Bait and switch tactics? False promises? Multi-level marketing schemes? These are just a few of the red-flags that led to these potential employees upright leaving their interview!
“Passionate” About Your Work
Them: “We have a very dedicated team, we often stay after normal office hours, is that ok with you?”
Me: “Sure, I mean I’m single without kids, so if it’s adequately compensated I’m happy to do as much overtime as necessary, no problem.”
Them: “Oh no no, we’re passionate about the work we do here, so overtime is not paid.”
Me: “Okay then, thank you for your time and goodbye.”
(Source)
Get Off Your Phone
I walked out about half way through because the dude was too busy on his phone.. I thought maybe he was recording my responses in his phone… Then he laid the phone down on the table to write down some of what I was saying and noticed it was his Facebook open. I got up and walked out, I had a feeling he wasn’t paying attention to anything I was saying. The dude was the head paramedic or whatever at the ambulance company I applied to–I just imagine people are dying in front of his face while he’s using his Facebook. (Source)
Screw That
I walked out of an interview before it began once. The interview was scheduled for 10am, which I double-checked from the voicemail that they left. I showed up about ten minutes early, signed in, all that jazz…and waited. and waited. and waited. Forty-five minutes later I got up, asked the receptionist (who looked seriously embarrassed) to let my interviewer know I was no longer interested, and left. Two hours later I got a rude call asking if I had forgotten the appointment. I laughed and hung up. (Source)
$9 An Hour?!
Just after I had been given three months notice of layoff due to office closure from a job that I really liked, I took off early one day for an interview across town. When I arrived, I entered a waiting room full of people at least twice my age, in suits, resumes in hand. Upon seeing this sight, I realized I had very little chance at the position being offered, but since I was there I may as well try. What I didn’t expect is that we were all scheduled to interview together. We were all herded into a conference room, where the group interview commenced. After a few rounds of questions, learning each others qualifications, how we would handle various situations, and so on, we collectively learned that this position was part time, not what had been advertised, and paid a mere $9 an hour. I walked out along with three other people. (Source)
Interview Turned TV Show
I walked out on an interview only once, and it was because the people organising it were insane. They had arranged a large scale interviewing process for the entire city. After getting there early I realised there were quite a few applicants so I didn’t mind the fact that I had to wait for about 3 hours. Eventually they asked a group of three of us into an office where we waited again for about 45 minutes.
Again I was happy just to have an interview so I waited. Eventually I met with a manager for the store who asked the standard range of questions and I thought I did pretty well. At the end of the interview though I was asked to sign a waiver and when I asked why I found out that they had recorded the entire interview for the purpose of an episode of a current affairs and didn’t tell me beforehand. After waiting for so long just to be disrespected like that I just walked out. I happened to catch the episode later and it featured some of the people who I had waited with in the room. Thank God I didn’t sign that waiver because the angle of the investigation was that unemployed people didn’t put any effort into getting jobs (completely ignoring the fact that everyone had to wait for hours just to get a chance). (Source)
Still Got The Job
I accidentally walked out on an interview. I had driven four hours to apply for a bar/gaming room job in preparation for moving cities for study (I had purchased an apartment, so I kinda had to take job searching seriously). I had spent about 20 minutes talking to the gaming manager (during which time the venue manager joined us), when some guy came up to them and started chatting to them. I sat there for maybe 5-10 minutes, wondering if the interview was over, when I decided that most questions had been asked and my existence had barely been acknowledged since the guy had rocked up. I half interrupted, shook one of the interviewers hands and said thanks, and exited the premises with no idea how the interview went. Was crossing the road to my car, when one of the interviewers chased me across the road and offered me the position (turns out the guy interrupting the interview was one of the owners of the venue). I sometimes wonder how I get through life considering how socially inept I can be. (Source)
“Multi-Level Marketing”
So…had an interview at a Starbucks for some kind of marketing/insurance company. The lady said that they don’t market themselves and they rely on word of mouth. Um yeah… red flag #1. Then she said they weren’t a pyramid scheme, even though it sounded like one. She said it was “multi-level marketing.” Red flag #2. Red Flag #3? She got to the end of the interview and tried to have me sign up for their services (they were a company that supposedly sold insurance)… only I’d have to PAY in order to have that privilege; she wanted me to put in my credit card number and a bunch of info, including my social security number. I excused myself, thanked the lady for her time, and left. (Source)
Nope
I was told about 40 minutes into an interview that the job I was interviewing for was going to be a 11pm-6am position. This had never been mentioned in the original job posting, or in the preliminary call prior to the interview. This wasn’t for a gas station job or anything either. High-profile law firm who basically needed a graphic designer to put together presentation materials overnight for use the following day. They also set it so that I’d be working hours just barely under the limit to qualify as a full-time employee with benefits. Again, none of this was ever mentioned in the job description up to this point. The last straw was that they gave me a 30 minute test to prove I could work on a deadline, based on the actual materials I’d be working with- chickenscratch post-it notes, unintelligible audio-recordings, and other horrible sources I had to base my designs on.
I walked out of the test about five minutes in. (Source)
Cold Stone Creamery
Back in high school, I had an interview at Cold Stone Creamery. They made us break into groups where we had to create and sing a catchy tip song. I’m really shy so I wanted to walk out before the singing commenced, but I really needed a job so I decided to try and stick it out. I sang the stupid song. After the songs, they interviewed us one on one. For one question, they basically asked us what we thought the weaknesses of our group members were. I told them I didn’t know the people well enough to say and that I really didn’t want to get a job by bad mouthing someone else. As I got up to leave, they asked me if I wanted to hear what some of my group members had said about me… I just kept walking. Should have gone with my gut and left before the singing. (Source)
“Is This A Good Place To Work For?”
I went into the interview with my prospective supervisor. I looked around the office and noticed that the garbage cans were full, the walls and carpet dirty and the supervisor’s desk was old and had chips out of it. So I mentioned that the company didn’t seem to be doing any basic upkeep and then asked point blank “Is this a good company to work for?” She replied no and hung her head. I said “thanks” and walked out. (Source)
“So, Are You A Christian?”
Too many leading questions- not stuff that would be illegal, but would get the same responses. “So how do you spend your weekends, what’s your sunday morning look like?” (Source)
Politely Declined
I recently went to an interview for a bank in my area. First, the woman I spoke to on the phone misrepresented herself. She’d told me she was the assistant branch manager. Upon arrival, she told me she was Head Teller. The Branch manager would be arriving shortly. I waited for an hour. After an hour of me double checking the time and wondering if I’d gotten there late instead of early, I got up to leave. The Head Teller said she’d be there in 5 minutes, but at that point I just figured I obviously wasn’t important enough. I left. I got a call back 3 days later apologizing and asking if they could set up another meeting, at a bank I was nowhere near. I politely declined. (Source)
Matrix Resources
I graduated in 2009 with a degree in print journalism, and after a summer of doing random retail stuff, I decided to find a real job. I see a job posting for a marketing specialist, with emphasis in graphic design work. I brought my portfolio, and they told me they were impressed, and that I would get to do some design, writing, and editing. They said they represented big time companies, so 22-year-old me was incredibly excited. They told me to come back the next day for a job shadow, dressed professionally. I showed up bright and early in my nicest business clothes and heels, and they told me I would be riding with this redheaded girl (side note: she started where I wound up working a few years later and didn’t make it through training). I live on the north side of my city, and we drove all the way south to a residential neighborhood. I wasn’t 100 percent sure what was going on, but they gave me a catalog and said we would be doing door-to-door sales for Sears Home Improvement. I made it two hours in the Midwest humidity, dealing with angry homeowners who didn’t want to have their homes improved by Sears. While walking onto a driveway, my foot got caught in rabbit hole and I felt a snap. I couldn’t put any weight on it, and told red-headed girl I needed to go. She panicked, saying she needed to meet her quota for the day. I asked if we could take an early lunch, so we went to Arby’s, where she and the rest of the sales crew left me with a swollen foot. I had to call my dad to pick me up (he worked an hour and a half away). He dropped me off at my car, and I drove with my injured right foot home. Yeah, that helped…nope. I went to Urgent Care, and discovered I had an avulsion fracture on the top of my foot. Yes, it was Matrix Resources. Stupid. (Source)
Multimedia Designer For Scientology
I had just graduated art school with a design degree and was scraping by, unemployed and living 5000 km from my home town for six months. I was getting desperate and antsy when a saw an ad for a ‘multimedia designer’ on a job board.
I called and set up a time for an interview. I didn’t have a car, so I called a cab to take me to the address. I was still relatively new to the city, and the cab took me very, very far out; like a half-hour drive. Eventually, the cab pulled over in front of a bland, suburban house. Something was … off. Even the driver was suspicious.
“Are you sure you want to get dropped off here?” he asked, sensing my nervousness. I was confused. I didn’t really know where I was. This was an era before iPhones, not that I could have afforded one. And my crappy flip phone was dying.
“Um yeah, sure. Just wait for me. If you see me go in, you can leave.”
I walked up to the front door, which had a sign with an arrow, instructing visitors to go around back. As I walked alongside the house, I turned back and noticed that my taxi driver, assuming I was fine, had driven away.
When I found the back entrance, I was greeted by two middle-aged, balding white men, in a basement rec room that had been converted into an office.
“Hi … I’m here for the interview?”
One of the men got up. “Yes, yes. That’s fine. We just need you to fill out a questionnaire. It should take 30 minutes.”
I looked to my left. A poster hung on the wall — the portrait of a vaguely familiar, bald white man, surrounded by a glowing rainbow of swirling colors and energy beams. It was L. Ron Hubbard.
“Sure,” I said. “I just have to let the cab driver know he can leave.”
I promptly proceeded to walk out the door, picked a random direction, and walked for forty-minutes along the road until I found a bus stop. (Source)
40%
It was for a political job. The guy gave me a salary range the evening before. When I came in for the offer, he said that they could only pay 40% of what he told me 16 hours prior. (Source)
Bait And Switch
It was a bait and switch. Looked like a film/tv production job, but turned out to be this weird sales/marketing position. Outbound calls and traveling to stores to sell displays, something like that. I wasn’t rude, but I called the guy out. Said the job he was talking about didn’t really match the description on craigslist (that should’ve been my first indicator….) He said something like “It’s a job, right?” and shrugged. I thanked him for his time and walked out. I couldn’t have been there more than 5 minutes. (Source)
“Son, We Want Free Labor”
They flat out lied to me about what I was interviewing for. I was told it was for a technician trainee position but it was really for an unpaid internship that had 12 hour days and a mandatory 6 month period before I could move on to a paid job (which would have started out at $11/hr.)
When I was told, I just told him it wasn’t worth my time and got up to walk out. He got all mad and said “Son, you have to show your worth first” and I just said “Sir, I have real bills to pay and as much as I’d like to conform to your wishes so that I could have a career, I don’t live in a fantasy world where I can just focus on work.” (Source)