Most ridiculous job interviews (red flag?)🚩

[Moonflower]

I don't think many companies even read applications and CV's anymore. I think a lot is those ATS systems (which are the reason you get those rejection emails 10 minutes after applying).

A charity was the worst job I ever had. Rubbish wage and constantly expected to do more for no reward. Do you work for a charity now?

In the topic of the thread though I've had loads of interviews recently. I have actually got a job now. I actually like interviews and have met some great people but also a few nutters.

The guy who ran a web design company who refused to allow anything other than 9-5 in the office everyday. No flexibility allowed, even though the nature of the work can be done anywhere.

And my personal favourite the guy who told me he was sacking his entire 6 person operations team the next week and I would replace them. By the end I was counselling him trying to persuade him not to. He was weird and it was bizarre. He was very firing happy and I could see potential for a huge employment tribunal further down the line.

 

[emm]

Omg my weaknesses in an interview would be ‘sometimes I don’t know when to take a break and I’m too passionate and take too much on myself’

When actually my weaknesses are ‘I’ll probably spend half my day in the kitchen chatting shit, I live for the office drama, sometimes I AM the office drama and I’m only here because you’re paying me’

my real ones "i spend most of my days on tattle bitching about the company i work for. also poor timekeeping and an addiction to coffee which will be timeconsuming if we dont have an in Office machines. when can i start?"

 

[emm]

I have an interview soon for a job that is a 0 hours contract, this is okay with me as I am freelance so work in a few different places, but considering it is not well paid, obviously very insecure, there is a pre-interview task to submit, and the process itself (if I get through) will be 3 different interviews. Just seems ridiculous

 

[insilverandgold]

My favourite one was where I was called the wrong name all morning, they’d clearly chosen who would get the job and the other 4 of us were there to make it seem like a fair process, and I was told to shorten the lesson I was about to be observed teaching right as I was about to start by a headteacher who then wandered in and out during the lesson and barely saw any of it.

My second favourite was where we were told that due to ‘covid reasons’, a headteacher was observing all candidates teach first, then would decide who to formally interview later. We all got sat in tiny rooms and waited alone with nothing to do for two hours. I was more than happy to be sent home at lunchtime because I’d have declined the offer to formally interview anyway. An interview will always tell you how they’d treat you as staff!

 

[Moonflower]

Yes! I had 5 interviews recently and was rejected after the end. Actually I wasn't that bothered because after that many interviews it was pretty clear they were looking for someone different to me. If was ridiculous though but they at least did them all in one week. I was knackered at the end. Forgot! I had to do a test too!

ETA it wasn't by any means any sort of senior role. I saw the CEO, CTO and CFO. They must spend their entire lives interviewing!

 

[tortfeasor]

Any sort of group interview. I'm not looking now but when I was applying for jobs if I got an email from a company offering a group interview I blocked them. Why should I spend my time travelling and attending an interview if you're not going to give me your full attention?

100% agree with your stance on this. A few years back I read a book about tips for ”assessment centres” as the preferred jargon at the time called them. To my surprise the first part of the book covered the authors really tearing apart most of the experiences I’d had in the past and advising job applicants to basically get up and leave if any of the following occur at your assessment centre because the company is wasting your time and disrespecting you!

In the point regarding “group interviews” or “group discussion activities” it essentially said companies will claim these help them to gauge how you interact and communicate with others in an workplace environment but it’s a load of nonsense. They‘re right too. At the end of the day you’re plonked with people you’ve never worked with, never will, who also don’t likely work for the company you’re applying to work for and you’re all there competing for the same job. So even if you’re cool as a cucumber your fellow interviewees are likely to be very anxious, which can result in some very awkward exchanges. How many times do you go through that process in the workplace? Errr… never. Quite really what companies think they’ll get out of watching people in this artificial environment is anyone’s guess. They won’t see the real you nor how you’d interact at work with their colleagues. Pointless.

 

[HelloStereo]

My red flag is when they ask you to do a task that's not similar to, but exactly what you would be doing if you were employed by them.

I don't mind completing an example task to demonstrate that my skills are what they are looking for, but I'm not working for free.

 

[Moonflower]

Actually that's a good point about salary. I only stuck with the 5 interview madness because they were paying double what I'd seen for most similar roles and they were clear on the amount from the first interview.

I should add too after all that they ghosted me and only replied when I asked them what was going on. That's the only thing I was annoyed about, after I invested that time the least they could do was let me know. I don't buy that people are too busy, software can be automated to send out rejection emails, they are just rude.

 

[annanuttall]

I know you know what I hate, when they’re like ‘why do you want this job’ and I always wanna say errrrm cos I wanna get paid bitch

I use to work in retail and at my annual performance review talk/chat thingy, I said that exact thing to my manager, she asked why do you do this job? or something similar and I just spelt it out for her - cause I need to get paid so I can pay my rent/mortgage. This manager hated me so she wasn't exactly happy with my response.

 

[rosemarina]

Oh, no need for a medical degree. Reckon I can interview to be a brain surgeon then, no worries.

 

[Moonflower]

Just spent four hours doing two applications, they must all go out of their way to make their individual application forms different so you can't just cut and paste say, your job history. Fucksake, this is severely testing my dry January.

Good news @Inforapenny really pleased for you!

It's ridiculous isn't it! It was like a full time job doing a the stupid forms.

I had one job (a charity), who asked me to print their paper application form and complete it by hand and scan it and send it back. Had to be handwritten, no exceptions! I didn't bother as that was a red flag right there that they'd be very paper based and a bit set in their ways (been there, done that, never again)

 

[Tinkerbell cat]

Over the summer a guy on LinkedIn posted about his dismay of having to go through around 5 rounds of interviews, over months to only be snapped up by another company in the meantime.
It seems that companies are starting to really make hiring ridiculous. People are calling it breadcrumbing and then ghosting candidates.

Anyhow fast forward and I'm applying for jobs. I got an email from head of said company asking for an interview in the new year. Great. However I now believe this 'interview' to be an interview for the interview
They sent through their interview process and I'm now really unsure about the company and if their recruitment process is a piss take??? Is it a massive read flag???
Have they just got a shit policies, is this a bad sign?

I've been told after the first interview I need to expect up to 6 interviews plus interviews in between at their discretion.
If I get through all of this I have to have a written test that is between 4 to 10 hours long.
(I went to uni/I studied at Cambridge uni,that's on my CV so I'd like to think this makes the above slightly redundant).

On top of this they have not disclosed the salary and their policy is that they will decide on a salary depending on experience and this is no negotiable. I found the wording quite spikey and aggressive.

Has anyone else had this experience? Some of my friends have had a few too many rounds of interviews but this seems ridiculous? Am I right to be thinking this is a red flag?

PS it's NFP charity.

Haha this could be my boyfriend! I know he posted something on linked in about the long process of interviews for a job and the amount of time it took for him with the effort he put in but now he works for another company. He said it was an awful process.

How can companies do this? I went for an interview a few years ago and took 2 months to hear from them that they wanted to progress to the next stage. By then I was already 2 weeks into a new job. Crazy.

 

[Tyla73]

My question is should I just outright ask them in my initial meeting the salary range?

Yes, definitely yes. It's not an unreasonable question and if they won't even give you the salary range in the initial meeting then I would assume that's because they know it's not a market rate salary or they have something else to hide. If they expect you to go through a long interview process without any idea of what the salary is, they are are not an organisation you want to work for - they have no respect for your time or boundaries.

 

[Scotch Mist]

I work for a public body and we had an email sent round saying that in future when we are looking for new staff that anyone reviewing the applications would not be able to see personal details. Well that's fair enough I thought, they want to eradicate any potential bias regarding sex ethnicity etc

It then went on to say that education would be removed as well as job experience! That sounds like a step too far. If you can't see the person's previous work experience and qualifications then how on earth are you selecting?

Given that ageism is rife and we're all expected to work until we drop these days having experience is the only advantage left to older candidates.

Does anyone else think this is odd? Or is it just me?

 

[Inforapenny]

Hello everyone,
Not sure if anyone will see this but I have an interview on Wednesday.
Just reading through the interview request.
Got to put a 5 mins presentation together and then 10 mins for interview questions!!!

A 15 min interview?! Do you think this is a typo?
I've gone from one extreme to another

 

[I_Like_Tractors]

I'm sorry that is insane! Even to get into a top graduate scheme I only had three stages and they, you know, paid for my masters!

Why would a legitimate company want to waste their time interviewing constantly? Is it a test of patience?

 

[bunnyboo]

Very early in my career, I got a junior position as a product designer and I should have never taken it, I was fired after TWO weeks for having a panic attack. Now of course, they didn't say that was I was let go because of my panic attack... that would be illegal.. probationary period or not. They said it "wasn't a culture fit" or some waffle, but I was let go the day after having a panic attack and I was told by two people who worked there (we're now good friends ) that the bosses said my anxiety disorder was "too problematic".

I'm now in a position where I'm the one hiring junior developers and designers in my current role and when I was looking at my email correspondence with this clown company from a few years ago.. there were SO MANY red flags in the interview.. I should have listened to my gut and rejected it;

1. It was a junior role but they demanded THREE professional references from roles in a similar field (where are junior staff supposed to find this experience?) and two 'personal references'.. I don't ask our candidates for personal references as it's just a waste of time tbh, you can get a feel for someone's goals and attitude by actually giving a shit about the interview process and knowing the right questions to ask
2. During the interview, the staff working for this place looked miserable and the two bosses seemed pretty scattered and standoffish
3. I got an offer but I was pressured to accept it and get the references over within ONE day... in hindsight, this seems so ridiculous but I was so desperate to be given a chance at something other than an internship or contract work so I just went along with it
4. When I accepted the role, I got a list of guidelines/rules for staff and the way they referred to missing work due to illness made me feel uneasy. You're only allowed to take 2 days of sick leave, if you were sick after that it would come out of annual leave.
5. Another contract detail, you needed to provide them with minimum of 5 weeks notice for annual leave request (in writing no less), and had to give them 2 months notice if you were leaving.. dick move, particularly for the pay (or lack there of) they were providing
6. There was an alarming amount of interns working for the firm, but they were doing the same job as me only they weren't getting paid to do it

The pay was also shockingly low, but what can I say... I was young, didn't know my worth and I was desperate to work.

I would never (and do not) treat any candidate or junior employees the way I was treated.

 

[tortfeasor]

A recruiter once sent me to an interview without actually having one arranged with the client. He must have been hoping they'd just take me on anyway but they didn't even have any open positions. To their credit, the client made time for a chat but admitted they couldn't offer anything.

Worst thing was it was 150 miles from home in an area I was considering relocating to. A very long and wasted day.

Sadly not the only experience like that I’ve heard or read about but a 300 mile round trip!

In 2019 I applied for a job clearly advertised as an HR job and was contacted by he agency handling it at 6:30pm asking could I go to an interview with the client the following morning at 10:30am. I didn‘t see the email until 8pm and the silly recruiter hadn’t bothered to try ringing me. The job description sent across was also clearly for an HR job.
I was temping at the time so it was a lot easier to get the time off than if I’d been employed by the place I was temping at. However, it soon transpired within minutes of the interview beginning that the people on the other side of the table were interviewing for a finance job. It had noting to do with HR. I said, “I am sorry but I think we’re at cross purposes here. I was told this was an interview for an HR job?”
Cue very puzzled looking interviewers. They has my CV in front of them so why on Earth they’d asked to see me I don’t know as there was nothing on it that indicated past experience of the role they were actually hiring for.

I’ve avoided ever dealing with that agency since and the silly woman still emails stuff over to me!

I was interviewed by a solicitor firm. They showed up 30 minutes late, and the first thing they said was “I haven’t read your CV, is it okay if I take 5 minutes to look at it?” So for the first five minutes I just had to sit there whilst the person was reading my CV.
they then also asked if I could read quickly and asked me if I could recite any poetry.

What the fuck does being able to recite poetry have todo with a job at a solicitors’ firm? It sounds like something from Cage & Fish, the wacky firm in Ally McBeal.

One of the worst I had for being made to wait was a stroppy cow of an HR manager for a food manufacturer, who for some reason had misread the email from the agency that set the interview up and thought I’d arrived 30 minutes early.
i hadn’t. I’d arrived 5 minutes before the scheduled time of 3pm. Reception called her and she appeared, spoke to the receptionist, glared at me and walked away. At 3:45pm she came back and took me to a room. During the interview at one point she piped up, “oh no. I’m really sorry. It seems I misread the email. I thought you’d arrived super early for the interview when you’d actually just turned up when you should have.”

So basically she‘d made me wait out of spite!

 

[Tyla73]

I've been in the workforce for 30 years now and one day I'm going to write a book about the temp jobs I did back in the 90s and early 00s and the various bizarre interviews I've had over the years. One of the worst recruitment process experiences I ever had was for a local charity, it was so bad. A lot of employers fail to recognise that interviews are a two way process - it's not just about the interviewee impressing them, it's about the company impressing you as well. Nowadays I have a list of 'deal breakers' which is short but immovable and I am much more confident about reading red flags and not pursuing something that I feel would not be a good fit for me. I've even offered feedback to companies on their interview/recruitment process on occasion.

The company I work for now are going down the lines of an increasingly laborious recruitment process and also decided not to disclose the salary at the point where people apply. I'm quite friendly with our HR manager and I've pointed out to him that some of the stuff they've put in place would put me off applying and I'm not sure I would actually get my job if I applied for it now given the level of ridiculous hoop jumping they want. He doesn't entirely disagree but says that they've had such trouble recruiting and made a few quite high level mistakes in the last year that they are trying to be more thorough. I get it for more high level roles that require a certain skill set and experience, but putting PA's and Customer Service people through 3 interviews and a literacy/numeracy test while not disclosing the salary is ridiculous. I wouldn't even agree to go for an interview unless they were prepared to tell me the salary range at least. Then they moan they are having trouble recruiting .

It's a shame as my company is pretty good to work for, but their recruitment processes don't inspire confidence at those initial stages.

 

[Happyvalley]

I went through a ridiculous interview procedure without knowing the salary and when they offered me the job the salary was an insult. I was young and naive but now would never go through that process without knowing the salary and would ask, if it wasn’t forthcoming then red flag

Reminds of another interview I went to (again when I was young and didn’t have the confidence I have now) where the Director asked me would I be wearing similar clothes to the ones I was wearing now if I were successful (I had on a suit) as he liked his women to wear smart clothes. What a dickhead. Coming to an Employment Tribunal near you soon…