Melissa Moore, Sales and Marketing Coordinator, Employment Options Inc.
While researching material for a Community Education Class I was teaching, I asked all of my Human Resource Associates from the local area to contribute some of their most memorable interview stories with me. My goal was to emphasize to the class members the importance of good manners, hygiene, and just plain good old common sense. To reach that goal I thought the class would benefit from hearing some real stories of interviews gone badly from the local HR community.
The responses that I received back were so amusing that I felt the list deserved its very own place in our quarterly newsletter. After all, we can’t be serious ALL the time! While I could not include all of the stories that were submitted I have narrowed down the submissions to the most unbelievable, hilarious and jaw-dropping stories for your enjoyment.
“I had a young woman show up at the office with a baby and two toddlers in tow. She told me she needed to fill out an application. I saw her hands were full so I attempted to entertain the kids for a few minutes while she got out her information and pen. I was looking over her shoulder and noticed that she was not writing her name. She told me that the guy who ‘knocked her up’ with the baby was in jail and that since he couldn’t pay child support while he was in there, that she was darn sure she would find him a job so he could get out on work-release. I composed myself and then explained to her that besides the fact that I couldn’t accept an application completed by her for another candidate – I would need to interview him in person. She told me that she had the visiting hours for the jail written down in the car and I could go interview him there.”
“During an interview for a general labor position an interviewee, sitting with his legs crossed, arms behind his head and otherwise making himself extremely comfortable in my office, suddenly did a deep throated nose snort, hacked up a large ball of phlegm midsentence and promptly spit it on the carpeted floor next to him. He resumed the discussion as if nothing had happened.”
“Several weeks ago an applicant came into my office and began the interview with the following prose, ‘Now, just to let you know… I plan on getting my new chompers next week (teeth), and I know that you ain’t gonna hire no one that don’t have any teeth, but I am getting ‘em next week for sure. I’ll stop in and show you if you want.”
“One man in his later 20’s said during the interview that he could use a job to get child support off his back. He went on to explain that he had never been married but was expecting his 15th child (with what I would presume to be the 15th girlfriend).”
“An interviewee asked, ‘Do you ever get clients that don’t need anyone with any skills? Because I don’t have any. I had experience doing filing back in 1976 when I worked at XYZ Co. But I am sure filing has changed since then so I probably couldn’t do that either.’
“A young man came in for an interview and proceeded to tell me that he was so poor from being out of work that he couldn’t afford to buy his baby diapers and that they were going to the food pantry at the church that afternoon. I felt so bad that I almost dug out my wallet and gave him some cash-but thought better of it. Glad I did. The next day he didn’t show up for his interview as scheduled. I called him and he very sleepily answered the phone. I stated who I was and asked why he hadn’t shown up. He told me that he had been out drinking until 5 that morning and that he would call me back when he woke up."
“I was interviewing for a temp agency and was going to be sending this individual to a mail-order warehouse where she would work processing mail and be on her feet all day. She proceeded to tell me she had drooping ovaries and was not able to stand and be on her feet for that long of a time. Told her if I came across any sedentary jobs we would call her.”
“One particular individual began quizzing me during the interview on how far back our pre-employment drug screens can detect drugs and what kind of drugs it finds and so on. I was already pretty sure that this interview wasn’t going to go very far when he asked me, ‘If I use one of those new pills on the internet that like helps give a fake pee test and if there are drugs in my body – not saying there are-but if there were, would it work? I mean even though I know there’s not, I just want to be sure.’ I was dumbfounded and told him that I didn’t think it was necessary to send him to the pre-employment physical.”