need a special desk chair due to an injury she sustained at her current job

30.

I asked, 'How well do you interact with people?' He said, 'I used to be a bouncer, so I know how to DEAL with people.' I immediately said, 'OK, this interview is over. Thank you for your time.