Unconventional Job Interviews
Unlike a lot of recent college grads who are job hunting right now, and sending out resumes and cover letters to what seems like an abyss, I was a fortunate young college graduate who was asked to go in and interview for many of the jobs I applied to. Coming out of college, I did not get most of the jobs I interviewed for, but I learned a lot about what employers look for during the interview process, and the main thing I learned was that everyone expects different things, so you have to be prepared for anything.
At one magazine job I applied to, I was asked to set aside 48 hours to write and layout an entire section of the magazine. This meant writing actual features and sidebars that I thought would be a good fit for the glossy. It was really stressful because the section usually consisted of multiple contributors and editors, and they were asking me to put the section together by myself in less than half the time it takes an entire team to do it. I ended up spending 36 of the 48 hours furiously putting the section together, and did not finish. I did not get the job, but the magazine offered to pay me for one of the features I wrote to be published in a later issue. I took the money and ran.
At another magazine job I applied to (at the time, I thought my career path would lead me to be an editor at some big Conde Nast publication), there was no writing involved. Instead, I spent an hour meeting eight different people from various departments, who then all met in one room to decide whether or not I would be an appropriate addition to the team. If the decision was not unanimous, I was told right there and then that I did not get the job. The decision was not unanimous.
There was also another interview where I showed up and was asked to start working right away. All candidates were put to work for a week (paid, thankfully), and then at the end of the week, they fired most of the candidates and kept the handful they liked for the job. I was kept, but I didn’t stay for very long because the work environment was so volatile. Every now and then some new people would show up to start working and then you learned later they were actually candidates trying out for the job, and they would disappear on you.
Have you had any atypical job interviews? How did you deal with them?
Photo: Flickr/Victor1558
None of my interviews have been as work intensive as yours, Mike, but the fact that some of them sound so stressful brings up a question I’ve always wondered–have any of you ended interviews on your own volition? Is that okay to do (tactfully) if you know right away the job isn’t a good fit?
I’ve definitely had a handful where upon halfway in my Spidey Senses started tingling something fierce and I just wanted to stop and say, “you know what? I don’t think this job is quite right for me after all–thanks for your time!” and GTF out of there.
When I was fresh out of college and (I thought) desperate for anything, I interviewed for an administrative position at a real estate company and knew right after entering the office that the job just wasn’t for me…there weren’t any huge warning flags, and the people working there seemed pleasant, if bland, but I was filled with this overwhelming sense of dread that I couldn’t shake, and I wanted to bolt… so naturally, I let the interview drag on for over an hour. When it finally reached the point where one of the interviewers was asking me about my start date availability and I was giving him the run-around, he must have realized how miserable I looked and abruptly got up and stormed out of the conference room. Oops. I’m glad I didn’t, you know, take the terrible job, but I still feel guilty for wasting his time and wish I had had the courage to speak up.
@DickensianCat The conventional advice is always to stick an interview out, send a thank you note, and be polite – even if you know you don’t want the job – because you never know when you might need those people again.
When I was on my last round of interviews, desperately looking to get out of the admin assistant trap, I got a call back from an organization I was interested in for a research position. Super excited about making it to what I thought was Round 2, I took a day off work, got my suit dry cleaned, went through the whole pre-interview ritual. When I arrived and sat down, they told me I was actually interviewing for a new position – as an executive assistant. It took everything in my power not to lash out at them for wasting my time, especially after I’d already interviewed with these people and made my interest in advancing past administrative support quite clear.
I think they would have offered me the position if I hadn’t withdrawn my candidacy (politely, by email the day after the interview), but I never did get the balls up to tell them they should be straightforward with their candidates about what positions they’re actually interviewing for.
I’ve never interrupted an interviewer to end a job interview, but I have sent a thank you note thanking an interviewer for their time, and to tell them I didn’t think I was right for the position. It was for a copying editing job in a workspace with no windows, and bright, white hospital lights, and I would be looking at legal text. There were two rounds of interviews, and I stopped the process before going to the second round.
@MuffyStJohn Oh, I would be furious if that happened to me. Bait-and-switch is the most dishonest and disgusting practice, and it happens far too often (in several arenas) here in NYC.
@kellyography I always know to anticipate that kind of thing from startups and Craigslist ads and so forth, but this was a reputable organization. I think they were just lazy. And, in their defense, I was an AWESOME executive assistant. I would just sooner gouge my own eyes out with a spoon than go back to that line of work.
@Mike Dang I have no windows and bright hospital lights above my head right now. :(
Is it sunny outside? I have no idea.
@DON me too. :(
i can just barely glimpse the sunlight shining in through my coworker’s windows. :(
The position I had before this one had an extensive set (several days’ worth) of tests one had to do on a computer – which was running Windows NT. (This was in late 2010, and at a 100-employee company that develops software products, and I was applying to be an administrative assistant.) I did end up taking the job because I was desperate, but it was definitely a portent of things I’d learn about how the place was run.
My officemate in my current job applied for a position there in 1999, before they’d computerized the tests (but when running NT would have been slightly less awful – go figure). She was asked to take tests home with her to do and was called in for four interviews and as many sets of tests over a three-month period before they told her she didn’t get the job. Insane.
I also interviewed for and was offered a job at a tiny, tiny private middle/high school (five students total – really more like a homeschooling group) and the director of the school both (a) forgot about my interview and (b) hadn’t locked the school when leaving the night before, so I ended up poking around the building trying to figure out if anyone was there for a while before calling her. Her complete lack of concern with leaving the school (and its records, laptop computers, etc.) unlocked in a not-great part of town and with forgetting the interview were also a sign. I lasted about a week in that job before quitting to get away from her. My replacement at this job and at the one I mentioned above both looked me up to cold call me to ask me if they were nuts, or the job was. I was able to reassure both that it wasn’t them.
@Jenn@twitter I am in a job that I like right now, but my coworkers are more than a little kooky. I sometimes want to call the person before me and ask her if it’s any different at her new (very similar) job.
I’ve had some pretty awful interviews, but mostly because I am a pretty awful interviewee.
The worst, I’d say, was a first-pass interview with a recruiter, who abruptly stopped our discussion a few minutes in to tell me that she just got an email notifying her that I’d failed the personality test they’d asked me to take, so she was ending the interview.
I wrote her a thank-you note anyway, because what else do you do?
@Grant@twitter Stalk, kill, and eat her, probably – just like their test told them you would.
@Grant@twitter Jesus, the personality tests: centerpiece of lazy interviewing practices. I had to endure one of those once. This was the same organization that put me through one of the most painful, grueling in-person interviews of my life (horrific, unprepared, unprofessional, and it went on for four damned hours) and then asked for my consent to a credit check. After Maryland (where the job was located) had outlawed credit checks for hiring purposes. I declined and quietly reported them to the state.
@Grant@twitter Ugh, those personality tests. What the hell are they actually supposed to tell you about someone? Who would admit to being a terrible, awful employee on a test like that? And then normal people end up not being eligible for jobs they should be able to do in their sleep. They always make me wonder if I should just pick the obviously goody-two-shoes answer, or answer honestly with the slightly less perky answer (obviously not the “steal and deal drugs” answer)? But then will they think I’m actually a slacker? AWFUL.
Case in point, I once failed one of those personality tests to work at a major chain bookstore. I am a librarian.
“You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm.”
@tiktaalik These are probably a different sort of personality test than you’re thinking of. For a while, it was relatively commonplace for companies – generally at the behest of some dubious consulting firm – to give those typed/template-based personality tests, where like it would sort you as an EXTROVERT/CREATIVE or an EMPATH/PROBLEM-SOLVER or whatever. And then if you didn’t fit the desired template they’d just dump you. I don’t think this is commonplace anymore, but it was definitely a fad for a moment there (especially with the sort of company that hires shitty consultants and then just does whatever BS they tell them to do without thinking about it rationally).
That write-and-layout-an-entire-section interview seems like a great scam to get suckers to write features for you at low cost and no overhead.
Group interviews. I hate them. Then I realized I’d rather not work with a bunch of people willing to lie openly to one-up each other, and work for managers blind or willing to swallow such bullshit.
@Fig. 1 But that would be so fun to sit there and intentionally raise the steaks and one-up the others (when you knew you didn’t want the job). It would be like an SNL skit.
A few years ago, I had an interview to be a hostess at a douchey-hip restaurant. I should have known it was a bad idea when the interviewer asked me “What kind of animal would you be, and why?”
Back when I spent some time doing retail my favourite was a couple different places where people would get really flummoxed when I tried to be funny. One guy at least actually wrote down some variation of “made joke?” in the little box where he was supposed to note my responses.
Definitely once took a worse paying job entirely because the interviewer at one place laughed at my jokes more than the other guy.
I once had a job interview at a company that is run by the Church of Scientology. I realized this when I was given a questionnaire that stated they practiced some sort of L. Ron Hubbard management style. One of the questions was, “Do you believe in God?”