How Not to Get Hired 101

[Shalom]

Here's one from my brother, the musician. He witnessed the first half firsthand and heard the second half from the bandmate involved:

Step 1: Be a guest at a wedding with live music. Spend the whole evening heckling the band, telling them how much they suck, etc. Include the immortal line, "Hey, don't quit your day job!".

Step 2: Next morning, show up to an office for an interview. Discover to your dismay that the man in charge of making the decision to hire you (or not) is the drummer/bandleader you were heckling all last night, who is now working at the day job you told him not to quit.

[MaseMan]

Here's one from my brother, the musician. He witnessed the first half firsthand and heard the second half from the bandmate involved:

Step 1: Be a guest at a wedding with live music. Spend the whole evening heckling the band, telling them how much they suck, etc. Include the immortal line, "Hey, don't quit your day job!".

Step 2: Next morning, show up to an office for an interview. Discover to your dismay that the man in charge of making the decision to hire you (or not) is the drummer/bandleader you were heckling all last night, who is now working at the day job you told him not to quit.

Haha, that's awesome. I take it that it was a pretty brief "interview?"

[Shalom]

Haha, that's awesome. I take it that it was a pretty brief "interview?"

I'd have to ask my bro, but knowing this drummer, I suspect he'd have hired him anyway, just so he could watch the guy squirm every time he saw him...

[Cole's Law]

Wow, these are priceless! Here's one from my days at McDonalds:

Don't spend 20 minutes with your friends loudly mocking the staff while eating lunch (calling them dumba****, talking about which of the female employees you'd like to screw), then ask for an application on your way out.

[bhskittykatt]

Applicant the 1st:

1) Give a decent interview. State that one of the most important qualities of being a housekeeper is honesty.
2) When references are checked, the information you put down in your employment history doesn't match what your former employers have. Former employer notes that you're not eligible for rehire, and while it wasn't explicitly stated by the former employer, it seems you probably quit without notice.

What, did you think I wouldn't check references?

Applicant the 2nd:

1) Note that you worked for the same company, different location last season. Make your prospective employer salivate at the prospect of lower training costs, since you've already been through it once before.
2) Write down only one phone number, which is disconnected, so the prospective employer can't call you to schedule an interview.

Applicant the 3rd and 4th:
3rd applicant has lots of "duck face" photos on Facebook, as well as lots of pictures of drinking, and lots of mostly unintelligible posts (some of which seem to be posted whilst inebriated.) 4th applicant doesn't appear to have a social networking profile, at least not one that is visible in public search. Between the two, which one do you think I'm interviewing at 11am tomorrow?

[wolfie]

If you're going to ask for a straw for your Coke before handing in a resume, it had better be a dark fizzy liquid.

[Tigress]

How Not to Get Hired 101

I work 3rd shift at a medical testing lab as their IT Wizard. This affords me two benefits:

1) Because I'm the only IT Wizard willing to work those ungodly hours and am reliable, I have pretty much the run of the buildings and have gotten pretty friendly with the lab managers.
2) Night shift in a lab that handles all manner of bodily fluids doesn't attract the best and the brightest, so there is a high amount of turnover and I occasionally wind up telling hire candidates where to go.

So, during this particular story, I was doing my rounds at the beginning of the shift to make sure everything was running smoothly. I walked over from my building to the lab building and I got someone honking his horn at me while I crossed the parking lot. I didn't recognize the car or the driver, so I made sure I was within sprinting distance of the rear entrance to the lab as I asked what I could do for him.

His girlfriend was there for a job interview. Okay. Told him where the front lab entrance was (next drive down the road) and went into the lab via the rear entrance. About 5 minutes later, I came back around to the rear entrance to go back to my building.

There was the lady interviewing for the job and a 3yo boy playing in the lab hallway. The woman had the rear door wide open and was talking to the guy. As I did my last bit of rounds, I found out that the woman asked to let her 3-year-old in so he could use the bathroom.

This is a secured building. There are bathrooms near the front entrance, so there was no reason for her or the kid to be in the back of the lab. Unless someone let them in via the rear entrance, which is a huge no-no.

The woman asked me to help her locate the person she's supposed to be interviewing with, who was the lab director. The director didn't come in until midnight, but the temp agency that sent her said to show up at 11:30, according to the Email on her phone. Okay, some temp agencies are staffed by barely literate dingbats, so I let that one slide.

So I asked her what position she was applying for so I could at least get the manager of that department, thinking that's who she really needed to talk to. She didn't know what the position was.

Then I took in her attire: 5" stripper wedges, short denim skirt that would have shown the full moon if she bent over at all, tight denim top, perfectly permed weave, enough jewelry and makeup to make a hooker gag and decorated acrylic nails half as long as my own fingers. Her 3yo was still playing in the hallway behind us and the employees on break were herding him away from the biohazard drop-off area. The man was standing with the door wide open, smoking a cigarette.

Knowing I had done all I could, I just wished her luck on her interview and walked very quickly out of the lab before the giggles hit. Making sure the rear door closed behind me.

Later on that night, I made a service call in the lab and stopped by the director's office to ask how the interview went because I was morbidly curious. Her response:

"What interview?"
"You mean you didn't interview the lady in denim couture?"
"Oh, you mean the hooker and baby daddy I kicked out?"
"Yep. Them. Sorry I missed it."
"There was nothing to miss. Except for the voicemail to CPS for letting a toddler play in a medical lab."
"Oh, dear."
"Yep. I regret nothing."

[Zellie Crescent]

Oh my god, how fucking stupid can people be?!

[Rainman]

yeah. . . lot of fail right there. Bringing your kid to a job interview is generally seen as a bad sign by any potential employer. lol

I have something to add if I may Do not go into an interview for a security position at a bank and mention to the interviewer how one of your fantasies is to "strut into a large government building (like. . . . a bank?) and go all Matrix 1 on everyone and everything."

[raudf]

Oops, looks like they should have rescheduled their "fantasy hooker-pimp/john" date night for some other time! And they should have found a sitter for the kid before they left to go on it. Nothing kills both the mood and the interview like a screaming kid.

Good on the lab director for calling CPS on them too. He should call the temp agency and report her. She was apparently completely inappropriate for the job and they need to know that. You need common sense for a job like that.. and she apparently has NONE.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Good on the lab director for calling CPS on them too. He should call the temp agency and report her. She was apparently completely inappropriate for the job and they need to know that. You need common sense for a job like that.. and she apparently has NONE.

And, if she's anything like the skankwhorasaurusi we see around these parts, she'll protest with some lame argument or accusation of either racism or the other person is jealous b/c they don't look that good.

I'm sorry but frankly, I don't call walking around looking like an advertisement for STD Weekly "high class."

[tropicsgoddess]

Unless she's working for a strip club, she's failed miserably in getting hired with her outfit...bonus with bringing in the kid and baby daddy. Man, I remember sitting in the break room at my old job and seeing this chick in a skirt that was so short that bending over would show off her "goods". I just wonder if her supervisor, department head manager or even the security guard at the front ever scolded her for it.

[taxguykarl]

Oh my god, how fucking stupid can people be?!

Careful, there are plenty of SC's, SCW's (or wanabees) and others who would take that query as a challenge.

[lobo94]

Oh my god, how fucking stupid can people be?!

Are you sure you want to ask that question? It's been my experience that when you think you've seen the worst case of stupidity and the strongest case for selective breeding or neutering...you get someone else who sets the bar lower.

[lobo94]

Oh my god, how fucking stupid can people be?!

One answer that will work-immensely.