Interviewed for a Zoo education director job once. Applied one day: the next day they call me up and ask if I can make an interview in two days. This was 500 miles away. I said no (I was lolpoor - still am). They called back and said they'd fly my up (highly unusual in the nonprofit world / they never pay for anything).

I go to the interview and meet with the board of directors and the director. The existing education director is on rhe panel. He's transferring to another position in the Zoo.

The director walked me around telling me how he personally had improved everything at the zoo. The education building consisted of a small out trailer (this isn't normal). That's where they did summer camps, birthday parties etc. It was a dump. I asked him if they ever expected to have a larger education building I asked him if they ever expected to have a larger education building. He says that they plan to change the old Zoo restaurant into a new education building ( it was a dump). Director came off as very narcissistic and into himself.

After the interview, the Board of Directors president is taking me to the airport so that I can fly back home. She says that the director is narcissistic ( which I already knew), but that they expected to fire him within a year and they really liked me.

I got an offer the next day, but quickly turned it down. I then got a call about 15 minutes later from the existing education director asking why I turned it down. I told him that I didn't want to be in the middle of all that drama between the board and the director.

AggieOO said:

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powerbelly51 said:

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I wore a really nice gray suit with a pair of gray shoes.

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Not really acceptable interview attire.

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If someone won't hire me because I'm wearing grey shoes, it's not someone I would want to work for anyway. That's ridiculous. I've hired quite a number of people, and that wouldn't even cross my mind.

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I agree, but why chance it?

but to answer the OP, my worst/strangest was in college. I applied for a job online through a website...it was basically a student worker IT job. Everything was done through the website, so there was no email exchange. I only got a single phone call from an admin asking me to come in for the interview. I show up and we do some initial "tell me about yourself" type questions before moving into the meat of the interview. Once the actual questions started, I found them very odd. They were pertaining to a job, just not the one I had applied for. I answered the best I could, and after about the third question, I stopped the two people interviewing me and asked, "are you interviewing me for position X?" They looked at each other confused and then said, "no, we are interviewing for position Y." I explained that I had applied for position X through the website and thought that's what I was interviewing for. Position Y was not even an IT gig. Somehow the wrong job description had been uploaded through their portal and HR had done screening against that description. I guess I was the first person they were interviewing or someone else had a very bad/uncomfortable interview before me and never said anything.

They apologized and we agreed to stop wasting each other's time and end the interview at that point.

powerbelly51 said:

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AggieOO said:

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powerbelly51 said:

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Quote:

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I wore a really nice gray suit with a pair of gray shoes.

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Not really acceptable interview attire.

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If someone won't hire me because I'm wearing grey shoes, it's not someone I would want to work for anyway. That's ridiculous. I've hired quite a number of people, and that wouldn't even cross my mind.

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I agree, but why chance it?

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We'll, apparently it will tell you real quick if they care about getting the job done without needing to micro manage you or drama.

When I hear BS excuses like 'grey shoes' or other inane comments like that, I just think it's only an excuse - that there's some other reason that the company doesn't want to verbalize... so they just pick some piddly BS reason as their justification.

I showed up for an interview once and the interviewer had no idea I was on the schedule.

It was all set up through the HR dept and I show up and he has no clue. Said he could squeeze me in and it went about how I expected. Super rushed, inconvenienced him by being there, and overall pretty shltty.

After that I wasn't too disappointed that it didn't go well.

Have to disagree, to a point anyway. We have a fairlyow turnover rate, in management anyway, which is what tbis kid was applying for. With pur hourly or craft side, completely different story.

We are not the typical,company, though sometimes i feel we gravitate that direction more every day as we get bigger. But no matter whatnl, if you flat out tell me that the second something you think is better opens up that you are *******s and elbows, i am not putting any effort into birimg, training and using benefits that cost me out of pocket to keep you around. More fish in the sea.

Had an interview with Merrill Lynch. Guy put my resume and another on his desk. Proceeded to tell me how much smarter the other candidate was. Asked me why I thought I was a better candidate. I told him that Financial advisising is as much about relationships and trust as knowledge. Especially in a large firm where I would have vast resources to help my clients.

His response was: "That makes sense. I guess we will move on to the second part." Pissed me off. Second part was an aptitude test. Despite crappy grades in college, I crushed the test. He said: "wow...not what I was expecting."

I politely told him at that point I was not interested in moving to step 3. He couldn't understand why.

Deloitte flew me to Atlanta for 3rd round interviews. 4th of 5 interviews of the day, but it was the only "Partner" I interviewed with. After standing to shake hands when she walked in the office, I clumsily knocked over my glass of water on the desk between us. She said "ah don't worry about it"... so we talked for about an hour with a spilled glass of water between us. It was awkward but I still got an offer - so maybe not a true "failure."

Had somewhat of a failure about a month ago. Was asked to have a phone interview for a position I had applied for on the company website. Great, sounded good. The company recruiter and I exchanged emails and got the time all squared away. 3:30pm

Fast forward to the day of the phone interview and I'm out running a couple errands (at the grocery store). 2:30pm rolls around and I get this out of town number that looks like a junk call, but for some innate reason I decide to answer it...it's the recruiter and she runs full into her opening spiel and asks if this is a good time. My heart about dropped to my feet as I'm in the checkout line at the grocery store thinking I had another hour before the interview.

I politely let her know that it was indeed not a good time and that it was my understanding that the interview was at 3:30pm. It then dawns on me that she was calling from Pennsylvania, where it already was 3:30pm. She agrees to call back in an hour. I wrap up as fast as I could, haul butt back home, pull up my interview/company notes and send her an email letting her know that I was available immediately and that she didn't have to wait till 3:30pm (4:30pm her time) to call me back.

She then calls me back around 3:15pm and thanks me for letting her know. She also apologized and commented that she'd never run across that situation before. I went back through my emails and made sure that there was no indication of time zone, so it seemed to be an honest mistake between the two of us.

At any rate, I end up talking with her for around 45 minutes and have what seemed to be a great phone interview. So even though it started out as a failure, it ended up okay. I'm still waiting to hear back from her on the follow-up, in person interview, so maybe it wasn't as much of a success as I thought it was. In fairness to her, she did say it would be several weeks to over a month before they moved forward and that she would contact me either way to let me know if I did or didn't make the next cut. Part of me is thinking that's what they tell everyone they interview and that I shouldn't hold my breath on ever hearing from her again. Oh well...to be determined.

I had a similar situation occur recently where I had a phone interview with a company in Mountain Time. I made sure that the correct time was 11CT/10MT. I went and waited for the call at 11CT, but it never came. Called and left recruiter a message, and it seems they had a cross-up on time. It happens. We were able to re-schedule it for the next morning.

Running errands with girlfriend when we pass a random bank in Plano. She laughs and tells me this:

I moved back from Massachusetts after a failed relationship and needed a job. It's July and 105 the day of my first Texas interview. As I'm driving, I run out of gas. I have to walk a half mile to the nearest gas station in heels to buy a gas can. On the way back I broke a heel.

I get to the interview 20 minutes late, drenched in sweat with running makeup and a broken heel.

They give me 10 minutes to gather myself.

They did not hire me. I was not surprised.

Looking for job out of college and interview for retail job. 1st interview was at the Career Center at A&M. I got called back for a 2nd interview in Houston. So I had to drive down to Houston for the interview with a manager. I arrive on time and am told to wait in the store manager's office. I wait 30 minutes, manager walks in looks at my resume and says "you don't have ANY retail experience, you're too green for this job, sorry we wasted your time, good luck" and walked out. No handshake, nothing.

Honestly looks like he did me a favor but I was pissed at the time.

Can't believe I forgot this one....

Working for a company and they want me to relocate to another branch. There are actually two positions so me and another person go up for an interview. At the time I'm married man (still am) with a kid and own a home, and the other person is single woman no kids and living with parents.

We arrive at the branch to meet the manager and his team and he says lets go to the meeting room to have a chat. Okay no big deal. Me and my coworker both go in and the guy starts asking interview questions to both of us which I thought was really uncool but okay. He then asks what it will take to get us to move, that's when I spoke up and said "you know we aren't a couple right? She lives with her parents and I own a home and have a wife and kid, obviously our moving packages are going to be different."

At that point he was apologetic and separated us. I ended up getting an offer but turned it down. That whole exchange raised a red flag. Shockingly he's still with the company. I did eventually move to another branch but have since left the company.

JayAggie said:

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Looking for job out of college and interview for retail job. 1st interview was at the Career Center at A&M. I got called back for a 2nd interview in Houston. So I had to drive down to Houston for the interview with a manager. I arrive on time and am told to wait in the store manager's office. I wait 30 minutes, manager walks in looks at my resume and says "you don't have ANY retail experience, you're too green for this job, sorry we wasted your time, good luck" and walked out. No handshake, nothing.

Honestly looks like he did me a favor but I was pissed at the time.

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brutal.. what company?

labayouboy said:

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While in college, I received an email from an advisor to prepare my resume and attend one of the interview sessions being held by an oil & gas company for a summer internship position. I prepared my resume, did a little internet research, dressed up, and went to the interview. It was my first interview ever, and I felt like I did well for such short notice. I didn't crush it, but I felt like I represented myself well.

Anyway, the next day I asked another friend who had interviewed how their interview with "Schlum-burger" went. They looked at me and said, "You mean Schlum-ber-jay???"

I laughed and said "No wonder, they were looking at me funny."

I'm a small town Louisiana kid, and I had never heard of Schlumberger.

Moral of the story: Know how to pronounce the name of the company that you're interviewing with.

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I almost did something just as dumb my freshman year. I showed up to Koldus for my first internship interview (like my third week of college) and the girl checking people in asked who I was there to interview with and I said "Energy X-X-I".... the girl laughed and said "It's called Energy Twenty-One".

Guy came into interview at my company. He told a fib about his past experience and claimed to be design lead for a certain project. Coincidentally his interviewer happened to have been the actual design lead on that project.

Just a little follow up on the Gray shoes", this was a sales position that I was interviewing for not exactly the type of position you would want a "conformist" in.

My experience in sales you have better luck with people that do think "outside the box".

I agree if that was his "real reason" for not hiring he was not someone I would want to work for.

I was an assistant manager at a data storage facility and getting experience in my first round of interviewing someone for a data entry position. A woman showed up in a juicy couture track suit (gray pants gray jacket)... you know the soft fabric?

Anyway... I asked her how the people who know her best would describe her. She said "hmmm" for about 30 seconds (no joke). I decided to break the awkwardness and mention that it can be a single word or group of words. More "Hmms" followed. She finally said "they would say I'm da cool girl with tha silver car"

I smiled.

Best awkward interview story I have was when I was a Junior and went to a round of on-campus interviews for Exxon. I didn't take it very seriously, and thought "I'm smart, I can wing this interview without preparation."

Well the interviewer gets into the behavioral style questions and says "What's a time you faced a challenge and how did you overcome it?"

My mind instantly goes to a crazy story involving a recent Monday night trip to Austin to see a Ratatat concert, locked keys in a car, and all the crazy things we had to do to ensure I got back in time for a test on Tuesday afternoon for my Thermodynamics class. In my defense, I took charge and used critical thinking and creative problem solving to make sure I got back home.

It took me probably five minutes to tell this story, and at the end of it the guy just looked at me like "really, that's the story you chose???". Needless to say, I should've known Exxon's conservative leanings and I never got a call back on that one.