Hey, I’ll buy you 7. :p

Not only is that completely unprofessional, but a terrible pick up line. Guess he didn’t get the job :)

I guess she also answered the question “Do you know the difference between hearing and listening?” She heard your question, but she didn’t listen… that’s for sure!

And man oh man at the second story. I’ve always told people that silence is OK when they are interviewing. You don’t need to constantly be speaking. Say what you want in a concise manner and if there is a moment of silence — that’s fine. It shows you are confident in your own skin!

A candidate asked me for my cell phone number right after the interview and I immediately gave him my business card so he can call should he have any questions. SOP. In his interestingly unique nervous demeanor, he asked me if he can buy me a drink that Friday night. What made matters worse was when he said, “They have $5 happy hour specials on mixed cocktails. I usually never buy a woman a drink unless she’s hot. I’ll buy you as many as 6 if you want.” I don’t remember if my heels where thick enough to smack him in the head without punching a hole in his brain. I couldn’t even kill a poor mosquito.

I think barf bags should be installed under conference room tables and HR interview rooms.

I would not ever recommend those chairs, especially if you have an air conditioned office. A former employer of mine bought each employee in his office the Aeron chair simply because he thought they looked cool. Well, when I sat in that chair the first day I received mine, my ass literaly froze due to the cool office air conditioning traveling through the mesh seat. It was like sitting on one of those 1960’s style lawn chairs. You’re better off with the Zito Chair from Haworth.

During a recent interview, we just finished telling the interviewee that the system test team consisted of just over 20 people of which she would join if she was the successful applicant. One of my questions was “do you prefer to work as part of a team or individually.” To my amazement (and the other interviewers as well), she said “definitely individually.” She went on to say that sometimes she doesn’t work well as part of a team. We were shocked. We wrapped up that interview extremely quickly after that doozie.

The second story was during another interview for the same position (oh yes, we had our share of “are you kidding me” candidates during this stretch). This was a phone interview as the interviewee lived in a different city. As usual, I would start the interview off with a fairly general question to get the candidate talking. What happened next, none of us could believe. He started answering the question and then just kept talking and talking and talking. He definitely knew his stuff about testing. We tried to interrupt him about 3 times before finally muting the phone, looking at each other and asking if this was some kind of prank that someone pulled on us. We eventually cut in after 20 minutes of his rambling but his fate was sealed. We asked two more quick questions, cutting him off after he gave the answer (or the interview may still be going on). He did not get the job, for obvious reasons.

How about the candidate who stated that he was not “a morning person” when asked “Tell me about yourself?”

Michal Orenstein-Orpaz
Career Counselor, Consultant and Coach
Best Fit Careers

That was definitely a good call on your manager’s part. Every situation is definitely different and the manager should work hard to get a pulse on the situation. Every now and then they may feel it out incorrectly, but they should try and not write people off immediately. As you said, their are people who are great at interviews and people who aren’t… and it’s been established that the interview rarely translates to job performance!

My manager was able to put the candidate at ease and found out that in order to be on time for the interview the candidate arrived early but couldn’t find any legal parking, after driving around for an hour she finally park too close to an intersection and she was nervous about getting a parking ticket. My manager said don’t worry about it – go back out, find a legal parking spot and then come back in when you are ready.

Long story short – she was hired and turned out to be a fantastic addition to the team. So, sometimes you, as an interviewer, really have to do some extra work with candidates.

Remember, just as not everyone does well in school with test-taking but are still smart people; Not everyone does well with resume writing, job interviewing, and other non-job-related skills but they still make great additions to the team.

That being said it really is a tough call to make as to whether this person just doesn’t interview well or really does not and will not have good (or even half-way decent) communication skills.