Feuer Frei!
04-19-10, 08:51 AM
Found this article about some funny job interview experiences, some of these are hilarious, some are just plain dumb, can't believe people would do half the stuff in job interviews, mentioned in the following:
VIVO cafe
franchise owner Angela Vithoulkas once had a candidate who turned up to a job interview dressed in a clown costume.
Owner / Director of Sydney-based IRD Group Brett Venables told me about a bizarre interview he held. “The person arrived half an hour before her interview, which kills me. Why do they do this? I asked the standard questions and got some classic answers!”
“What changes have taken place in your life to see you here at this interview? The answer I got was, ‘I changed from bus to train’.
“What’s the ideal job for you? Answer: ‘One that’s half part-time and half full-time’.”
South Australian recruiter Robert Godden told me of a candidate for a project manager role who brought out photos of herself posing in a lad’s mag 10 years earlier. “I guess she thought it would help her since the job was at a construction company. It didn’t.”
Robert also had one candidate who stopped the interview to take a mobile phone call to arrange drinks. Another chatted to a mate on his mobile for eight minutes! “I left the room after five minutes. He ended the call and came out looking for me expecting the job interview to continue. It didn’t.”
I also received an email at CareerOne asking me to look over a resume. It was from a woman in her mid-20s who had listed her father’s occupation - “engineer” and mother’s “house wife”. When I suggested she remove those details she was quite miffed.
Brett Venables also shared an interview disaster from when he was the candidate.
“I generally had great interviews but there was one that went wrong from the outset. I knocked over the water-cooler in the foyer of a big London agency while trying to act sophisticated. Total Frank Spencer moment.”
“It happened when I was sent to get a drink. I realised a block of cork that had replaced one of the little legs underneath the system had rolled under a bureau/bookshelf thingy beside it. The water cooler was now on three legs and it wasn’t going to stay.”
“I put my shoe under it to begin with (very heavy) and kind of stood there looking about just trying to work out how I’d sort this mess out. Everyone was watching me but no one acknowledged it. As I stood there scouring the room for another wedge to put under it, my interviewer came in. I just stepped away from the water cooler but it snagged on my foot. The whole thing wobbled, teetered, wobbled again.”
“One second it was ok, the next not, then ok again. When it was clear the whole thing was going to go over, instead of grabbing the top-and bottom halves of the water cooler, I just grabbed the top. The bottom fell away. I was then holding a water bottle upside down with water gushing everywhere. At that point I tried to flip the bottle upside down and dropped it where it just shattered. It was a total catastrophe in a new suit. I was wet through and through. Their carpet was wet. I should point out that this was in an office half way up Canary Tower, Europe’s largest building!
“I was asked to go and clean myself up and when I returned the person I had come to see had left! The receptionist just asked me to leave!”
Robert Godden was once on a three-man interview panel when two of the other recruiters started fighting with each other.
One Melbourne candidate emailed me at CareerOne to tell me about being interviewed during Melbourne Cup week by a badly hung over recruiter lying on the floor. Another was interviewed by an employer who kept banging his fists down on the desk. Too strange.
What about you? Been to any weird job interviews lately?
VIVO cafe
franchise owner Angela Vithoulkas once had a candidate who turned up to a job interview dressed in a clown costume.
Owner / Director of Sydney-based IRD Group Brett Venables told me about a bizarre interview he held. “The person arrived half an hour before her interview, which kills me. Why do they do this? I asked the standard questions and got some classic answers!”
“What changes have taken place in your life to see you here at this interview? The answer I got was, ‘I changed from bus to train’.
“What’s the ideal job for you? Answer: ‘One that’s half part-time and half full-time’.”
South Australian recruiter Robert Godden told me of a candidate for a project manager role who brought out photos of herself posing in a lad’s mag 10 years earlier. “I guess she thought it would help her since the job was at a construction company. It didn’t.”
Robert also had one candidate who stopped the interview to take a mobile phone call to arrange drinks. Another chatted to a mate on his mobile for eight minutes! “I left the room after five minutes. He ended the call and came out looking for me expecting the job interview to continue. It didn’t.”
I also received an email at CareerOne asking me to look over a resume. It was from a woman in her mid-20s who had listed her father’s occupation - “engineer” and mother’s “house wife”. When I suggested she remove those details she was quite miffed.
Brett Venables also shared an interview disaster from when he was the candidate.
“I generally had great interviews but there was one that went wrong from the outset. I knocked over the water-cooler in the foyer of a big London agency while trying to act sophisticated. Total Frank Spencer moment.”
“It happened when I was sent to get a drink. I realised a block of cork that had replaced one of the little legs underneath the system had rolled under a bureau/bookshelf thingy beside it. The water cooler was now on three legs and it wasn’t going to stay.”
“I put my shoe under it to begin with (very heavy) and kind of stood there looking about just trying to work out how I’d sort this mess out. Everyone was watching me but no one acknowledged it. As I stood there scouring the room for another wedge to put under it, my interviewer came in. I just stepped away from the water cooler but it snagged on my foot. The whole thing wobbled, teetered, wobbled again.”
“One second it was ok, the next not, then ok again. When it was clear the whole thing was going to go over, instead of grabbing the top-and bottom halves of the water cooler, I just grabbed the top. The bottom fell away. I was then holding a water bottle upside down with water gushing everywhere. At that point I tried to flip the bottle upside down and dropped it where it just shattered. It was a total catastrophe in a new suit. I was wet through and through. Their carpet was wet. I should point out that this was in an office half way up Canary Tower, Europe’s largest building!
“I was asked to go and clean myself up and when I returned the person I had come to see had left! The receptionist just asked me to leave!”
Robert Godden was once on a three-man interview panel when two of the other recruiters started fighting with each other.
One Melbourne candidate emailed me at CareerOne to tell me about being interviewed during Melbourne Cup week by a badly hung over recruiter lying on the floor. Another was interviewed by an employer who kept banging his fists down on the desk. Too strange.
What about you? Been to any weird job interviews lately?