Funny Thing Happened On the Way to My New Job …
Anyone who has ever interviewed for an entry level job or internship knows what a stressful experience it is. Sometimes people do and say things during interviews that are both surprising and funny. Following are a few amusing stories from recruiters, career counselors and others about their own interviewing experiences:
Jennifer Donovan, director of public relations for Michigan Technological University had this experience:
“I am now director of public relations at Michigan Technological University, but the funniest interview experience I had was when I served on a search committee for a new public information officer at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. “I believe in offensive public relations,” one candidate informed us. I know what he was trying to say – “offensive,” as in football. Pro-active, maybe? Needless to say, we didn’t hire him.”
Career counselor and author, Robin Ryan offered this, ” I was interviewing a person for an manager position along with the company’s CEO who asked: describe your worse boss, and the applicant looked us straight in the eyes and said “She had Satan in her -that woman was devil possessed.” We both left the room shortly after as we started laughing so hard, but the applicant was dead serious. Needless to saw the CEO didn’t want to be referred to as Satan and did not hire the “crazy” guy as he labeled him.”
Greg Bennett, national practice director of Sales, Marketing, & C-Level Search for The Mergis Group shared this story, “After a very solid telephone interview with my client I continued the vetting process with a candidate to take him to the next step in the process which would include a background check. When I told him that was the next step he asked ‘Will having been in prison for four years be a problem?’ Doing my best to not drop the phone I said I thought that might be a problem and he said ‘But I got out early on good behavior!’.”
Another story Bennett shared involved a candidate who did everything right: “One of my top clients a few years ago had asked me to find a presales person who spoke Mandarin Chinese and I agreed to take on the search… always enjoy a challenge. Oddly enough it only took a couple of weeks to find the person who fit the specs and who said she could speak the language. They interviewed her and very quickly decided she was the person they wanted and extended a verbal offer and she accepted. I had a sinking feeling and called the hiring manager and asked if anyone actually knew if she really could speak Mandarin because I sure couldn’t determine that. He scrambled around his company and found a piece of technical documentation and overnighted it to her and had someone from their office in Taiwan call her the next day. She must have spotted where the call was coming from because – the story I got later – was that she answered the phone and the caller asked in Mandarin if she was reading the technical documentation and she replied – in flawless Mandarin – ‘no, I’m just looking at the pictures’. She got the job.” This story illustrates perfectly why you should never claim knowledge or experience that you don’t either on your resume or during an interview.
Finally, Bob Phipps, The Retail Doctor, has a story that shows that sometimes interviewers make mistakes, too: “I was teaching a class on interviewing and we role-played with questions the owners had come up with – each one using their best from a list of ten. When Jim asked our applicant, “Can you tell me why manhole covers are round?” they completely shut down – who knew the right answer to such a question? He said he used it to see, “How they would respond.” He thought he was clever. The problem is you just embarassed the interviewee and made yourself look a fool. The rest of the attendees quickly saw how asking the wrong question, without a good idea of what a good answer would look like, fell flat.”
Searching for an entry level job or internship is never easy. Learning how to laugh at yourself and realizing that you’re not the only one who’s ever made a mistake that cost him a job offer should help you get over your own job interview faux pas.
