Job interviews from Hell

Killing, fighting and werewolves. Job candidates have revealed their most hellish interview experiences to a UK employment law consultancy.  

“I see from your CV that you were in the Armed Forces. Did you ever kill anybody? (I was in the Catering Corps, where the stock answer is always ‘Yes, thousands’)” – this is just one example of an experience recounted to Protecting.co.uk.

Mark Hall, a spokesperson for the consultancy, says: “Some bosses get it horribly wrong when interviewing for new staff or on promotion Boards. And all the guidelines about acceptable behaviour go right out of the window, often with disastrous results.”

Other examples of bad experiences include one candidate being asked; “When was the last time you got into an actual fight with somebody?” and another having to respond to “Are you planning on getting pregnant?”

While some experiences were a blatant example of discrimination, such as “I expect you’ll be wanting time off for your weird religious holidays, am I right?”, others were just weird. Including; “You’re quiet. Are you imagining us naked?” and “We’re going to do some role-play now. You’ll be playing the part of the werewolf.”

Hall says: “What many of these examples have in common is a lack of understanding that a poor interview can leave your business or organisation wide open to potential discrimination claims.

“The last thing your business wants is a legal claim against you, and the second worst is appearing in a list of worst ever job interviews. Think before you ask that show-stopping question.”