The stolen resume, the man who left for Kemerovo, the call of the candidate and other stories of trash interviews

During our work in IT recruiting, we have accumulated many stories about funny, ridiculous and strange interviews from both developers and HR. Therefore, we decided to launch the “Trash interviews” section, where we will share such content. This article has collected 13 stories: scary, stupid and creepy. The authors are not listed, but we definitely cannot come up with this ourselves. If it is interesting – share your experience in strange interviews, and we will continue to publish similar articles further.


Let’s start with stories from the developers. The author’s style is partially preserved.

#1. Stole, copied, pasted, in summary

I once had the opportunity to interview a candidate who simply copied a piece of my resume. Shortly after I was fired, he came to the project in which I worked. As it turned out later, for a long time I could not think of how to beautifully describe the experience gained in the new place and just google the resume of a person who already worked in this team.

IT turned out to be much closer. Two years later, I sit at this most awkward interview and, trying to be impartial, I ask what exactly is hidden under these and other formulations from his, and along with my, resume.

# 2. The serious reason

When I was June I once interviewed at a bank, and a week later I went to a meetup at the same bank. We stand with friends, talk, HR approaches:

– Do you already know that we are inviting you?
– Cool! No i don’t know yet
– Strange, I’ll go check, should have already sent an invitation.

After 10 minutes it returns:

– I confused you with another similar outwardly candidate. We won’t take you, weed.

Then it was very disappointing to receive such a direct refusal in public, but now it’s funny. But I still tell this story to all the HRs in that bank when they write to me. Works as a “good reason” for my refusal.

# 3. Inside out

Once I came for an interview, and they looked at me so strangely. I look normal, almost representative. This time, of course, I didn’t get enough sleep – I sat at the computer for a long time. The interview began: questions and answers, questions and answers, everything is adequate, but they still look at me strangely.

Only when I came home and looked at myself in the mirror, I realized the reason – I put on a white turtleneck back to front, seams out. And at the interview in the office it was hot and I took off my jacket. They didn’t hire me, and I don’t even know what they thought. HR, how would you react to such an appearance? 🙂 I recommend everyone to look at themselves in the mirror before leaving the house.

#4. What?…

… “Everything was going well, but then the question came – how many times a week do you go to church?”

#five. “Landan from the Capital …”

I was once doing a job interview at Google. He found me through GitHub – I was involved in a project there to create distributed repositories.

During the interview, they asked about what structures I used, what part of the code I wrote and what algorithms I used. But all this is in English, so the interview was held at the “Landan from the Capital of Great Britain” level. Google advised me to learn English first.

# 6. Kripota in Kemerovo

In the late 90s, I was still young, but already spoiled. And I got into the habit of calling one “HR” from the personnel department – “personnel officer”. I don’t know where she found my phone, but sometimes she called twice a day: “We can’t eat, as we want to see you as a programmer. Stay with us boy, you will be our king. “

A month later, I broke down – to hell with you, I’m going to talk. They gave me an address somewhere in an industrial zone in the east of Moscow. The office is on the first floor, there is no security, and instead of a “young team of powerful developers”, a lonely grandfather sits at a computer from the times of the “Soyuz-Apollo” program and points me to the next office.

In the office sat that very “personnel officer”, a lady of convincing proportions, and with her the general director of all this. Introduce myself, sit down, hand out my resume, questions begin. The first is how old I am, and the second is whether I am ready to head the development department. However.

But he didn’t even have time to think over the answer – the general’s phone rang. He listens for a minute, hangs up, walks over to the open window, pushes the bars out and crawls out the window. And he leaves somewhere in the bright distance – into the bushes, in which if you bent down, you cannot be seen.

– Where is he?
– Don’t you see? He went out.
– Where?
– In Kemerovo.

For some time I comprehend what is happening, I understand that somehow it is not so.

– Is this generally normal? And if I get up and go out “to Kemerovo”? ..
– You can’t go to Kemerovo.

Then I heard that a car drove up on the street. I look out – a police bobby. I look at the personnel officer, she looks at me with an ominous smile. I jump up, grab my resume and go to the window “In Kemerovo”. I got my bearings by the bushes, found a hole in the fence, somehow got to the metro. Without further ado.
I still don’t know what and why it was.

# 7. This is a stress interview baby

One day I came to get a job in a company, and HR decided to conduct a stress interview with me: I was late for 30 minutes and started yelling at me: “What have you come for? How many do you know how many we have? “

Then HR sat down and silently looked at the resume. It was a long time and then I asked: “Are you sure you are looking for a colleague or are you training to enter the theater?”, And received the answer: “This is a stress interview, baby. You didn’t pass it. “

And now the stories from HR.

#8. “Scabies” candidate

This was my first job in IT – iOS developer. I didn’t understand anything, not only in iOS development, but in IT in general! (note: we are talking about HR, not a developer)

I found the candidate’s resume, conducted the first online acquaintance interview: I found out the motivation, and, in general, looked into my eyes. Then she invited me to the customer.

When he came, I stayed for an interview in order to comprehend the “IT world”. But when the questions came, a terrible thing began: my candidate turned to a corner and answered difficult technical questions swinging from side to side, while he scratched his head, wrote something on a piece of paper, and only then answered. I was shocked, I thought that I would be fired after this interview.

The interview is over, the candidate has left. And the customer surprised me – he said that I got to the point with the candidate, he fits. Yes, there are “little oddities”, but he is a super pro and they take him. The candidate left, has been working in the company for 5 years and has grown up the career ladder.

#nine. I am talking to myself

One day a wonderful job seeker came to me for a Python developer position, and even with experience in DevOps (our parallel vacancy). The candidate went through all stages of the interview brilliantly.

But there was one “but” – in my behavior I noticed a number of schizophrenic symptoms. He was extremely pedantic, he had unnatural movements, stupor, reflections “to himself” or with himself. I told the management about the problems that this could lead to unpredictable consequences, but they decided to take the candidate anyway (the candidate asked for an attractive salary).

After several months of work, in the spring, the candidate’s condition worsened. The team felt uncomfortable and the person was fired. The man was not aggressive, and quite a “good guy”, but with peculiarities.

#ten. Torn at work

A young guy came to the interview, and I am a recruiter. I invited him into the meeting room, and when I sat down on a chair, my jeans cracked at the seam. It was insanely awkward and funny.

#eleven. Ryg

It was an ordinary interview, nothing boded ill. The candidate casually talked about his work, projects, when suddenly in the middle of the conversation he belched with gusto at the whole meeting room. I started laughing quietly (laughing). The candidate took things and hurriedly ran away 🙁

#12. Uninvited candidate

Once a girl came to our office for an interview. Interestingly, no one invited her to it. She just saw the vacancy on the website, found the address and came to the office. When I was told that a candidate was waiting for me, I was surprised (to put it mildly). But she took her to the meeting room to understand who it was and for what position.

The girl looked and spoke strangely. Throughout the meeting, I sat in a hat, ran strange eyes and could not really answer a single question. For a long time she was figuring out who she wanted to work with us, and when she asked about the experience, the girl began to get very nervous, fidget in her chair, run her eyes, incoherently and convulsively throwing some scraps of phrases.

Realizing that the conversation should be ended as soon as possible and said goodbye to the candidate, I tried to finish the dialogue neatly. But the man did not calm down and wanted something. After another attempt to send the “candidate” away, she jumped up, grabbed a glass with handles, threw it at me and ran away. It’s good that there was nothing heavier on the table.

#13. Balthazar, I urge you!

We are sitting in the recruiting office and suddenly a candidate who has not been invited comes in. We ask you to whom, and he to us: “I was called”

#fourteen. It was just hot

Once I set up an interview for a candidate via Skype. When it started, I saw a naked hairy torso. He starts talking about the experience, and I can’t listen – I look at my chest.

Write down the most “amazing” story. And if you have your own examples of awful, unpleasant, disgusting or just strange interviews – write in the comments or in a separate form (specially for this). We will definitely publish them in a new collection, anonymously if you want. They will also take part in the competition. The prize is symbolic: 2 pizzas and cola, but nice.

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