After a five-month national search for a candidate with the right combination of skills and personality, we were in the homestretch with our final choice on his second interview. He was literally ten minutes from the offer when a member of the interview panel asked, "knowing what you learned from this exhaustive interview process, what would be the first thing you'd do in this role?" His ill-fated answer? "Well, first I'd hire my wife as an assistant because we're an unstoppable team..." Not in a publicly funded organization,sir...yikes! TJNTIY.

I also loved the candidate who was interviewing for a position as a staff lawyer in a legal clinic who at the end of the interview, berated me for being unfair by asking him hard questions. He told me it was unfair to ask difficult questions unless I gave the questions out in advance. A big part of his job would be to represent clients in court - which would of course require the ability to think on his feet. TJNTIY.

During the dot-com era, our small, privately-held consulting firm was interviewing for a C++ programming position. We got quite a few applicants who had no real aptitude or skill at programming, but had managed to get some kind of IT degree and were looking for the big bucks. While they couldn't answer basic coding questions, they always knew to ask, "When are you going public?" and "How soon can I cash out my stock options?" TJNTIY

One terrible thing that job candidates have said is "what does your company do?" How can you go to a job interview and not even have visited the company's web site? TJNTIY.

Hello to everyone. Well I thought that I had the greatest story, but some of the stories here are great. I usually reject candidates that send me crappy CVs. During the interviews I usually reject the people that forget that they came for an interview and talk and act as if I am the one being interviewed. Finally, I hate people that ask about the money first, but I don't reject them right away. My best story was about the girl that came to the interview with her mother. Once I called the candidate both of them entered my office, and we had an unpleasant moment when I asked the mother to step out. As if that was not enough, once we got talking the girl stopped me and just told me what she was not willing to do!!! Well, needless to say we did not hire her, maybe because we couldn't afford the mother too. TJNTIY.

Funnies:-
1. The candidate forgot my name and said - "I cannot quite put a name to your face"
2. The lady asked me "So, which desk will be mine?" (She actually did get the job!!)

Blunders:- (I had seen all of these)
1. Badmouthing past employers
2. Cannot tell me why they are interested in my comapny or what we do
3. Talk too much
4. Ask them about teamwork and they talk about "I"
5. Dress inappropriately
6. Smelly - i.e reeks of garlic, beer or sweat
7. Anwers his/her cellphone
8. Appearing arrogant, pretentious, not providing specific answers, and not asking

When they just want a gay job and not having done any
research to why they want to work with me. Big mistake. TJNTIY.