Worst Job Interview You Ever Had.

teachercd

teachercd

Active member
I am trying to narrow it down, I think I have two that are tied right now.  But I think I will go with this...

So, long story short a principal I "know" is leaving and I shoot out an email with a congrats to him on his new job and I ask if he might know me and that I would love an interview.  So he sets up an interview with the new principal.

Fast forward...Interview for an Asst. Principal job.

The principal only had one copy of the questions he wanted ask me (they were like "What would you do if...) and so he said sorry, he would read them to me, then pass it to me and let me read them and "take my time"...then...on the second question (out of 4) he dozed off.

 
I'm pretty fortunate that I've never had a "worst" interview experience. My first job ever was at a pharmacy and that was pretty much a "when can you start" interview. My first interview for a career job was also sort of a "when can you start" interview.

I could flip this and say the worst one I had was simply because of the wait associated with finding out if I got the job. My current position had two rounds of interviews and took almost five weeks from first interview to being offered.

 
I have interviewed one hell of a lot more than I have been interviewed...so, I'll go in that direction.

I remember years ago I was trying to hire someone for a common labor job.  This kid comes in who is 17 or 18 years old.  His application didn't say anything about graduating from HS.

So, I asked him about it.  He proceeded to tell me how stupid and bad all the administration and teachers were in his school.  He told me how he was so much better than them and he quit so he could go prove it to all of them how stupid they were.

Yep....application went in the trash.

My HR manager had one just this year.  Guy comes in, straddling the chair backwards, proceeds to play with his phone the entire time and never even makes eye contact.  Don't know what was so important on his phone.  But, I'm guessing he still has time to take care of it.

 
I can't say I've ever been on the employee side of an official job interview. Seems they all were basically when can you start scenarios. Like BRB, I've interviewed a lot more from the employer standpoint. I don't really have any super memorable ones except for the CU fan that started flipping me sh#t when he found out I was a Husker fan. I kinda liked him and he wasn't your typical CU tool so I hired him. I even hired him again a few years later at my own business. But my best story is from a job application I saw many years ago for a general construction laborer type position. One of the questions on the pre-printed form app was "Please list all community and social organizations you belong to that are NOT of a religious nature and that do NOT denote race, nationality or color".....his answer...."Black 4 Members Racial Kenya".  Kept a copy of that job app for quite awhile because there were numerous other laughs in it. It is probably my most regretted lost item.

 
In high school I had a job interview for a local restaurant that my friend worked at. He wanted me to work with him and put in a good word. I thought all I had to do was show up and Ill have the job. I dont remember what I answered to some of the questions, all i remember was when i was leaving I was thinking the same thing as Chet Stetman leaving the mound after talking to Rowengartner: "what the hell was I talking about!?" I didnt get that job. 

Another was when i applied for an interventional radiology position at Creighton University Med Center. The interview went relatively well for the most part. One question I just started rambling, forgot my train of thought, paused mid sentence and tried to think of what I was trying to say. Couldnt think of it so just sat there in silence for about 30 seconds while the interviewer stared at me lol. She finally asked another question thank God. I didnt get that job either but she actually told my sister who was a nurse there that she really liked me and if it was for a diagnostic xray job instead of interventional which I have 0 experience, she would have hired me. 

 
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My first interview for a "real" job was over the phone with the state government in Idaho, and it was with 3 people at the same time. One of them didn't speak English as a first language. I think I'm pretty good at communicating with people and I lived with someone who wasn't a native English speaker, but I could not understand what this guy was saying. I started making up answers to what I thought his questions were and at one point he repeated the question, and then I still couldn't understand so a different person repeated the question. I think at the end of the interview they thought I was racist, heh. At that point I lost all confidence and thought I would never get a job.


Then I went to another job interview after getting my current job and they asked me to explain weighting. I had just weighted a sample the previous week at work and I could not come up with a single thing to say.

 
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Interviewed for a HS  teaching job.  Basic questions on classroom management, strengths and weaknesses, etc.  Many of my answers were along the lines of "I get along with high school students so much better than middle school"

Interviewer after a while stops me and tells me "You do realize this is for a middle school position, don't you?"

 
huKSer said:
Interviewed for a HS  teaching job.  Basic questions on classroom management, strengths and weaknesses, etc.  Many of my answers were along the lines of "I get along with high school students so much better than middle school"

Interviewer after a while stops me and tells me "You do realize this is for a middle school position, don't you?"
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Hahahaha!  That is awesome!

I hate classroom management questions!

 
My senior year of college, some firms brought in talent scouts to interview new hires. I interviewed with Strong Capitol Management. With them, if you interviewed well, the company would fly you out to Wisconsin to go through the full interview process. I made that trip. While there news broke that the CEO and other senior managers there were being investigated by SEC for some shady mutual fund dealings. The next day I purposely bombed the interview because there was no way I was going to jump on that sinking ship. One question was, "What is a tough decision I had to make and what process did you use to come to the decision?" I rambled on about breaking up with a high school girl friend and how hard it was for me. At the end of round robin interview process they brought all of the prospects in to give us an "Everything is fine" talk. The next spring the CEO ended up paying a fine personally and was barred for life from the industry. I will say the campus was beautiful. 
Strong_Ext_reflection_N_HR-1023x768.jpg


 
I spent 2 months replacing sewer lines in a small town north of Pittsburg, Ks. To make things even worse, we did it in January and February. I think that was in 1995.

 
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