What was the worst job Interview you've had?

1. At an interview for a tech startup, they asked me "If you could be any animal, what would you be?"

   I answered "Otter" because you know, fun, active, work well with their hands and cute as fuck.

   They really debated whether or not to hire me because of that answer because, and I quote, "We only hire predators, never prey." and they weren't sure how to quantify an Otter, because none of them had ever paid the least bit of attention to any sort of animal documentary or read biology or you know, visited a zoo recently.

   God that job sucked hard.
   -u/rileysweeney

2. The interviewer insisted on knowing why I'd left graduate school. Now, I had left graduate school because my advisor died in a car accident and the whole small department was thrown for a loop and no one seemed to know or care what was going to happen to me or my just started research project.

   The asshole interviewer wouldn't even accept "My advisor died suddenly" and dug into the gory details until I was almost in tears (even intimating that I must have had "feelings" for my advisor.)

   I couldn't wait to get out of there and in my haste to leave I knocked some solutions off a cart (which had no business being in his office BTW) on my way out. I'd never been so humiliated in my life.

   After that, I was sure I'd never get a job in science.
   -u/feliciates

3. I drove an hour away to an interview at 8:00 am. I waited outside the interviewer's office until 8:30 am with no one to tell me where to go or where she was.

   Finally, another employee walks by and I ask if they know where this woman is to interview me. They had no idea where she was, why she was late, and told me if she wasn't there yet, I should leave because she probably forgot (...ok?).

   I decide 45 minutes is the cut off (especially standing in a government building looking like a creep waiting. 8:45 on the dot she rushes in, flustered, wet hair, and in casual yoga pants.

   With all the resurgence of patience I could muster, I greeted her and was met with a passive aggressive scolding of how the interview was at 9, not 8. (Uh... I tripled checked the email asking me to interview and it was 8. We had conducted a phone interview and she followed up with an email request to an in person interview at 8. I was 100% positive on this, I hate being late.)

   Even with this, and i did say, "I'm certain you said 8 am, maam" she wasn't having it. Conversely, she also went on about why she was late, surmounting in, she went to the gym and forgot her underwear to change into and had to stop at a store and buy new ones after working out, before coming to work.

   She told me this. In the first 5 minutes. Why? I didn't ask her!

   Regardless, she looks at my resume, apparently for the first time, because she proceeds to tell me how it is unimpressive and my graduate studies should have yielded numerous publications after 1.5 years. (In my field, most don't publish until after 3-4 years.)

   Even still, she kept saying how I had "moved up the interview time", showed me the work spaces and told me I "probably wouldn't be interested in what they do there". I politely told her I had driven, at her request, to be there and interview for employment, I was VERY interested. She waved me off.

   As we left, I just tried to hold it together (I was very poor and very desperate for a job), thanked her, and she told me how great it is to work for the government, how good the benefits, the pension, the time off are. On and on. She said, "If you can find an opening working for the government, you should try to check it out and get hired on!"

   HOL UP

   I just looked her in the face and said, "Yes, ma'am, that was my hope with today's interview. Thank you."

   And left.

   And sat in my car and bawled the whole drive home like the desperate loser I was.

   That was a low one, to be sure.
   u/baking_bitch

4. Company was downsizing.

   All employees in a specific yet exclusive division were fired and ordered to reapply for their position plus two other jobs in the company. You’d either get one of those jobs or be terminated.

   The subsequent interviews were conducted with a manager and an HR person.

   First interview in executive suite: Manager asks why aren’t you applying for this key supervisory slot? (I had listed it second on my list.) Me: I would prefer to stay in my expertise in which I won a National award. HR: I didn’t know awards like that existed.

   Second interview: Current boss likes me for my existing job (for which I was heavily recruited from another company). HR: Wow, so you’re the guy who does this job? I had no idea a real person did it.

   Third interview: HR person says he’s never heard of my division or that employees actually worked at night. I had listed this job in which I merely served as a minor manager as third on my preferences. Really didn’t want it but had to list three.

   The results: I was retained but transferred to the third dead-end day job. My old award-winning job was given to an aging staffer who never worked in that position or had a clue. The supervisor job went to a brilliant colleague who wanted and deserved it.

   I quit very soon thereafter and joined a bigger company with better benefits. Skill pays off.

   After all that, my old company, seeing the error of its ways in lost production and general lack of ability, offered me a bonus to return.

   Nope, nope, nope. And I’m returning the corporate knife you stuck in my back.
   -u/QuackedUp99

5. I was interviewing for a job in Houston, and lived in Austin, about 2.5 hours away. I drove to Houston for the first round of interviews, and they said it went well and wanted to being me in for a final interview, so i drove there again. It seemed like it went well and they told me they had one more interview to conduct and would have a decision tomorrow. So the next day came and went, I emailed the manager to ask if any decision had been made, nothing, waited a couple more days, left a voicemail, nothing. Then a couple days later, I just called the main number for the company and told the receptionist why I was calling. She was like "well, someone just started in that job yesterday". They ghosted me after I drove a total of 10 hours to interview twice. Still salty about that 11 years later.
   -u/ElToberino