Let me set the scene for you: I was 16-years-old and my mom was really hassling me to get a job.
A friend of mine told me he got hired at the new Walmart in town, so I thought to myself, “hey, if he can do it, I can do it!”
Guess what? I couldn’t do it…
The interview was for a position in the stationary section of the store and the guy in charge of hiring people acted like I was applying for a job at NASA. It was the most ridiculous and most uncomfortable job interview I ever had…and I didn’t get hired.
All for the best, I think!
What’s the worst job interview you ever had?
Here’s what AskReddit users had to say.
1. First one ever.
“My first interview in my life was for a fast food place and I was way too honest.
Why do you want to work here?
“Mostly for the money. I like the food here too.”
What do you do on your free time?
“Video games”
Did not get a call back.”
2. No way!
“When he said I’ll give you extra hours if you bring me smokes every day, then put his hand on my leg and said his wife gives him passes to have fun.
I also got a speeding ticket on the way to the interview.
Was not my month.”
3. Time to leave.
“I interviewed for a project management position.
The interviewer describes the job: basically it was pure research and data entry of potential clients, then cold-calling them and documenting the results. The job ad mentioned exactly none of this but was an average project management job ad, else I wouldn’t have applied in the first place.
I asked what exactly was the project management part, and got told that could (could, not would) be down the road, maybe 2-5 years in, but really only maybe. I thanked them for the interview opportunity, we wrapped things up and I politely left.”
4. See ya later.
“It was my first “professional” law firm interview. I was SO nervous.
I had applied for a legal secretary position. The attorney whose name was on the door would be interviewing me so I was a nervous wreck. When he walked in the room, I stood up, introduced myself and shook his hand. He looked me up and down and said “yeah, you’ll do”.
I turned around and walked out without saying another word.”
5. Wrong company.
“Showed up looking good in my suit with a ton of knowledge on Capital Partners.
It turned out I had researched the wrong company named Capital Partners.”
6. Stress interview.
“Had a phone interview and the woman kept asking more and more intrusive questions, kept hinting I’m a total piece of sh*t who’s totally unfit for the job (it was the easiest job description ever) and jumping to conclusions about my life that were completely untrue.
For example I found out that being a freelancer who gets a lot of decently paid work each month is apparently living off my parents. She kept going on and on like that for quite a while before I told her to p*ss off and hung up. Didn’t really need that job too badly but it was in a different country so the trravel aspect was the main reason.
Years later I found out it was a “stress interview” which apparently is a thing. F*ck those people.”
7. Hell no.
“I went in to apply for an administrative assistant position and the guy kept asking me questions about liking kids and are my passports up to date…etc.
I was SO confused. Turns out what he really wanted was a nanny for his two young kids to travel with him and his wife back to India.
I was so p*ssed he wasted my time. I noped right the f*ck out of there.”
8. That’s weird.
“At an interview to be a county street sweeper, guy asks me if I have a girlfriend, proceeds to rant for 5 minutes how young people dont get married anymore.
Then he asks me what I want to avoid at the job. At the time I had no idea how to answer as I’d never been asked that in an interview before. So I ask him to clarify, to which he just repeats the question, over and over until he gets super angry that I dont know how to answer that, then asks me to leave.
To this day, biggest wtf interview I’ve had.”
9. Still salty.
“I was interviewing for a job in Houston, and lived in Austin, about 2.5 hours away.
I drove to Houston for the first round of interviews, and they said it went well and wanted to being me in for a final interview, so i drove there again. It seemed like it went well and they told me they had one more interview to conduct and would have a decision tomorrow.
So the next day came and went, I emailed the manager to ask if any decision had been made, nothing, waited a couple more days, left a voicemail, nothing. Then a couple days later, I just called the main number for the company and told the receptionist why I was calling. She was like “well, someone just started in that job yesterday”.
They ghosted me after I drove a total of 10 hours to interview twice. Still salty about that 11 years later.”
10. That’s bad.
“Had an interview, went well. I was offered the job on the spot and accepted.
The HR manager went to get the needed paperwork, came back 10 mins later and said “I must have forgot that we already filled this position. I’m sorry, but we don’t have an opening. I could call you if something opens back up”.
I said no thank you.”
11. Great job!
“I told them I couldn’t answer their questions, farted audibly out of stress and thanked them for their time.”
12. Sorry I wasted your time.
“Applied for a desktop support position. $15/hour advertised. A bit on the low side but I was out of work and needed to pay bills.
Sat down for the interview with two guys. Interviewer A introduced himself as the manager / network / project manager and introduced interviewer B as the server guy. Indicated he was looking for someone to bridge that gap between the two of them when things got buys.
He wanted someone who could take the overflow of work and handle project management tasks, network configs, server admin work, and handle the day-to-day desktop requests of the office. Cue my eyes getting as big as saucers.
I apologized and indicated I thought I was in the wrong interview. I had applied for a desktop support position for $15 an hour. His response, “Oh no, you’re in the right spot! It’s desktop support, and a few other tasks as we need to assign them to you. There was a typo in the job advert though. It’s only $13 an hour.”
I just stood up, grabbed my coat from the back of the chair, apologized for wasting their time, and left.”
13. Sir, yes sir!
“I had a skype interview with a private practice and the lady interviewing me literally made it sound like a stern military parent.
“You can NEVER be late” (mind you the job was an hour away)
“Even if you have a cold you can NEVER call in sick” (idk if this was meant for pre or post-covid)
“We’re a small company so you won’t have much of a work/life balance”
“PS our pay for all this dedication is only 3 dollars more than the measely pay your getting now”
Just a whole interview of Red Flags. And the last one was when the lady messaged me immediately after saying I got the job and had to leave my job at maximum, five days’ notice, regardless of me kind of bombing the interview and claiming there were other interviewees in line.
I could see why they were having trouble hiring people.”
Now it’s your turn.
In the comments, tell us about the worst job interview that you’ve ever had.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
