For your entertainment, I thought I’d provide a light-hearted look at the job interview. I think we often forget the human side of our role as staffing professionals especially in these times where recruiting metrics and business impact are our focus. For a good laugh, please read on.

It strikes me that the recruiting and hiring process is nothing more than a highly-orchestrated performance with lead and supporting characters working together (and sometimes apart) to find a match between a target job opportunity and a job seeker’s capability. The hiring manager and recruiting partner play lead roles guiding the candidate pool through a series of activities and interactions, with supporting players, to narrow the choices they have until ultimately, the most qualified seekers win the prize – a job offer. On the other side of the table, job seekers play their role, providing information, submitting to tests and interviews, and making the case for why they are the best person for the job. The script is well-established. The actors know their parts. But what happens when this delicate balance is upset?

As recruiting and hiring professionals, we most often focus on our performance, asking ourselves, what actions can we take to increase the effectiveness of our hiring process. We script our interviewers with interview questions, hiring protocols, process maps, data forms, and cheat sheets for frequently asked questions. This approach gives us some degree of control over the hiring process, but even with this disciplined approach we, of course, do not script or control the job seekers’ behavior.

From the ridiculous to the nonsensical
It’s the job seeker’s behavior that can be the most unpredictable and often times most amusing. In a recent large survey project, the Selection Forecast 2006/2007, we surveyed more than 650 hiring managers asking them to tell us the most outrageous job seeker behaviors they had encountered. The responses were stunning. The questions that job seekers asked or actions they took during the job interview ranged from ridiculous, to offensive, to often making no sense at all. Here are the ‘best’ responses:

An applicant brought in his high school yearbook to show me that he had been voted ‘Most Popular Male.’

Asked about future goals, interviewee said, ‘I want your job. How many years do you have left?’

The applicant asked me to excuse some of her replies as she was still a little hung over from the weekend. It was Wednesday.

The candidate showed up to the interview sick, shook my hand before I knew she was sick, and indicated that I would probably catch the flu within a week after our interview.

The applicant said that for a sales job he would play golf every day to meet prospects.

An applicant said that he couldn’t work with women. (The interviewer was a woman.)

The applicant said, ‘I’m here mostly to get experience for applying to jobs.’

The applicant said, ‘I’ve already accepted another position but I thought I may as well still turn up to this interview just in case this was a better paying job.’

I had an applicant whose tooth fell out during the interview.

An applicant said, ‘I had a dream and a fairy told me I should work for your company.’

An applicant said, ‘I need a job but I don’t really want to work.’

I was asked by an applicant what I fantasized about and he emphasized that he did not want to know about my career fantasies.

I was interviewing an applicant for a Bakery position and was told that she was allergic to flour.

In the midst of the interview the candidate belched in my face and laughed and said, ‘better that it came out of the attic than the basement!’

An applicant said, ‘My greatest contribution to my last job was showing up.’

One candidate said if she could be an animal she would be a cat because they are lazy and lie around all day.

An applicant interviewing with American Express said, ‘Thank you for this interview, I have always wanted to work for Federal Express.’

An applicant said that they were applying for this job because they were about to be fired.

The applicant drew me an artistic picture to say thank you.

When asked what made the individual the best person for the position, she stated, ‘Just look at me.’

In tough recruiting times when qualified job seekers are scarce, we may need to hire ‘the best of the rest.’ Hopefully, more job seekers will pay attention to the abundant advice available on how to best represent themselves in the interview so that we can get back to the ‘normal interview’ instead of trying to hide a chuckle and say, ‘NEXT!’