Worst interview experience you ever had? 📝

Had a 4 person interview super day, and the 4th person never showed and recruiter was nowhere to be found, literally had to let myself out of the office smh!

Had about 7 rounds of very successful interviews and made it to the reference stage and was told that the job was mine and HR was elevating the role to pay me my desired salary (which I very much deserved since I was overqualified for the role). Because I must have seemed a bit hesitant, hiring manager wanted to introduce me and socialize with a director that wasn’t necessarily in my vertical but we had similar backgrounds and it wasn’t going to be an interview.

It was absolutely an interview and a technical interview at that. Obviously I wasn’t prepared or in the headspace to have a technical interview. This guy basically went back and changed the entire JD and said I wasn’t quailed and didn’t get the job.

Yeah I probably should have treated it like an interview but if this one guy had this much influence over the whole process without alignment of others, shows a glimpse of what I was about to get myself into. So hard pass 😅

After just one 30 minute phone interview with hiring manager (recruiter found me) they paid for me to fly to NYC for an in-person interview. The day of interview I showed up on time. Waited for 45 minutes in lobby. Hiring manager came out and introduced himself, said “we are going to lunch with President and HR person”. We walked to lunch, had lunch, they asked me a few questions about competitors. But nothing interview-oriented, no questions about myself or my experience. Lunch done, went back, hiring manager told me I could come in his office. He sat there awkwardly and instead of asking me any questions, just said “I’m an open book, you can ask me anything”. Weird, I figured at this point they already had someone else hired and were goi g through a token interview. I left and never heard back from them. It cost them around $1500 for my travel expenses. Weird. This was about 3 years ago.

This was when I first graduated college. The interviewer would ask me a question then stare out the window blankly. I would answer and I would have to say “I’m done” before they snapped back to reality and said ok and crossed off something on their list and asked the next question. Then the same thing, stare out window and repeat

The interviewer didn’t ask me a single question. They said “talk me through your resume” and after I did that, there was silence for about 30 seconds and I started asking questions to fill the awkwardness. I didn’t get the job, but I felt I was qualified for it

I had a “different” experience as a HS senior applying for college. The alumni interviewer for Brown had a whole group of applicants over and we all sat at her dining room table where she did a crazy round robin style interview bouncing from person to person with unrelated questions. The table was covered with pieces of hardware from clocks she was repairing. There were multiple cats bouncing around. I got waitlisted.

I had a similar experience interviewing at a major airline. It was lunchtime, interviewer #4 was a no-show and everyone else was gone. So I just left. It’s the best thing that could have happened. I ended up at KPMG and made partner 3 years later. It all works out of the best.

At a consulting firm, interviewer ate lunch throughout the virtual interview and I could hardly understand them with their mouth full on Zoom. They also said out of the blue that they were not checking their email while they ate lunch. I finished the case and later in the feedback call they said they failed me in large part because I got the wrong answer on the math and took too long to understand them (they were slow to speak while they ate). I reminded them of the correct answer I got on the math and they said “oops that is the right answer, well can’t go back and change it now”.

I had to do an exhaustive case study the night before. They have it to you 24 hours before the interview clean the data extract insights etc. develop PpT. I prepared. When I got there they said thanks for this. Now I am going to give you another case study and problem questions that has nothing to do with the job and nothing to do with the subject matter area and you have to do this. Surprise. I was so freaked out by this I didn’t finish the questions and never presented my results of the longer case. I called the recruiter after the interview and said I was out. I don’t roll like that. You wasted my time. Also this was for a NoN- consulting job at a foundation! The guy who was the hiring manager was ex- consulting and thought he was important. Terrible.

My first full time interview - the recruiter told me my resume was terrible, took a red pen and crossed out everything he thought I should remove and told me to try again

Was interviewing with Master Card. The recruiter “greeted” me and passes me off to the interviewer. The interviewer informed me she can’t turn her camera on but asked me to turn mine on. Cool no problem, although awkward.
At the 40 minute mark the zoom cuts off. The recruiter reaches out immediately with a new zoom link because she didn’t expect it to go that long. (Were they using the free version?? Idk)
Second zoom call we’re going through questions and the zoom cuts off mid interview about 15 or so minutes in.
I reached out to the recruiter and called her to see if it’s the same zoom issue.

Never heard from them again.

Worst company I interviewed for was Eagle Hill Consulting. The initial online application took hours to complete as they wanted to know all about my high school experience and activities. Mind you, I had a master degree, held multiple consulting jobs, and was in my early 30s. Interview day, the CEO was interviewing me from a zoom call while I sat in their DC office. The questions were very behavioral related like why did you do x in high school and how did it make you feel. I kept trying to bring up current relevant experience along with recent awards that I achieved but she kept going back to high school. Longest 2 hr interview of my life. I didn’t want the job at this point and 2 weeks later, I got a rejection letter. Looking back, I am actually happy that they didn’t hire me.

GT - a partner told me my answers were boring and that I should've gotten the multiple queue's to stop talking. Got the offer, rejected it immediately

I interviewed with Deloitte and my pants were a little tight around the waist, ok, they were “a lot” tight but this was at a time when long tailored blazers were popular with women’s suits and i was hiding the tight pants.

Anyway, during the interview, I needed to sneeze. I was able to excuse myself and stifle a quiet little sneeze, but the already strained button on the front of my pants popped off and hit the tile floor.

It made a “tic tic tic” sound before rolling silent somewhere underneath the Partner’s desk. He kind of looked around and said, “Did you hear something?”

Me: No…

Let’s see….1) been asked if I was ok with late night and travel, I said I am, they asked if I am married and if I needed to discuss it with my husband (mind you, I am the breadwinner and he knows I’m workaholic, I study outside of work and love work travels!) 2) been told my military IT experience isn’t applicable because “they don’t do military IT”, I am a IT specialist, I play with windows and network devices 3) been told I would need to use vacation days for military training, or I could just skip them as a whole, for those who don’t know, this is in violation of federal law (USERRA) not only our jobs are protected, we get benefits and we cannot use PTO

Interview for a scholarship - interviewer (middle aged woman) asked me if I enjoy pain since I played contact sports. And she wouldnt let it go and asked it like 5 times

I showed up to an interview, and the interviewer revealed that he was my current boss’s husband… he told me to stay working for his wife and i didn’t get the job.

This interview was for a very small accounting firm with less than 50 employees. Their reception area was very small with no guest seating.

I’m tall for a female - this particular interview day, i stood almost 6’4” with my heels. This was third and final interview and I was meeting with the CEO. Rather than be escorted to his office, i was told to wait and he’d come get me. Since there were no chairs in the space, I stood facing the window while taking in the view.

The CEO came up directly behind me and said my name. When i turned around, he was not in my immediate line of sight…he was much, MUCH shorter. He had his hand extended for a shake and
my spontaneous, dumba** reaction was to bend at the knees and “scoonch” down where we were eye level

I might as well have patted him on top of the head and call him cute…

One would be making it to final round not hearing back and then telling me they hired internally BUT would set me up with a VP chat IF they had budget for more heads. That VP showed up 20 min late to a 45 min call and then told the he person to tell me they would reach out if they had a role LOl. Also internally someone basically spending the whole interview asking me what my reviews were the last two years and how I felt about them, did I agree with them? plus how my boss felt about me changing internal roles. Strange trap questions

They gave me the wrong address for the interview lol I found the address on their website afterwards but ended up being an hour late bc of it (mind you, I even arrived an hour early and just waited at a nearby coffee shop until it was closer to the time)