What's your worst interview experience?
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Rising Star
I went to an interview and I kept calling the company I was interviewing with, Deloitte. The interview was with KPMG. They let me do the entire interview and go on and on for 30 minutes about how I wanted to work at Deloitte so badly. I didn’t get the KPMG offer 🤣😂. Deloitte yes.
I ended up at EY.
Wooooosh
Rising Star
Easy. Interviewed with 3/4 big 4 firms in college and PwC asked my why my GPA was “slumping” when I had a 3.7. Told me everything I needed to know. When I responded with “I work full time hours at a restaurant so I can’t always spend all night studying” and the Partner made me feel like that was a cheap response. After working years in big 4 and middle market still baffled me that a person with that attitude made it to that level.
BDO 1 - I had a very similar experience with PwC as they were my first real job interview once I became a junior in college. They made me feel like crap because I had no real experience. Interview sucked & the Partner just crapped all over me like I was just wasting his time. I ended up going with EY for their internship that year and the next year applied to PwC, had them fly me out across the country to one of their offices, just to decline their offer. Felt great lol
Rising Star
BCG - interviewer went to same high school as I did. He kept making subtle jabs at me like “oh I bet you were a better student than me” or “I bet teachers liked you more than me” … mainly because I think I went to a better university than he did afterwards (as that was another thing he pointed out several times).
He then started probing me on my cv in depth the whole time and left 5 mins for the “case study” (I was told it will be 30mins), which I did solve. Got rejected because apparently I was too slow on the case study (?!). Really disappointed at how unprofessional and petty this was.
Final round interview with the senior partner at a small firm. He had brought his new dog into the office that day and kept having to run out of the conference room to his office & stop the dog from peeing on the carpet floor.
BCG emailed my rejection the morning before my final round interview, which confused me because I hadn't yet interviewed, so I was typing my response to clarify whether I the rejection as an error because I had an interview later that morning, and as I was typing that email in bed with my shirt off, not showered or shaven, the partner video called hours before my interview, surprising me. Threw on a shirt and jumped on the call, and the partner started going into the interview like nothing was out of the ordinary. I interjected at one point early on to clarify whether I was still running because I'd received an email rejection minutes earlier, but the partner didn't know what I was talking about and assured me it must have been a mistake, so we carried forward with the interview, though I was completely out of my zone because I'd literally woken up minutes earlier and wasn't expecting the interview for a few hours. Interview still went fine with great conversation in the end. Then I never heard back from BCG, not even a follow up to explain what happened, but I suspect a miscommunication.
BCG (Houston) is the King of Ghosting.
Ooh too many too count… one interviewer just didn’t show up and I sat in an empty room for 30 mins. Another manager decided almost immediately that I wasn’t a good fit and spent the rest of the hour long interview just asking me impossible questions. It was humiliating and I will forever have a terrible impression of the company.
There is nothing wrong with walking out of the interview early. After he told you it wasnt a good fit, you should have got up and left. No need to put yourself through more and waste your time
Niche econ consulting firm. I’d already had my final round, but because of Covid (lockdowns started during the week of my last round) they said they’d love to make me an offer, but would like to wait until summer if I was ok with it.
I said yes, waited and emailed them in June. They said great, we’d love to see you! But you’d probably join a different team, so why don’t you come over to meet the partner so you can chat together.
Turns out it was a full double case interview in one session, which I was NOT ready for. They left the room all of 2 mins and came back with a no.
I’d been chilling for months thinking I had this soft “offer” in the pocket, and I was angry because I was told it would be a casual chat.
Doesn’t matter in the end as I obvs did a lot better for myself later. But I learned to never again trust the words “casual chat” and to forever be over prepared in any recruitment setting.
Chief
Two sigma - had an interview for a TPM role for a product team there and got absolutely crushed.
For starters the interviewer and I just were never in the same page and I could tell that after I was explicitly clear about my limitations technically that he just did not care and the interview could’ve concluded then and there. But nope, got in to the technical part and just got laid out to dry. Great learning experience but man that was an awful interview.
Rising Star
I had started my masters program which had all of my classes in the evenings. Since this was my pivot, I decided to find a job in my field of study. Got a call for an implementation consultant which sounded interesting in the description, all business analyst and project management responsibilities. Small company, but I wanted to be a Proj Manager so this could be a good role.
I get there to meet with the project manager I’d been communicating with. In the room, there are two people. Surprised, but okay. It turns into a bit of a good cop bad cop routine that goes hostile very quickly. For every good response I gave, the second person found ways to twist it into why I wouldn’t be good for the company. To summarize this interrogation, I apparently had ulterior motives to take over everything as soon as I was in the door (I was answering situational questions with solutions), was too good for development work because of getting a Masters (there was none in the description and I asked for clarification), and would cause harm to “their family”, she literally semi-yelled “we are a family and we protect what we have here!” The final straw was when she actually yelled, “you’d be working with me and I’d expect you to do and go as you’re told!” She was breathing heavy as if ready to fight.
It took everything to not snap on her right there. The PM finally interjects about the position a second time and asks if I had any questions. I came with questions prepared, but didn’t bother to ask to which the hostile one made a sound and rolled her eyes. Of course, I received a rejection email later that day.
wow what a psycho
Rising Star
CACI. It was years ago. I was trying to move to the DC area and it was my first job out of college/military. I told them my price on the phone (75k at the time), and then drove 5 hours for the interview the next week.
The interview ended up being for a completely different position than what I wanted. But I ended up doing very well in it, as they extended me an offer on the spot. However, the offer was $55k - far too low for the HCOL. I went back home empty handed.
2 years later, I was making double their offer at a real consulting firm. It’s funny how things change.
Interviewed with a boutique investment bank for an internship in undergrad. The hiring manager provided the wrong address and the parking garage I arrived at was closed. So, I was 10 minutes late finding street parking. Then after some small talk, the interviewer found out he had dated someone I went to high school with and made some sexually explicit “locker room” type comments that made me super uncomfortable. No offer but I wasn’t mad about it lol.
Holy shit lol...
I was going through so many interviews during undergrad that I actually forgot the interviewers name during the follow up call. Very embarrassing but hey, what can ya do.
PhD program interview- interviewer asked me if the only reason I got my scholarships was because I am a woman. I pointed out my 3.9 GPA and extracurriculars to which he rolled his eyes. Kicker is that they declined to enroll me.
My friend had a bloody nose in the middle of an interview haha