7 Things Not to Say During a Job Interview

FOX Business ^ | March 18, 2011 | Kathryn Elizabeth Tuggle

[erod]

“sir/mam your secretary has an amazing rack.”

[IrishPennant]

Those pants make you look fat, sir...just sayin’...

[exit82]

The first question from the HR guy was: “If you were an animal in the wild, what kind would you be?”

Answers: "A bear--because I like to sh#t in the woods."

"A kangaroo-because having a pouch is so versatile."

"A platypus--because it can't decide what it is--and neither can you, apparently."

"A baboon--because having a multicolored rear end is evidently standard equipment here."

[Yaelle]

My brother, who chose the law when he could have equally chosen stand up comedy, went on several interviews where he was asked things like “Tell me a good joke.” or “Sell me this rubber chicken.” He aced them all.

[Tenlein]

I was once interviewing a lady who said that her weakness was that old people creeped her out! Then we had the guy who was primarily concerned that the job wouldn’t interfere with his golf playing and would like it if he could have Wednesday’s off to golf. A lady interviewee brought in a box of Krispy Kremes once - she didn’t get the job, although I don’t think the donuts had anything to do with it - I was happy about it! Then there was the lady who was so full of herself - we asked her how her colleagues would describe her and she said “spectacular”. And the poor lady who we asked which databases she had used and after thinking for a while, she said, “Microsoft Outlook”. I don’t even do that many interviews, but we’ve had so many strange ones!!

[Cvengr]

Don’t answer, “A Gopher?”

[ConservativeWarrior]

When I get to the technical section of an interview, I give the candidate a sheet of questions we review together.

I include a few misspellings, and one or two technical mistakes/impossibilities.

I want to see if they're so petty they're willing to point out spelling mistakes to their potential boss, and if they have enough knowledge/courage to challenge the technical mistakes. It's a way to measure their judgment.

All of my current reports responded appropriately. You'd be surprised how many applicants bust my stones over the spelling errors, but don't recognize or ignore the technical errors.

[kevkrom]

The next to the last interview I had, I showed up exactly on time and the interviewer indicated that I was late. I showed him the paper on which I had written down his name and the time and then I told him, "If you can't even keep track of when you tell someone to come to an interview, I certainly don't want to work for your company", and I walked out. I thought then and still think now, he had already decided to hire someone else and was trying to make it look like I was late for the interview so he could use it as an excuse not to hire me.

That happened to me the last time I was interviewing, about 9 years ago. I was driving to the interview, well on my way to being there 20 minutes early, when I get a call asking me why I'm late. I explained that I had a 2:00 appointment, not a 1:00, but that I would be there shortly.

Later, when I got home, I checked my email and confirmed that it was scheduled for 2:00. I have no idea if it was an innocent mistake on their part, or some twisted part of the interview process.

In any event, I turned down their offer, though the confusion over the time didn't play into that decision. (It helped that after 3 months of unemployment, I got three offers within a couple of days of each other.)