Welcome to r slash askreddit, where people answer the question, people who have conducted job interviews, what's something someone said or did that made you instantly decide not to hire them? Our first reply is from L48shark. A candidate kept boasting about how many languages he spoke, even though it wasn't a requirement for the position. I finally asked him which language he was most fluent in, and he replied Spanish. I followed up with a simple question asked in Spanish. He did not speak Spanish. Reminds me of my daughter. My daughter is bilingual. I talk to her in English and my wife talks to her in Chinese. And she started taking Spanish class in school. So she is absolutely convinced that she knows Spanish too. So she's like, oh, I know English. I know Chinese. I know Spanish. I took a little bit of Spanish in high school. So I'd say, hey, Lily, que pasa? She'll say, what? Huh? So this dude is about as clueless as a four-year-old. Beneath that, we have a similar reply from Baba Turtle. I had the opposite. I was being interviewed by a guy. He saw that I had listed Dutch as a foreign language. It's my mother tongue. He scoffed and asked if I really spoke Dutch. I said yes. He asked me to say something in Dutch. I asked if he spoke Dutch. He said he did not speak Dutch. I said, so how will you know if I'm actually speaking Dutch? Oh, I'll know. So I said a sentence in Danish. He goes, ah, yep, yep, yep. That's Dutch, all right. I did not pursue the job further. Our next reply is from Drake Savory. She sat down, plunked her purse on the desk, and started with, I need to let you know, I have issues. And then the reply from Distant Karma, that young lady has upper management written all over. Our next reply is from MC Rayman. I was interviewing for an IT position. I asked a basic question about virus removal. She replied, oh, I don't know. my husband does that. Well then, tell him to apply. And then a similar answer from Lawrence Thorne. I was hiring developers for a creative agency here in New York City. The candidate had just graduated from Columbia or New York University. I forget which one. I was excited to interview him, as I really needed the extra staff. On his resume, in the About Me section at the top, he mentioned he enjoys writing semantic code. I said, that's great. What does semantic mean from a software coding perspective. His response? I don't know. I just added it to my resume. I explained what it meant to him and then thanked him for his time. He did not get the job. Next reply from Shrek. He pulled his pants down to his knees to fix and tuck in his shirt. He didn't break eye contact with me as he stood up to do it. Our next reply is from Sion. He told us about how he stole goods from a store he worked at. He put them in his buddy's car and called the cops so his buddy would get arrested, then slept with his buddy's girlfriend while the buddy was in jail. All this in response to the question, tell us about a time when you had an ethical dilemma. What did you do and what was the outcome? Apparently, his buddy was cheating him on their shared drug business, and so he told us what he did when his best friend wasn't splitting the profits 50-50. Man with an answer like that it hard to tell what actually more disturbing for the job The fact that they that unethical Are they so stupid that they would tell you this unethical story thinking it would get them the job Our next reply is from DammitBlueIsOld. I worked at a big box retailer and got called up to the service counter to deal with a customer who was upset. This was only a couple of minutes before I was scheduled to conduct an interview with a potential new hire. I get up there and this woman is berating the employee behind the counter, referring to her as this b-word, etc. I ask her to lower her voice and please stop being disrespectful to my employee. She isn't happy, but she does eventually calm down enough to be reasonable and we resolve the situation at the service desk. I turn to walk away, thinking we're done here, and she goes, anyway, I'm here for my interview. I can't believe that this is actually happening. It seems like awful rom-com movie type stuff, but this rude woman actually expected me to proceed with interviewing her. I said, I'm sorry ma'am, that position is no longer available. Then a similar story from the Epiquen. Reminds me of when I was about 19 working for a retailer. One day, I had a customer who was being a pain in the butt. Not rude, but asking a lot of annoying questions about a product and taking up a lot of my time, but I stayed professional. However, towards the end, she asked a question and didn't believe I was answering truthfully. I assured her that I was, and she rolled her eyes and made the wanker gesture. I indignantly told her that I had given her all the info I have and left her to decide. Naturally, I shared this bad customer story with my colleagues. Fast forward a few months, and I see this woman in the store again. I nudged my manager and said, that's the wanker girl. His eyes widen and he goes, I just hired her. I thought he was joking, But nope, we became colleagues. Her subsequent behavior did not indicate that the incident was a one-off. Our next reply is from Killer Sim. I had a guy show up to a design interview with my work in his portfolio. Beneath that, people are asking OP what happened next, and he replies. I let him talk through it for a few minutes. Really grilled him on when the project was done, for what company, and on what team. I told him, that's so odd. I also worked at that place at that time. I gave him a tip that it's a very small industry. I've never seen someone want to melt through their chair so much in my life. To be clear, it's very common in my industry, outdoor wear, to have multiple designers touch a single project. You often have a silhouette designer, color design, material design, and sometimes graphics and an engineer. In this case, he was claiming color, materials, and graphics, all of which I had done. In addition to calling him out, I talked with him about how to show work in a portfolio that had multiple contributors. You need to be specific about what you did. You need to be able to talk about your creative process and preferably show sketches and inspiration. Hopefully, he at least took that away. Beneath that, we have this reply from Mrs. Lisa Lover. I had a friend who worked for a stereo store back in the day. The manager had a super high-end home system that got stolen. Two days later, a guy comes into the store and shows the manager this great home system he wants to sell. Cops were called. And a similar story from Captain Punisher I grew up fixing lawnmowers We picked up and delivered free in town And part of our intake process was to write the customer last name and address on the handle in Sharpie because all mowers start to look the same when you have so many. We got a guy that came in trying to sell a mower. This isn't uncommon, but he just didn't look like he fit that mower. Well, this mower had a name and address on the handle. My dad asked if that was him. Yep, sure is. Of course it is. Again, the address on the handle didn't fit this guy's look or demeanor. So my dad tells him we'll have to inspect it to see what it's worth, and it'll have someone in back look at it. The guy in the back who gets it is instructed to only use hand tools and work slowly. Meanwhile, my dad looks up the customer in our computer and calls him. Sir, is your lawnmower at home? Sure, why do you ask? Maybe you should check on it. Sure enough, the customer found his mower missing. My dad tells the owner of the mower that he's already called the sheriff's department and that he should come down in case they need to verify that this was indeed his mower. The customer and the deputy arrived at about the same time. The seller started getting all fidgety when he saw the sheriff's deputy, but he really wanted that money. Instead, the deputy confirmed with the customer that his mower was stolen and that we had it, receiving it from the seller. After the arrest was made, we found out that the deputy and the customer were friends back in elementary school and hadn't seen each other in a couple of decades. Furthermore, since we already had the mower and the customer was happy to have recovered it, he asked us to go ahead and sharpen it and get it serviced for the year and deliver it back when we were done. Most of the parties involved walked away happy. Our next reply is from Wilder with Wolves. Keep in mind that the following interview happened in the 1970s and the boss was near retirement age and did in fact retire within a matter of months. I once worked with a woman who, just out of high school got a job at a bank. And long story short, she was fired because she wouldn't sleep with the loan officers. When she applied for and was interviewed at the insurance company where we worked, the interviewer asked her as the first question, why were you fired from such and such bank? She replied, because I wouldn't sleep with the loan officers. The boss set his pen down, leaned back, and told her, I'm offering you this job and I want you to take it. Our next reply is from Hatred Shaped. The interviewee brought their parents to sit in on the interview to make sure that you were fair in my decision-making process. And beneath that, we have a similar reply from Angry Murder Hornet. I had a classmate in grad school whose mother would accompany him to class. This wasn't an overachieving adolescent. The guy had to be at least 25. He was an intelligent guy on some level, but had lots of psychological baggage from being steeped in learned helplessness by his mom. After he pestered me for the answer to a 7th grade level math question, and later stood behind me to learn how to load PCR tubes, something he should have already been doing routinely, I ratted him out to his major advisor. This was about the same time that his students, yeah, he was a teaching assistant, completely revolted against his incompetent attempts at teaching. He was bounced from the program soon afterwards. I still feel a little sorry for him but there was no way he was going to function on his own in a lab or in front of a classroom I hope he found something to do that was within his capabilities Our next reply is from Woolgathering A guy had to do a presentation but his laptop battery was dead so he asked if he could plug it in One of the panel members had to go under the boardroom table to do that, and the candidate says, Well, look at that. I've only been here five minutes, and I've already got a woman on her knees. And beneath that, a similar story from Roddad. I had a day one employee, and three hours into his very first shift, the area leader calls me to the department because they had an issue with the new guy. He was maybe 19. I get there, and he's standing with his arms crossed. The girl training him looks frustrated. I asked him what was going on. He replies, I'm not doing this. It's woman's work. I want a man's job. I had him sweep the main aisle while I went and made arrangements to switch him to a man's job. This was a lie, which gave me time to do his termination paperwork. As he left out the front door after being terminated, he called me several names over his shoulder and threw his gloves and safety glasses into the front lawn. I stepped out to pick them up and he ran for his car. Our next reply is from Hublar. At the end of the interview, I asked if he had any questions for me. He said, yeah, that sign on the front door, is that a rule or more of a guideline? I was confused. I said, push to enter? Probably a rule. That's how doors work. He said, no, no, the one that says no guns allowed on premises. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of dressed like a cowboy. I hadn't noticed, but then I did. Cowboy boots and a western-ish vest. He went on, I have holsters all over. For me, putting on my guns in the morning is like putting on my underwear. The important lesson here is to never mention your guns or underwear in a first interview. I thanked him for his time and escorted him out. Our next reply is from Smokey the Bear. I once interviewed a flat earther who admitted in the first 10 minutes of the interview that the main reason he wanted to work in aviation was to be closer to airplanes so he could prove that they were holograms since clearly they shouldn't be able to fly since the earth is flat. To this day, I'm not sure if he was just trying to show someone, hey, look, I'm applying for jobs. I don't know why they all say no, or if he genuinely believed it. But either way, I let the interview go on for like an hour, and I let him just rant his little heart out. We ended up going in a different direction. Our next reply is from Denver Bronco. I see on your application that you attended Central High School. My mother's a teacher there. Oh? Who's your mom? Mrs. Bronco. She teaches mathematics. Oh, yeah. I know her. She's a b**ch. Our next reply is from Beryl Dama. We were hiring for an illustrator at a crafting company. When he was asked if he'd be able to shift gears and match other styles, he said, I won't need to because I'm so good at my style. We explained that he would have to draw additional assets to match existing illustration styles pretty regularly, and he just snorted and said, No, they'll have to match my style. He, he was not hired. That was r slash ask reddit. And if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new reddit podcast episodes every single day.
