Things not to say during interview

What's PIP?

I once told an interview panel (for a graphic design job) that I had started my own country. In my defence, I had flags and posters for the country I had founded in my portfolio. But I was hoping that they'd concentrate on the quality of the art and layout, rather than the viability of the country. Instead, they couldn't let go of the fact that I had indeed declared my front room to be an independent country, and that I wasn't doing this to make money, and they ended up getting quite annoyed with me as they quizzed me about what the fúck I was up to.

It didn't help that I was suffering from a very bad case of food poisoning from eating a battered sausage out of a puddle the Saturday night before (someone threw it at me and I ate it in defiance). So I had spent the prior 2 days between the bed and the toilet without any food, before falling into the interview first thing on the Tuesday morning pumping sweat and barely able to stand up.

Naturally, I didn't get the job. But it was the last interview that I didn't get.

Was in an interview and they proceeded to say how they expected to size the workload without the project being defined. I explained I can make an educated guess with the available information but it won't be accurate. Proceeded to say that the funding on the project would be determined by my estimates. It went on with them explaining how if I got it wrong I would be expected to work late if I under estimate while saying they fired the last guy because his estimates were so high.

The interview ended when I said " I don't think you understand that you are planning to undercut the big players while paying your staff less and expecting them to work unpaid overtime. Within a few months you will lose all the experienced staff members stuck with inexperienced people who can't get another job."

They took massive offense and thought it was unprofessional of me to express such a view. I had 10 years more experience than these 2 guys combined. Told them I was warning them to leave because the boss was exploiting their inexperience. When I was leaving I saw several people I worked with before. They all gave me the eye of "don't work here". We all spoke and I explained the interview to them, I would have been their boss. They were all looking for work and were worried how the company could go on as they had so few clients and they were all way beyond time frames and they were losing money on them even though staff were all doing free overtime. Company hemorrhaged staff within a few months and they couldn't hire anybody experienced because the word was out. They had to hire contractors to complete the work because none of the staff were experienced. Closed within 8 months of the interview.

Met one of the guys who interviewed me in work as he was hired by another company that worked where I was working. After a few weeks we spoke and he said I was 100% correct. He had spent most of his time apologizing to customers. He was also a junior BA as opposed to a senior BA he was in the other company.

So you're saying you didn't fit into their team player culture.

I actually did this once. I have no idea what made me do it (nerves probably)... Needless to say, it didnae go well.

Interviewer - “What would you say is your biggest weakness ?”

Interviewee - “Honesty. “

”Interviewer “I wouldn’t think that’s a weakness.”

Interviewee - “Well, I don’t give a f@€k what you think !”

Doin' yer...... son?

"ah... so this is what you do for the day job" and wink at the interviewer...

Was interviewing someone and they asked "What's your policy on training? 'Cos I'd like to train up as much as possible and then move" I think they thought it was meant to demonstrate how ambitious they were.

Another interviewee attended while sitting at his desk in work (Video interview). Simply muted us while he talked to his colleague at least twice and then returned as if nothing happened. No apology, explanation, nothing. It actually looked staged as if they were trying to demonstrate how critical they were and everyone relied on them. Came across as arrogant (Well, ACTUALLY came across as pathetic but TRYING to be arrogant :) )

Seriously?