The Couch?! team received news this week that a boss in Glasgow recently held a job interview naked in order, he says, to satisfy his boredom. Since his unveiling he has been given three years probation and placed on the sex offenders’ register.
Neil Gouldson, employment law expert at Manchester law firm Rowe Cohen says the case should serve as a stark warning to employers: “Although this is a very unusual case, bosses should still beware of trying to make any jokes during an interview. Employees are becoming ever more litigious so it’s vital that employers tread carefully when interviewing.”
So you guessed it this week we want to hear about your interview nightmares (hopefully not as weird as above). We have devised an ‘interview nightmares’ top 10 to get you going. Post your nightmares/amusing anecdotes at the bottom of this article.
The Couch?! team’s top 10
1. One of your interview panel members falls asleep in the middle of the interview.
2. Your candidate attends the interview wearing inappropriate clothing for example a tuxedo, humorous Homer Simpson tie and musical socks. (Incidentally, tuxedo candidate explained that he was attending a wedding so he just hired the suit for an extra day!)
3. You recognise your interviewee/ interviewer from a wanted poster in the post office/ Crimewatch/ flashbacks from a very drunken night…
4. Your cocky candidate takes control of the interview with: “And just what are your qualifications to interview me?”
5. You have to get through the interview avoiding breathing through your nose as your candidate/ interviewer has the worse case of body odour you have ever encountered…help!
6. Candidate/interviewer leaves mobile phone on during interview which he answers all the way through (complete with appropriate ring tones depending on who calls e.g death march for boss etc).
7. Twenty minutes into the interview you realise you are interviewing the candidate for the wrong job… whoops!
8. You ask your candidate what they do in their spare time and they demonstrate their passion for you by singing some awful song out of key, start to tap dance complete with jazz hands or prove their magic skills by pulling coins out of your ear.
9. Your candidate arrives complete with child and dog.
10. You spend the entire interview mesmerized by your candidates huge nose and can’t remember a thing they said.
For more amusement see the Couch?! humour page
5 Responses
Interview Stories
A few interview stories of my own:
1. In my first ever job interview, at the tender age of 20 (a few years ago now!)I was asked by the interviewer how many children I was going to have in the next 5 years. I should add that the interviewer was old and male.
2. After working for 14 years for a major bank, I applied for a job with a building society as a training manager. At the interview, the interviewer told me he wasn’t interested in my financial services background, only my training manager credentials. I didn’t get the job. The feedback was that I didn’t have sufficient experience in financial services…
3. I was once interviewed by someone who got my name wrong. Fortunately, she demonstrated good practice by actually using the name when she asked questions. When she did this for the second time, I thought I’d better check as she appeared to be interviewing from the CV. It’s a good job I did check, because it she thought I was someone else, and it wasn’t my CV! We got it sorted and fortuantely I was able to answer the questions about my own CV! I got the job, too.
Giving the Candidate a Lift!
I had a an interview with a candidate a few years ago. His CV looked promising and the hour of judgement had arrived. I got a call from the receptionist saying that the candidate had arrived and was on his way up 30 minutes had past and he hadnt made it to the interview room which was only one floor up. I asked the receptionist to see if she could track him down and then I got a call from the facilities manager saying that our candidate was in the lift going up and down and acting like a bell boy!……He didnt get the job.
Some Experiences
I’ve come across several badly handled interviews in my time, though fortunately I’ve never been involved in them personally.
I watched a manager interview for a guy for a call centre sales position, on a desk in the call centre with his feet up on the desk sans shoes which were right in front of the candidate’s face. (Unsurprisingly the candidate refused the job.)
My last manager interviewed a guy who wore walkman headphones (with the walkman playing) throughout the interview insisting that he was capable of listening to both the walkman and my boss.
One poor unfortunate badly misjudged attending an interview with our sales manager. Who on realising that the candidate was completely unsuited to sales asked him why he’d attended. The candidate replied that his father had said he’d be good at sales so that was why he was there. So the manager told him to go home and ask his father what he saw in him as frankly nobody else was ever going to see it.
And my least professional interview was in a call centre many years back when I arrived to be given about 30 forms and tests to fill in before the interview (10 minutes later) I began to scribble but there was no way I could have filled in all the paper work. I was called into the interview still clutching all the paperwork, the interviewer asked me my name and asked if HR had given me all that paperwork when I replied in the affirmative he stood up took all the paperwork flung it into the bin and said “I’ve read your CV you can start tomorrow, the paperwork’s only for monkeys!”
DDA nightmare
3 years or so ago I was interviewing for an afternoon secretary (almost impossible position to fill) and found that I had called for interview a lady in a wheelchair. Not a problem, I thought … we can sort the access, the working environment will suit … we can make minor alterations to suit the layout to meet the needs of a wheelchair. I was feeling confident about the situation. Interview started … and was going well … until she asked to use the loos … with mounting horror I started to explain where the loos were and came to a complete stop. The building we were in was built in the 1960s, 15 storeys high with every loo in the place up (or down) a flight of a dozen or so steps! Very embarrassing and not at all easy for the poor lady. Fortunately (in one sense at least), she was clearly not suitable for the job and I subsequently interviewed and appointed a much stronger candidate. I could just imagine my Chief Exec’s face had I had to tell him that he was going to have to bring forward the refurb of the building (which was scheduled, but not for quite then) by a year because I had recruited an employee in a wheelchair (which I would have done … I am nothing if not brave). Fortunately, all our buildings are now DDA compliant and I will not have to face such an embarrassment again!
Interviews
My husband, an experienced Facilities Manager for a Global Investment Bank, was interviewed by the Director of Facilities for a new position. He was so impressed, that only half-way through the interview, he asked my husband to return the following week for a 2nd interview, with the Head of HR.
My husband was turned down for the position; according to the Head of HR “I don’t think he’d fit in here”. My husband has requested the interview notes on a number of occasions but they have not been forthcoming, and now it transpires that the Head of HR has left the company.
It is not surprising, with behavour like this, that HR Personnel have such a terrible reputation.