In honor of Halloween, recruiters and HR professionals have shared their scariest interview stories on LinkedIn. Some of them are hilarious and hilarious.
In honor of Halloween, recruiters and HR professionals have shared their scariest interview stories on LinkedIn. Some of them are hilarious and hilarious.
HRD Galyna Marchuk asked colleagues on LinkedIn about their «interview horror stories.»
The author of the post herself noted that her scariest (and saddest) story was when a candidate died in the process from interview to offer. According to her, this was before a full-scale invasion.
«But there were also some more fun ones: a candidate who continued to threaten for two months after being rejected; a candidate who didn’t shut up for a second, even when asked questions; a drunk candidate,» HR added.
1. I conducted an interview, I ask if there are any questions.
Candidate: Do you celebrate Halloween? (yes) You understand that this is a celebration of Satanism, do you honor Satan in the company?
2. I walk past the meeting room (glass wall), see a candidate sitting at a table, I can’t see his feet. I enter the room, see shoes at the entrance. I ask — is that right? (the candidate himself is sitting on a chair in a yoga pose).
The answer is — that’s what I was taught in the courses, they said that it would show that I was relaxed and ready to communicate.
3. A person is aiming for a senior position, he either doesn’t understand all the questions or can’t explain what he did. I ask: «So you have .Net listed, tell me about your practical experience.»
«Well, I was sitting in the hotel, there was nothing to do, so I read a book on .Net, as if I understood everything, so I added it to my resume.»
After explaining that this is not how it works, he was accused of incompetence.
Back in the pre-Covid era, a candidate asked a friend to take a technical interview instead of him. The interview was online, he said there was something wrong with the camera and there was no image. But the friend kept fiddling and we suspected that it was the wrong person. My colleague and I called him, he answered, and the person at the interview was answering questions at that time. The friend also did not pass the interview, so the candidate was not written anything about the fact of substitution, but they remembered it for a long time.
1. A candidate who expressed his dissatisfaction with the number of black people in Europe when a black girl was sitting in the interview.
2. The candidate’s mom at the door, who gave voice prompts about his background because the poor guy didn’t remember.
3. A candidate who, at the end of the interview, turned out to be a police officer and asked to provide documents that allow call centers (ed. — call centers) to operate in the city.
I had a case where I had to conduct an interview while sitting in a car (I know it’s unprofessional of me, but that’s how it happened). So, in order not to get burned, I made myself some kind of «office» background, although I don’t like that. In the middle of the interview, the candidate asks something like: «Why do you look like a ghost, move again.» At first I thought he was joking, but it turned out that he had seen the background in the MTS for the first time.
1. A candidate came to an interview with a knife and so lightly threatened that he should be hired.
2. The candidate came with his mother or his mother came with him. His mother did not want to leave the office.
The candidate sent his resume to an email and the email included a photo of the candidate sitting at a table near the entrance to the office working. And the caption «I’m almost there.»
1. The candidate googled the answers, as if philosophically repeating questions like «yaaaah, what is X you ask hmmm» (the funniest thing is that a) you can hear the sound of the keyboard and b) his monitor was partially reflected in his glasses.
2. When I described the conditions, he made LITERALLY disparaging comments like — literally — «this stack is crap,» «this approach is crap,» «I won’t work with such a crappy setup.»
3. Although this is not an interview, a person once applied for a job whose resume simply copied a paragraph from my description here on LinkedIn without any changes.
Oh, and my candidate insisted that he could only work with his own personal translator! The offer would be for two for the price of one.
There was one candidate who designated me as his trustee when he took out a loan, and debt collectors called me for a month until I threatened to sue.
The candidate was in a cafe during the interview. Apparently, there was a girl sitting across from him, who was quietly dictating to him how to answer questions about soft skills and motivation. He answered the technical questions himself. And by the way, we hired him then.
