15+ Job Interviews That Proved First Impressions Can Be Wild

Most of us get nervous before a job interview — but sometimes it’s not us who make things awkward, it’s the interview itself. From strange comments to downright unprofessional behavior, some stories prove that the process can go wildly off-track. Here’s one more example that shows: no matter how bad your interview was, someone’s had it worse.

• So I walk into a job interview, and guess who’s there? My ex—the one things ended horribly with. He’s smirking, leaning back in his chair, and goes, “Well, hello there. What brings you here?” I didn’t show any reaction.
  He flips through my resume, snorts, and then out of nowhere asks, “Are you sure you’ll be comfortable working here?” with that look like he’s planning to make my life hell. I clench my hands and say, “Absolutely. I always separate work from personal stuff.”
  He pauses, stares at me for a sec, then grabs a pen and writes something down. Finally, he says, “Alright, I’ll take you on for the trial period. Let’s see what kind of pro you are.” As I’m walking out, he adds over his shoulder, “By the way, I’m single.” I just pretended I didn’t hear him. © Caramel / VK

• During an interview, they asked me, “Imagine you were a fruit. Which one would you be and why?” At first, I wanted to say “apple,” but then I pictured them rolling their eyes.
  My brain went through all the options: watermelon — too big, pineapple — prickly but sweet inside. In the end, I got flustered and just said honestly, “I’d be a pomegranate, because inside I’m a total mess, but if you dig in, there’s a lot of good stuff.” The HR person laughed, and they ended up hiring me for my honesty.

• For an interview at this fancy software company, I walked into the room, and there are 3 people on the other side of the table. They stand up to greet me. Just as we are sitting down together, this woman asks me, “How are you doing?”
  This is normal, so I say, “I’m doing great, thanks.” She then asks, “How are you really doing?”
  I didn’t know how to answer this.
  The rest of the interview was relatively normal, but the way she asked that... like saying “we know you are not doing fine, don’t lie to us,” or something. © krispykremey55 / Reddit

• I normally do really well with interviews, but this one threw me way off. It was at 10pm for some reason and at this popular local burger place. Went in, he asked me how I multitask after he looked at my resume.
  I didn’t and still don’t know how to answer that question. I multitask when I need to? There isn’t a ‘how’. I just do it.
  I ended up saying, “I do it because I’m... awesome... at customer service.” How? “Because I’m just...awesome?” © umokrude / Reddit

• This was back in the mid-90s, so it was when I had a pager, but not a cell phone. There was a car wreck blocking the highway, so I wound up being almost 15 minutes late, and of course wasn’t able to call ahead.
  The hiring manager would not let it go. Kept saying things like, “Being late for the interview doesn’t bode well,” and “punctuality is VERY important here.”
  Finally, I said, “Listen, I apologize again for being late, but as I explained it was beyond my control. You seem really hung up on this, and that concerns me to the point that I don’t think you and I will get along. So thanks for your time, but I’d like to withdraw my application.” He looked really surprised, but I don’t remember him saying too much, so we shook hands and I left.
  I wound up getting an offer from one of his competitors, and bumped into this guy a few months later at a function. He said to my boss right in front of me, “You must’ve really hit it off with him. When I interviewed him, he got up and left after 10 minutes.” Like I had done it for no reason. © yukonbob / Reddit

• I had an interview at the Munich airport once during my studies. It was for a job where you communicate stuff with the pilot briefly, something anybody could do, but still a good job for a full-time life-science student. So of course for the job, you had to be fluent in English.
  To test that, we switched to English and the interviewer asked me to tell him about my last vacations or my last travel. I fell silent. I never traveled and never had any vacations before that would be worth talking about. In fact, I only sat in a plane once before, a domestic flight.
  I didn’t get the job because he believed I couldn’t speak English, when in fact I was just taken back and ashamed I could talk about anything at that moment. I felt sad. © DividedState / Reddit

• I interviewed at a private high school in the USA. They asked me to prepare a brief lesson for some students. My lesson went horribly; several students participated, but several were completely disengaged, particularly students on the left side of the classroom.
  When I tried to incorporate these students into the lesson, they simply shook their heads and looked back at their phones. I felt like an awful instructor.
  After, the principal (who had sat in on the teaching demo) asked me why I thought certain students refused to participate. I said they likely weren’t interested in the material.
  The principal then revealed to me that the students on the left side of the class were strong academic students who did not speak English, and therefore could not participate in my lesson. However, the principal assured me that they had a strong reputation for training instructors to teach in multilingual classrooms, and that I would be running a strong classroom in no time if I accepted their offer.
  I actually have some experience teaching English as a second language, but no one had mentioned that my teaching demo should cater to students who may be learning English as a second language.
  I felt that information had been withheld from me in order to ensure that I failed, only for the school to swoop in and say, “You may feel worthless now, but don’t worry! We can fix you.” I honestly considered the position until I realized how manipulative the whole set-up was. © tw4lyfee / Reddit

• I took vacation days to interview, bought my own plane ticket, and paid for my own hotel. The 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.
  To my shock, 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 a respected institution. © seeingred_415 / Reddit

• 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 and to close off I say I heard it was a fun place to work.
  She replied: Do you think this is a playground? 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. © tigerb**dz13 / Reddit

• My interviewer keep talking about himself and his product, rather than asking me regular interview questions. That’s a big red flag for me, and after he finished talking he said I could get started right away, but I had to pay $40 to take an insurance license exam.
  These types of certifications are very informative and take about a month to memorize. I told him that I had other interviews, and I’ll make my decision later in the week. He didn’t get the memo and still keeps calling me about me coming in and starting. © Abraxoz / Reddit

• One time I got a cold call that turned into an interview at a bank in Canada that was literally 45 minutes of the interviewer asking me in different ways if I was a “man child” or not because pretty much all of my experience was/is in the video games’ industry.
  I basically asked the guy to never call me again. He added me on social media, and the next day he did this “super cool birthday prank” where he duct-taped his colleague to his chair with this huge post about “how much fun he has with his friends at work.” © goodtoknowineverknew / Reddit

• It was for a software engineering position. The entire interview was focused around finding a solution for a very specific problem. It was about 45 mins of the interview team saying things like “That won’t work, we tried that already.”
  Left the interview without getting a solution to the problem. On the way out, I spoke with HR about what the potential next steps in the interview process were. She informed me they already filled the position, but didn’t cancel any of the scheduled interviews.
  I was brought in to solve problems the team couldn’t solve. For free. © SpaceGerbil / Reddit

• I sat down, and these two women stared at me. Finally, one of them said, “We thought you were younger.” (I am in my 60s). After she said this, she got up and left.
  The other one (turns out she is the manager) was rude and cold, tossed a few questions at me, then got on her cell phone. I finally said, “Look, if we’re done here (she was staring at her desk, ignoring me), I have another interview.” I left.
  Later, I reported both of them to the district office. District manager said, “We’ve had many reports about her.”
  The manager got fired. I was offered another interview. Declined. © Ill-Summer-5061 / Reddit

• The interviewer insisted on knowing why I’d left graduate school. Now, I had left graduate school because my advisor died in a car accident and the whole small department was thrown for a loop and no one seemed to know or care what was going to happen to me or my just started research project.
  The interviewer wouldn’t even accept “My advisor died suddenly” and dug into the gory details until I was almost in tears (even intimating that I must have had “feelings” for my advisor.) I couldn’t wait to get out of there and in my haste to leave I knocked some solutions off a cart (which had no business being in his office BTW) on my way out.
  I’d never been so humiliated in my life. © Kitty__Bloom / Reddit

• Meet this guy at a job fair. He loved my work, and gave me his card. He told me to call him the next day, so I did. We booked an interview and it went well.
  I go to his office, he looks at my portfolio, tells me it’s great and that I’m a great fit for his company. Then he gave me a full tour, introduced me around and tells me about the great lunch spots in the area.
  At the end of the interview, we sit back down, and he says this, “Love your work, and you seem like a perfect fit. Actually, we’re not hiring right now, but I’ll keep you in mind.” © Burrito_Loyalist / Reddit

• I recently had a really awkward experience at a job interview. When I walked into the room, two women started whispering, “She’s not right for this position!” Then they sent me to another office where the staff didn’t even bother interviewing me. They straight-up told me, “The HR manager thinks you’re too attractive for this role.” I was so upset, I ran out in tears. Not the first time my looks have let me down.

• This happened a long time ago. After graduating from university, I started looking for a job and got invited to an interview for an office manager position. Two guys were interviewing me — the director and his deputy. They started asking me questions about my personal life. Then they started flirting and said, “There will be bonuses. But under certain conditions.”
  There was this really tense pause. And right at that moment, my jealous boyfriend — the one who drove me there — starts climbing through the window. The office was on the first floor, the blinds weren’t even closed. You should’ve seen the look on those two “interviewers.” I just walked out without saying goodbye.

Here, you can learn some behind-the-scenes secrets of how interviews really work — and what behavior can make or break your chances.