It’s completely normal to be at least a little bit nervous before going to a job interview. After all, we all want to leave a good impression on others. Especially those that get a vote on what our potential careers might look like.
However, some folks just can’t handle the stress and end up being total nervous wrecks—dripping with sweat, stuttering, forgetting where they even worked earlier, and worse. Meanwhile, some managers and recruiters simply don’t have enough emotional intelligence and end up being totally brutal to the interviewees for seemingly no good reason. Times have changed, and a firm handshake might not be enough to secure a quality position anymore just by itself.
Bored Panda has collected the very worst job interview experiences, as shared by the folks on r/AskReddit in a ton of gruesome threads. Seriously, if you’ve got a job interview coming up, don’t read this, otherwise, you’ll get nightmares… though, on the flip side, these stories might prepare you for the worst that’s possible.
Financial expert Sam Dogen was kind enough to tell us how to leave a positive impression on recruiters, how to avoid being nervous during an interview, and shared why it’s important to be humble yet confident. Sam is the author of ‘Buy This, Not That: How to Spend Your Way to Wealth and Freedom,’ which comes out July 19, and is the founder of the Financial Samurai blog. He’s been through a nightmare job interview experience himself in the past, having gone through a total of 55 interviews during 7 rounds to get the job he wanted!
#1
I took vacation days to interview, bought my own plane ticket, and paid for my own hotel. First thing the interviewer said was, “I have no intention of hiring you. This is just a courtesy because I knew your brother.” I had 8 more hours left in my interview day. It was painful.
They ended up offering me the position many weeks down the road because they couldn’t fill the position. I politely declined and got a very passive aggressively worded survey to fill out explaining why I passed.
Edit:
I’m an eye surgeon. This was for a training position at an Ivy League institution.
Image credits: seeing_red415
#2
Went for an interview with Oxygen magazine. Front desk lady…very shocked to see me. Asked me to sit and hurried off.
Hiring manager came out and she too was shocked to see me… Asked to see my resume.
Hands me a name tag with my last name only on it (it’s a common female name).
She has me sit in the conference room while the CEO and CTO come back with hiring manager.
They explain that they thought I was a female and apologized for the mix up on the name tag then explained I was not a fit for their “office culture” and ended interview without a single question offered or answered.
About then I noticed the entire office was female. I wasn’t even mad… Just kinda laughed and left.
Gotta be the worst one in terms of professionalism.
Image credits: Syst0us
#3
I had a really big opportunity for a job with Siemens corporation sometime after I graduated from college for a technical job that would have paid alot of money. It was a multi-interview job and I actually got interviewed by 3 different people. Each one I was a nervous wreck but somehow nailed them and just stayed confident.
Finally they send me for the final interview at their headquarters so I show up prepared, early, suit and tie, certs and paperwork, etc. I’m sitting in this fancy lobby waiting for the interviewer to come get me and another dude walks in dressed for an interview just like me. I figured he was here for another job so we had a friendly chat while we waited for our interviewers to show up. This was clearly an older, more experienced guy.
Finally interviewer shows up and is surprised to see us, saying they accidentally scheduled our interviews for the same time. So he takes the older gentlemen and tells his employee to take me and we would be interviewed separately. At this point everything is falling apart…I’m not being interviewed by the man I showed up to talk to. Instead this employee dressed in a T shirt takes me downstairs to the cafeteria and asks me a handful of quick questions in a very unprofessional setting before letting me go.
It’s like they decided who to hire before the interview even began. It was a huge let down.
Image credits: KGhaleon
#4
Applied to work at a vet clinic. Veterinarian did the interview while spaying a cat, apparently one of the cleanest and quickest surgeries they do. I fainted. Was not offered the job (after I woke up).
Image credits: Remembers_that_time
#5
Interviewed someone for a servers position in a club, she said she couldn’t work weekends or past 8pm. We’re a nightclub that’s open from 7pm till 2am
Image credits: CanineRezQ
#6
I was 23 at the time. The manager of the company interviewed me. He was old enough to be my grandfather.
He asked if I had a bf and if he was jelaous.
He told me that there were going to be thee options for me: The first one was to work from home, the second one was to work from the office, the third one was to go on “business trips” with him twice a week. The 3d option was with the highest pay. He told me that I look like a smart girl and the third option would be the best for me.
It was clear he was hiring a personal escord.
He was such a creep and made me feel so uncomfortable.
Image credits: Overall_Writer_6648
#7
During college I applied for a bunch of jobs at Ikea. I got an interview followed by a rejection email. A week later they called me for another interview. I got another rejection email. They interviewed five times for five different positions. I got rejected all five times. I’m still salty about it two decades later.
Image credits: [deleted]
#8
My mom raises chickens … and during COVID one of them got sick (not COVID). She had it inside to feed water hourly to try to nurse it back to life. My mom has to run an errand so I’m in charge of this chicken for the afternoon.
I was on a phone screening with a candidate for a position in my office and this chicken starts having a seizure and dies on the middle of this phone call. I look over and it’s laying almost like it was crucified.
The candidate heard the commotion and asked if everything was ok … Which I relied “yeah, the chicken just died”.
She withdrew her application the next morning.
Edit: it was an office job at a NYC school. no farm experience required. Poor girl.
Image credits: poniesgalore
#9
A couple hours into the interview/intro training, I was given paperwork to fill out for my new dog grooming job. Which would have been great except that I had applied to be a cashier and had never owned a dog, much less groomed one. When I brought that up to the trainers, they didn’t seemed concerned at all. They said there were no cashier slots, that opening must have been left up by mistake, but dog grooming is fun and I’d like it. They seemed surprised when I left the paperwork on the table and congratulated them on wasting all of our time. Never shopped at that pet store again either.
Image credits: Sporkicide
#10
Interviewed for a florist as a teenager. I’m quite small and so the owner kept telling me I’d struggle lifting the buckets filled with water and flowers.
He then gave me a tour and showed me the storeroom, told me to pick up a bucket to get an idea of how heavy it was.
Since he had kept going on about it I severely overestimated how heavy the bucket would be and basically flung it above my head and drenched us both in icy water and flowers.
EDIT: No, I didn’t get the job. I don’t think it was because of the bucket though. He told me he would arrange a trial for me the next week but seemed super spacey. He called me the wrong name about 5 times during the interview so I wouldn’t be surprised if he just…forgot he wanted to hire someone.
Image credits: thatone-there
#11
The interviewer was just stone cold, I tried to work in some small chit chat to break the ice but the most I got was a smirk. Then came the technical questions. I botched every question and each time he gave me a hard “no” then proceeded to condescendingly explain why I was wrong. Luckily I landed a job with a different company shortly after but man that interview really destroyed my confidence
Image credits: JustBeenRevoked1
#12
In the midst of a nine month stint of unemployment I went down to a job fair at the local Dairy Queen. When I got there, they sent me to a room with everyone else applying (about two dozen people) and sat me down to take a basic manners and math test. About halfway through the woman across from me goes, ‘Hey, what’s the answer to number 7?’ Number 7 was what is ten percent of $5. I refused to give her the answer. The hipster kids sitting next to her told her .50 and sneered at me. Moments later, a fight broke out behind me when some random woman tried to cut in line to be interviewed. Neither were removed and both were interviewed.
Eventually, I was asked to meet the manager to interview. I got the job one minute later because I was wearing khakis and a blue button up shirt.
A week later I was fired for going home to my grandma’s funeral.
#13
Fresh out of college, I was looking for my first teaching job. I applied at a small district for an elementary school position.
I walked in, expecting the principal and a few teachers. Instead I had the superintendent of the district, some high-level admin, and every single elementary school principal in the district. Probably 15 people in all. They peppered me with questions for 45 minutes.
I had zero experience, just my student teaching. I did not get the job.
Image credits: edgarpickle
#14
I applied for a job in a Planetarium, the interview was conducted in a big dome.
Problem was, another part of the Planetarium staff was doing fire alarm tests during the interview. The dome amplified the sound so much, it was deafening. The interview staff acted like nothing was going on. We had to shout so we could hear each other.
Image credits: Quaternaire
#15
Applied for a programmer job with a company that wrote insurance industry software. Had 3 different interviews with different people on different days. Was told to come in on Monday at 8am.
Quit my day job.
Reported on Monday… “Hi, what’s up?”
“Reporting for duty!”
“Oh?”
… I mean, it’s one thing to string somebody on, letting them think they’re accepted. Or you can say “we’ll give you a call”, and figure they’ll get the message. But when you TELL someone to report for work, then pretend you didn’t have a job for them… THAT’S LAME.
Image credits: [deleted]
#16
It was right when the recession hit and I was laid off a month prior. I went in, the interview was going great and then the interviewer asked me if I smoke and I said “sometimes, not really.” She then says the employer will not hire someone that smokes and I say “well, I don’t smoke at work or take smoke breaks or anything” and she literally turned to her computer and acted as though I disappeared into thin air. After 30 seconds I finally said “so, I guess I should go then” and she literally refused to acknowledge me so I just left.
#17
I was kept waiting for an hour because the department head was on a lunch break. The company scheduled the appointment. Not a good start. I was about to walk out when they called me in (nobody else was there but me).
Why do you want to work here?
You can’t really say for the money so I said I like the work etc and to close off I say I heard it was a fun place to work.
Do you think this is a playground she replied? That you’ll be able to slack off? This went on for about 1 minute and she kept getting louder. I stood up, laughed and left. No wonder they are constantly looking for new people.
#18
person came in for her interview and started dictating her own rules before the interview had even started
she didnt get the job
Image credits: Ahshalon_Tenisk
#19
A store I wanted to work at had walk in interviews, which they said started at 4pm. I thought that meant they were running continuously. So I rolled in at 4:15, got told the interviews were over but the manage might be able to squeeze in one more. Already not a great impression of me.
Then for some reason I just could not answer her questions. “What are your greatest strengths?” “uhm……..” “why do you want to work here?” “well, I uh…um…” “what were your responsibilities at your last job?” “Uhhhhh…” Like I just blanked for some reason, I was totally ill-prepared.
Walked out of there absolutely humiliated. Still got hired tho, and 6 months later I was assistant manager lmao
#20
Got an interview for a job as a floor manager at a gigantic steel foundry. I have some background in metallurgy so I thought it’d fit. It paid $90k and I was qualified resume-wise. I got there, turned out it was a group interview with three other applicants, to hear the pitch. If something messes up, the company loses $100,000 (some shockingly high amount, I don’t remember if it was exactly 100k) per hour and it’s your sole responsibility to fix it. They said you’d have to be on call 24/7 to handle anything that comes up. I got to the solo part out of curiosity and the interviewer they put me with said something to the effect of “I know this job sounds bad, but actually it’s even worse.” I was desperate for a job because I didn’t land one straight out of college, but I was glad not to hear back from them after the interview..
Image credits: Kersikai
#21
I showed up in person for a phone interview. I have NO idea how I got myself in that position. I looked up the address on my own and everything.
I sat around waiting to be interviewed for 1/2 hour because the interviewer was in his office trying to call me. Of course, my phone was off.
I wasn’t offered another interview, and rightfully so.
Image credits: NotCleverNamesTaken
#22
Was doing the whole long-term unemployed thing. Applied for a job that was being advertised by a recruiter.
Surprisingly, got an interview.
When I got there it quickly became clear to me that they were asking questions I didn’t understand about things I’d never done.
Now, when I decide to point this out to them, the interviewer naturally asks why I listed them on my CV if I never had experience with them.
The answer of course, is that I didn’t.
The interview has a copy of my CV on the table that shows these particular skills listed out on it.
Now, I’m quite surprised at this, because the copy of my CV emailed to the recruiter doesn’t have these particularly skills on it – and I naturally show that copy to them.
I was the third person that day who obviously didn’t know what they were talking about, and the first to actually admit it.
This did not lead to a job – as I was missing the skills I’d actually need to do the job at all. It did lead to a free lunch and the bus-fare home, which was nice.
Image credits: DartzIRL
#23
Door to door coupon book sales. Dude asked me like 2 questions then started getting ready for a team meeting in the next room. They had music blasting and he starts shadow boxing, bobbing and weaving and throwing punches like a madman. Then he goes into the next room and everybody is cheering like he was a conquering hero. I was like ffs it’s just coupon books. Job lasted a week
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Image credits: DanFlaylen
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