30 Stories About The Worst Job Applicants That Recruiters And Managers Have Ever Interviewed

Had a guy s**t himself because he got sick the morning of the interview and was giving it his all. Helped him with onsite gym to clean up and had his wife come get him. Interviewed him a week later out of pity and he showed up and was hired on the spot. He got my job when I left the company a few years later.

The applicant was rude and dismissive when I went to meet him in the lobby! I think he assumed I was the receptionist.

He did not get the job.

N.B. Being rude to the receptionist is also not okay.

The worst one my wife's told me when she was interviewing someone for a sandwich place was three questions one after another that the interviewee couldn't have made themselves seem dodgier.

Q. "If I get hired can I get an advance on my first months pay?"

A. "No sorry, that's not something we're allowed to do"

Q. "Ah ok... Will I be doing cash drops at night from the safe?"

A " No, only supervisors have access to the safes"

Q "Will I be working on the till?".

To the guy working at American TV and Appliance in Appleton, WI on August 9th, 1993, I think I may have been your worst. I was 21 and my mother had passed away two days previously, quite unexpectedly. I have no idea wtf I was doing going in for a job interview that day. I remember I did not stop crying for one minute, and the look on your poor awkward lower management face still haunts me to this day.

I am truly sorry.

O I got this one

B2B Sales Position when I was interim sales manager. Guy comes in with colored spiked hair, wearing ripped jeans with his Baby Mama and his crying baby...yes...but wait no its gets better.

Guy arrives 30 minutes late as well! I was on the call with a customer so I was busy and wasn't that inclined to interview someone who was late and showed up dressing unprofessional.

As the guy is waiting for me he tells the secretary he has to go cash a check and get his baby some milk...

I finally come out and ask the secretary where he is, she informs me he left to go cash his check and buy his baby some milk...and I'm like "wow"

I go back into my office

an hour and half later he comes back, I'm in a meeting with the GM he's told to wait. Keep in mind by this point

* He's brought his baby with him to an interview
* He's brought his girlfriend with him to the interview
* He arrived 30 minutes late
* He left to go buy his baby some milk & cash a check
* He's now 2 hours later
* He's unprofessionally dressed for a B2B sales job interview
* He's unprofessional to our sectary as well in regrads to his comments and behavior

But it gets better

I come out and greet him and the first thing he says to me "My time is valuable, I don't like waiting for you" and I'm standing there in shock...and I go excuse me? He says "I'm here for the interview, and my time is valuable and your constantly too busy to talk to me...lets get this interview over with so I can start" and I'm like "Wow"

So I smile and say "Well I got great news, the interview is over we won't be moving forward with your application"

He protests, I ask "Did you even bring a resume?" He said "No" and I'm like "Alright our interview is over, good bye"

I was amazed, my secretary said he stood there for like 5 minutes just staring into space wondering wtf just happened to him. When his girlfriend stood up and asked the sectary "Does that mean we aren't going hire him?" and the sectary said "I believe so"

He left after that.

I was filling a truck driver position for a construction company. Guy came in for an interview. He didn't have a drivers license.

Had an older guy in his 40s show up ten minutes late, answer the phone after introducing himself, and proceed to yell at his mother for 15 minutes while I was standing there waiting on him to finish. “Ma, I’m at work, I’ll call you back! Shut up ma, I’ll call you back!” ....and so on.

Then once he finally sits down I realize he is hammered drunk. Face is cherry red, he is sweating, and the unmistakable smell of booze on his body odor and breath.

He told me he would be a store manager one day, I just humored him since I had time to k*ll. Weirdest interview I’ve ever experienced, but also the worst.

I've got a good one. It's long but bear with me.

So a couple of years ago when I was managing a pub, I interviewed a lovely girl and it was all going great-loads of experience, seemed smiley and chipper in general, just what we needed-until we got to discussing shift patterns and hours requirements.

This girl was a student so she just wanted part time hours. Great, she could fill in our busy periods at the weekends, I thought, but she actually wanted Monday to Wednesday shifts preferably in the daytime. WTF! I closed my diary and said unless she can give us one weekend night and one weekend day shift then we can't proceed as this is a city centre pub and those are our busy periods.

Out of the blue, her personality completely changed and she flipped her lid at me, saying I was exploiting students and that a large part of going to Uni was having a social life, which I wouldn't understand. She said that I was just another corrupt manager taking advantage of young people and the reason I worked in a pub was because no one would hire me because I was too stupid and didn't have an education like her.

Now I'm used to dealing with drunk, angry people so a whiny, 20 year old wouldn't normally touch the sides but she'd touched a nerve and I was fuming. I stood up and roared "How dare you? I have a Russell Group education which I notice you do not and I choose to work here because I normally enjoy it. Now GET THE F**K OUT!" Off she went, tail between her legs.

This wasn't the end of it though, oh no.

A couple of weeks later, we'd had a really busy Saturday night so I decided to take my guys out for a post-work pint. They 'd worked hard, they deserved it. Who should be working in the bar we went to but Weekday Only girl-on a Saturday night at 1.30am no less. She saw me and was clearly uncomfortable with my presence but she avoided me so all cool. A couple of rounds in though, I was at the bar and I saw WDO girl turn to the Manager, talking frantically and pointing in my direction. She was really worked up about something.

It's a good time to point out that on our little strip of pubs, bars and restaurants, all the Managers know each other, talk to each other and are very supportive in general. It's a lovely community.

So the Manager finishes what he was doing and goes back of house with WDO. Not long after, she emerges, in tears, with her coat and bag in hand and is escorted off the bar. As she walks past me she picks up a full pint and chucks it in my face and screams that I'm a f*****g b***h. I'm stunned but she leaves and I attempt to dry myself off. As I'm doing so, the Manager explained to me that she had gone to him saying that she'd seen me selling d***s in the toilets and that I'd threatened her with a beating if she told the doormen or Manager, and that I should be removed and barred. He'd taken her off the bar, tore her a new one and sacked her on the spot.

Needless to say we both spent the next couple of week's making sure no one in the area hired this girl. Interestingly two of those places had already trialed her and thought she was lovely like I did.

What a psycho!

A female applying for a professional career position came to the interview in a "Minnie Mouse" outfit. When asked about it, she said she was going to a party after and was worried she wouldn't have time to change.

We gave her PLENTY of time to change...

Had a young woman interview to be a cashier.

She was chewing gum, which was already not great to me. (Not a game changer, but, who doesn't know better these days?)

She then proceeded to give me her work history. She was currently working her first job of three weeks, but couldn't get good transportation to the town over. Before that she volunteered some place for a *week* before she quit because she couldn't get rides. She claimed this job was closer, and that she could quit tomorrow and come here. Red flag for questionable dependability, but I could look past it, since I'm a softie.

But the final nail in the coffin was when I asked: "What is your weakness?" I always try to make it a joke about "oh you always get this one in an interview" to kind of ease tension. This chick says, and I quote:

"My weakness is customer service."

Honey, you're interviewing for the *CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT.*

I have hired about 80% of people I interview. I just can't look past "My weakness is the only qualification I need to get this job.".

Not me, but a very close friend - interviews a guy for an engineering management position. The applicant spoke in third person the entire interview. “Bruce excels at....” and “Bruce has experience in....” and “Bruce thinks this position sounds promising.” I’m making up these examples but the dude was totally serious.

Guy was applying for a mid-level web developer position. he had made it past the resume filters, and a 5-minute initial phone screen with HR and an executive. Now we're inviting him out to lunch to get a sense of his skill level, which will probably be the final round of interviews.

Turns out he has a couple of challenges... he has never owned a computer, and doesn't know how to write programs. But he HAS completed an "Intro to HTML" course at community college, and assures us he's a fast learner.

Also, he's not sure whether we would want him to quit his other job - he's currently a full time ice-cream truck driver. Do we anticipate a conflict? If so, he's willing to give us the majority of his professional attention, and also a limited amount of free ice cream.

Oh, and one other thing, he lives in a different city, 200 miles away, and cannot relocate due to a custody agreement. But he can't be making that drive every day, so would it be alright if he moved in with one of us (me, the senior developer, or the 22-year old junior designer girl)- just during the week, obviously not on weekends.

CV looked pretty decent for someone applying for a senior software engineer role - showed years of experience in all the various bits of technology we used. One or two spelling errors, but nothing that stood out as alarms.

Candidate shows up 30 minutes late to the interview (I'll let this slide, we give a bit of allowance lest things overrun). Could not really communicate in English. When asked about his experience using a specific tool said he had never heard of it before, and when asked why it appears on his CV replied "the recruiter told me to put it there". Turns out the recruiter had basically edited the candidate's CV almost entirely.

What was scheduled to be a 90 minute interview lasted 10. The recruiter got a bollocking too.

I was conducting a phone interview with a candidate applying for a role as a prison officer.

Me: "Tell me Daniel, what made you decide to leave the army?".

Him: "I was dishonourably discharged."

Me: "Could you tell me more about that?"

Him: "I was sent to army prison."

Now to explain, it takes a special type of person to be a prison officer; tough, strong and with a lot of situational awareness. It can actually benefit a candidate to have come from a tough background and minor offences might actually make someone more aware and capable in this type of job. Obviously you need someone to be honest, but unlike many roles, a small criminal record is not a rule breaker in this case.

Me: "I understand. For this role, there may be types of offences which are permissible. Would you be able to tell me the nature of the offence?"

Him: "I can't."

Me: "If you don't disclose the offence to me, I can't put you forward. If you do then I can note the offence and there's a chance you can still proceed in this role."

Him: "I can't tell you."

Me: "Are you sure?"

Him: "I can't tell you."

Me: "Ok. Thanks for your time."

At that point I was curious as to what exactly happened in the army and the fact that he didn't tell me made me think it was serious but I guess I'll never know.

Lighter Story:
For manual jobs we required all candidates to do the Manual Aptitude Test. This means that they must demonstrate safe lifting techniques, basic awareness of safety codes etc.

During one MAT a candidate was instructed to lift an empty cardboard box but pretend it was heavy. (Bend at the knees not at the back etc.)

He proceeded to moan and groan under the weight of the 'heavy' box and heaved it up slowly. He got the job.

I used to work for a very large animation studio, and we would hire quite a few animators / illustrators (to train up to be animators). We would always get hundreds of applicants and as I was one of the TD's I would be roped in to do interviews. All I was interested in was seeing raw talent and motivation. We were hiring for a couple of junior positions and so these qualities really were the most important as most of the junior's resumés are going to be pretty thin on experience.

This one girl comes in and she is currently working for a small animation studio that I used to work at (which was a nightmare environment so she already had my sympathy and respect for lasting so long), so she had already pinned herself to the in-tray a bit. She talked a really good game; she was young but really motivated and had learned in some good colleges and had (as far as I could tell) done some of the crappier jobs in production / animation.

At the end I like to look through their folio and showreel to see what they have done (again, I usually see a lot of college work or personal work and some light corporate and promotion animation work) and get them to talk me through it. This girl opens the folio and talks through her (strong) college work and then the next few pieces are *my work*, work that I had done at the company she is now at. I went very quiet, and my interview partner (another TD) was like: 'what's up?' so I said: 'I used to work for ***** and this is my f*****g work.'

She went bright, bright red and then burst into tears. She hated the company and (apparently) I was a bit of a legend after leaving (HTF did that happen?!) and she felt she was always working under my shadow and all she ever worked on was crappy wire removal or matte cleanup. I gave her a long lecture about plagiarism and using someone else's work as your own.

You know, even with all that, she did *have* talent and I liked her route to where she was now. So we gave her a second chance.

She got one of the spots. Still there and we keep in touch!

Middle aged professional woman who was a secretary at a large law firm. She was looking for part time work in customer service. She was educated, had a great job history and had a fantastic resume. If anything, she was over qualified.



We were required to ask certain questions. In this case, I asked her "Are there any people that you have trouble working with?" The correct answer is "no, I get along with everyone." Her response -- "Indians and Chinese people."



I was baffled. One - really? Two - Our CEO was Indian and our HQ was in China. Three - still really? Needless to say, I didn't hire her.

Guy comes in for an interview for an entry level software development position. He's fresh out of college, just like we were looking for.

Apart from some alarmingly bad breath, the interview itself was going just a bit below average. He seemed a little slower than other applicants, but what really k*lled it happened about 30 minutes into the interview, when we were interrupted by the receptionist.

Apparently someone had double parked their Subaru Outback in two very clearly labeled Motorcycle spots out in front of the building. These short, narrow spots are not at all long enough to hold a car, and he was literally blocking in someone's jeep. The owner of said jeep, was trying to get to the hospital for a family emergency of some kind, and everyone in the company had been running around looking for the owner of the Outback to get them to f*****g move. Of course it was the dumb-as-bricks interviewee.

I suppose that would be me at 18 years old. While applying for some low level office job to pay for college, I was asked "describe a weakness that you have?". Being naive as I was then, I answered that I tend to procrastinate and have to force myself to begin important tasks. Once I start, it goes like a breeze. It was a perfectly honest answer, but I could immediately see the horror in the interviewers eyes and I knew that I wouldn't get the job. I also learned something important: never tell the truth in job interviews where any blemish could be placed on your character. I have been lying successfully ever since.

Applicant looked presentable. White teefs and French cuffed shirt.

Then he entered the room

He smelled like s**t.

It was if someone had been collecting the s***s people take at Taco Bell and the portable bathrooms used in marathons, for the past 10 years. Then liquified it to form this mans cologne.

The smell that overcame my interviewing partner and I was enough to render my a**s shut in utter fear.

He was asked kindly to leave. Interviews were done for the day.

Me and a good friend of mine from college will often interview someone together as at the company we work at, I'm in charge of IT and he's in charge of productivity. The job itself was for an entry level helpdesk position. The guy had a decent enough resume (went to a good school, had a portfolio, good employment history, etc), so we decided to bring him in

But before that, me and my friend are going over some last minute ideas for questions to ask when his my friend's secretary bursts in. She tells us that the guy sitting out in the lobby waiting for the interview was someone who was being kind of creepy and staring and smiling at her. And not the "Hi, you look nice" smile, I'm talking "Hey baby, dtf?" smile. It was the guy we were going to interview

So I told her to let him in and literally his first words out of his mouth are "Pssh if you've got dimes like that all over this office, I don't know how I'm gonna contain myself". We looked at each other with a "You thinking what I'm thinking?" expression and made him leave the building.