People Share Unfortunate Interviews That Didn’t Land Them The Job

By: Kate Row | Published: Sep 15, 2023

Job interviews can be awkward and nerve-wracking. Unfortunately, most of us know how it feels to have a bad interview. When you really want the job, the nerves can get the best of you.

 These brave souls shared their worst interview experiences and they do not disappoint. From walkouts to screaming matches, just be glad these didn’t happen to you!

Awkward…

We have probably all had the unfortunate experience of saying something stupid that we wish we hadn’t let slip. Sometimes our mouths work faster than our brains and then we just want to bury our heads in embarrassment.

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This interview was going well until the interviewee had a little slip-up. Why would the interviewer ask if the interviewee had any questions about her personally? We can safely assume they didn’t land this one.

Happiness and Pixie Dust

In terms of resume boosters, happiness and pixie dust are not usually the skills employers look for. While we love the positive energy, we can’t imagine these were the things that the employer wanted to hear.

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Likely, they wanted to know more about what kinds of actionable skills they could bring to the company and how they would provide value. To be fair, pixie dust would definitely be something that would set them, apart from the other candidates.

How To NOT Get The Job

This is a great example of how to not get the job. Insulting your direct superior during the interview is a brave choice for someone who is trying to get a job.

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Source: bridiecastiel/Instagram

If this individual has a difficult time taking orders from female authority figures he’s probably going to have a rough time out in the working world.

Extreme Anger Problems

This person had a very interesting experience while interviewing a candidate for an engineering internship. Internships are a way for employers to train young engineers and grow their skills. Someone with anger issues is probably not the kind of candidate they’re looking for.

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If they can’t help but “get loud and hands-on” we are worried about what will happen when something goes wrong in the office. Pro tip: Don’t discuss your anger issues in the first interview (or any interview for that matter).

The Bait And Switch

Here we have an example of a job that tried to bamboozle a candidate rather than an interviewee causing problems. At least the candidate realized that the pay was not what they had advertised early on.

Source: jonathan-adato/Instagram

Words are powerful! We hope this job switched the job ad to better reflect what they were offering so they didn’t waste anyone else’s time.

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Good At Zoning Out

Typically, “zoning out” is not a quality employers look for in their candidates. And calling the work boring and repetitive doesn’t seem like the best way to describe the job you’re trying to get.

Source: tylerkingstonshop/Instagram

But, maybe we’re wrong because this individual ended up landing the job. We still wouldn’t recommend this method. Likely, they were just lucky.

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Lying On The Resume

We feel like we shouldn’t have to say this but lying on your resume is never a good idea! The truth always comes out in the end. In this case, it came out in the very first interview.

Source: birdiecastiel/Instagram

What’s the point of fibbing about your experience and skills if you’re just going to spill your guts on the first interview? We imagine this interview was very short and sweet.

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Teaching Is Hard

Teaching is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. After all, they’re shaping the youth of tomorrow! This person had a shocking response when they scolded a child for cheating.

Source: lillie_citycrunch/Instagram

You’d think this would win them points in an interview, seeing as cheating is never good. But, they were instructed that telling the child cheating was bad was in fact “disgraceful”. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise that they didn’t land the position.

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What’s Your Greatest Strength?

“What’s your greatest strength and weakness” is one of those common interview questions most of us dread. This candidate didn’t hesitate to take the question very literally. His greatest strength is free lifts, apparently.

Source: brolicgram/Instagram

We’re not sure how this is applicable to a desk job, but we can see how it would make the interviewer laugh to the point where they had to leave the room. As far as memorable answers to interview questions, this is a winner.

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When The Nerves Get The Best Of You

Most of us can probably relate to interview jitters. When you’re really eager to get a job it can be very intimidating to interview. Sometimes the interviewer only makes you more nervous if you can’t tell if they like you as a candidate or not.

Source: amydunntx/Instagram

Thankfully, it sounds like this interviewer was kind to the girl who was a bundle of nerves. Hopefully, she was able to get some words out eventually!

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Group Interviews

Group interviews can be difficult to navigate. You’re looking your competition in the eye while you all fight for the same position! Apparently, one guy in the interview was fairly unbothered because he had his phone out the whole time.

Source: a_dee_thing/Instagram

That’s not a good way to impress the new bosses and get the gig. Obviously, he didn’t get the job and it’s clear to see why.

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Misplaced Research

Doing some research before a job interview is a great way to set yourself up for success. But, make sure you do the research for the right company!

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We can only imagine how embarrassed this poor guy was to find out he researched the wrong “Capital Partners”. And the interviewers must have been very confused before they realized the mishap. Better luck next time!

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Lighting Up The Room

Having a smile that lights up a room will probably get you pretty far in life. They say smiling is the same in every language. But talking about how fantastic your smile is is probably not what your interviewers want to hear about. 

Source: mike_henry_says/Instagram

We can’t be sure if it was nerves that made them go on and on about it or if they’re just really proud of their winning grin. Either way, we recommend letting the smile speak for itself and focusing on the interview questions.

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Stress Gas

This might be the shortest interview of all time. Rule number one of interviewing is to never say “I don’t know”. You always want to answer the questions to the best of your availability so this interviewee might have ruined his chances right from the start.

Source: loos_insurence/Instagram

We don’t have much advice for the stress gas though. It was probably a good idea to get out of there and start applying for other positions because it seems unlikely that he’ll be getting this one.

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Pyramid Scheme

It’s a good thing that this candidate recognized this was a pyramid scheme before they started  a position at the company. But, as it turns out, they probably wouldn’t have gotten the position even if they wanted it.

Source: jonathan adato/Instagram

Make sure to check that your shirt is right-side in before you head into an interview! In fact, make sure your shirt is on right every time you leave the house.

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Over Before It Begins

It’s rare that an interview ends before it even begins. Usually, you can work your way through the kinks and make it out alright, but this person had one of those moments that are hard to come back from.

Source: ma_london17/Instagram

Burping right into the face of your interviewer is not the best start to a positive working relationship. Next time, save the diet coke for after the interview. It can wait.

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Can I Put You On Hold?

In a long list of things you should never ever do during an interview is ask your interviewer to wait while you answer a phone call. We can hardly believe that someone would actually do this!

Source: abdallahalas/Instagram

We wonder if they actually thought it was possible that they would get the job after doing something as rude as this. We can only wonder where he is working now and if he’s learned his lesson because he certainly didn’t land this job.

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Throw A Fit

Shockingly, companies do not want to hire toddlers who throw tantrums (shocking, we know). So, it is no wonder that this applicant did not get the job when he threw a fit in front of the interviewer.

Source: hectorbellerin/Instagram

We can’t think of a job that would be eager to hire someone who throws tantrums. His best bet is to learn to control his emotions before his next interview.

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The Overshare

When interviewing anywhere, you probably don’t want to discuss things like hacking software. It is likely to throw off your interviewer and make them wonder about your character (naturally).

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This is especially true if you’re interviewing for a tech company. This person obviously didn’t get the memo and decided to do a little overshare about hacking and pirating software. Not the best idea, my friend.

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There Is No Dress Code, But…

It is not uncommon for retail stores to request that their employees on the floor wear their clothing. It makes everyone look like they belong in the store and it also makes retail workers walking mannequins.

Source: homefullofclothes/Instagram

But if you’re not providing your employees with some clothes or at least paying them enough to afford the clothes themselves, you can’t be surprised when some people turn down the opportunity. Onto the next.

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Honesty Is The Best Policy

Honesty is (usually) the best policy but there is such a thing as too much honesty. For example, in this situation, the person didn’t need to reveal that they’d rather work at Mcdonald’s than at KFC. 

Source: ana_ritasimao/Instagram

A little white lie in this case wouldn’t hurt, but they opted for blatant honesty instead. Crazily enough, they still landed the job so maybe KFC respected the fact that they told the truth.

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My Name Is…

The easiest question of any interview is most likely going to be “What is your name?”. This is true for almost any job ever! But if you struggle with that one, it doesn’t bode well for the remainder of the session.

Source: ana_ritasimao/Instagram

Nerves can make us all do some crazy things. Unfortunately, in this case the nerves got the best of them and it resulted in not getting the job.

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Oops!

We can’t blame the interviewee for this one because they couldn’t have known that they were accidentally “outing” one of the people on the interview panel. Revealing that their resume was on Facebook was probably more embarrassing for the interviewer than it was for the interviewee.

Source: andrea.ellenberger/Instagram

Regardless, it meant they did not get the job. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. We hope they went on to find another position.

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Administrative Fee

What job assks their candidates to pay an “administrative fee”? We don’t even know what that could possibly mean. Isn’t the employer supposed to pay the employee and not the other way around?

Source: borisjuresic/Instagram

We’re glad that this individual recognized it as a huge red flag and walked away. We’re curious to know what the job was and how did they explain what an “administrative fee” was?

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Keep Some Comments To Yourself

There are some things we should all just keep t ourselves. This is particularly true in a work environment. Not every thought that crosses your mind should be voiced out loud!

Source: tahsin.tutucu/Instagram

This candidate was obviously unaware of this fact or was just completely oblivious as to why it would be inappropriate to say something like this. We doubt he actually became “the fox in the henhouse” as it is unlikely they landed the position.

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Threats At The Interview

This is another example of the interviewer being as inappropriate as the interviewee can be. Telling someone that you will cut off their hair is not only a completely unhinged threat to make, but is also weirdly specific.

Source: mertdemirel/Instagram

It’s so specific that we almost believe her. It sounds like this individual might have believed her as well because they never spilled her secrets.

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You Can Make As Much As You Want

While it would be awfully nice to be able to be able to set our own salary, this is not typically the case. Otherwise we’d all be billionaires by now! This person was right to see this little comment as a major red flag.

Source: chloetaylor_uk/Instagram

Perhaps they meant that the compensation is commissions-based. Regardless, they most likely realized it wasn’t a match.

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Lying About Experience

As we’ve learned, lying on the resume is likely to come out once you’re in the interview process. It’s hard to lie about your skills and experience when they start asking you real questions about those jobs.

Source: hamunaptra6/Instagram

This guy went full out and lied about spending 9 years in the army as well as 3 years at another company. More importantly, he lied about having spent time in jail! Yikes.

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