How Not to Get Hired 101

[Naaman]

Well my job at the game store;

Was mooching around town after signing on (welfare) and saw the sign up that the store was looking for counter staff. Walked in and asked for an application whilst wearing my 'normal' clothes; paratrooper boots, black combats, geek T-shirt (don't remember which one), and my classic black w\ red trim '70s motorcycle jacket with about 2lb of studs in it. Manager took one look at me, said "We see you in here a lot" and handed app over - I started the week after and worked my way up to unofficial computer dude (they already had people who specialised in each console)


One from what was to become my current place of work, I work in a company with my partner, the company makes Pharmacy software;

GF brings home some CVs, they're looking for community pharmacists who are at ease with computers to assist with database maintenance and upkeep. They need to community because they need the knowledge if day to day working with the Drug Tariff and the qualified pharmacist bit is due to liability issues.

One of the few applications that was received by e-mail was missing the CV (resume), OK we've all forgotten to add the attachment. When asked to resend it they cut and pasted a 4 page CV into their e-mail....
This was for a job working on a live database worth in the region of £1.5 million

[Ljt09863]

bringing your child with it has been mentioned, let me add some to it.

-coming early is always good! but bringing your child, isn't. yes, we understand, that sometimes you can't get a babysitter, or can't afford one, or something came up, but it tells us that it may become in issue later on.

- when you find out the manager doing the interview, will be with you in a few minutes, don't do your shopping. stand there, patiently waiting. maybe chat it up with the employees not assisiting customers.

-if you feel you must,must,must MUST do your shopping now, please, when the hiring manager comes out to get you, just ask us to hold the stuff until the interview is over. don't tell the hiring manager that you just need to buy this stuff real quick. when we offer to hold it, don't tell us, oh,no, it will just take a minute! we make YOU wait, you don't make us wait.

- if you have to bring your child in, if they are old enough, say... 10 or 11 years old, ask them to stay in the toy aisle. are store is 8 aisles big. the toy aisle, is right in front of the office, where we have the one way mirror. you can watch her. but, please. DONT bring the child into the actual interview!

one lady did all the above.....she was about 35-40 yeards old. you would think she would know how an interview works.

she SO did not get the job.

[Casino Jockey]

not knowing who the beatles or the rolling stones are - when you are applying for a job at a record store.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

• Show up late for your 9 am interview.
• Have your application show that you haven't worked in the past 2 years.
• Explain this gap away by telling the interviewer you've been living off your girlfriend during that time and you have to find work or else she'll dump you.

And this guy was considered a candidate to join our early morning stock team.

[RetailSlave]

We had one guy show up a few weeks ago for an interview with the Store Manager wearing shorts and sandals, which revealed his home incarceration ankle bracelet. The girl at the Service Desk told him the position had already been filled and sent him away. When the Store Manager asked if her interviewee had shown up, the SD person told her what she had done and why. Boy, was the Store Manager glad not to have dealt with that!

[Shards]

I got my first job at Weis Markets at 16, which was the youngest they would hire, although I hear you can get a job at Wegmans at 14 or 15.

Anyway, I showed up to the interview in a t-shirt with a dog on it, and jeans that had a couple scratches in them, and ink on them from when I got bored in classes. My backpack, which had fallen into a state of mild disrepair, was with me, and I had to rifle through it to find a pen to complete some of my forms. I got the job before leaving the interview. (Technically this was my second round interview, my first having been with a computer questionnaire about drugs and alcohol.) This is only mildly surprising because my high school is divided into two buildings which are on opposite sides of the street, and this Weis was next-door to the underclassmen building.

Here's a couple from my job as a YMCA Lifeguard.:

1) Have your routine background check come back with a history of pedophilia-related issues.

2) Show up for your first day of lifeguard training and prove to the teacher you have only a vague idea of how to keep your own head above water in a pool, when we're required to be able to keep our shoulders out using only our feet for two continuous minutes.

3) Expect a job within a short period of time after handing in your resume ( My boss is in for 10 hours in a good week, and in that time she's yelling at us for not filling out our paperwork correctly, not looking at new paperwork. Add to that the $150 class you have to take before starting that qualifies you to save people's lives that takes up several hours of your day for a full week and a half or so, which the only payment you are receiving for taking is that the Y pays for it instead of forcing you to. Yeah, sorry, )

4) Ask a lifeguard for an application while we're on the stand. (Our entire building uses the same application. You could ask one of the administrators, or the people at the front desk, or the gym overseers and personal trainers, or even the overseer of the Teen Center, you shouldn't have to trek through our bathrooms to come see me to ask for an application. Even if you do, we're not allowed to take our eyes off the pool long enough to even make eye contact as we answer you, which makes talking to anyone who isn't in the same job and therefore knowledgeable about this policy quite uncomfortable for both us and you.)

5) Apply now. Sorry, folks, but unless you can convince our manager to follow the policies she's been ignoring for the past month and a half straight (we've tried, it isn't doable), there aren't enough hours for the people who already work here full time to hit 40 hours and part timers to hit 20, let alone time for another new guy to get just about any, thanks, bye.

[Nina Turner]

This one really irked me. I work in a grocery store that starts hiring at 14, so we get a few younger kids looking for jobs after school. Five kids that look about under 20 come in, in a group. There are three guys and two girls. The girls start rubbing up and kissing their respective boyfriends right by the hiring kiosk next to the customer service counter. I make a comment about how much PDA annoys me and turn away, only to find that one of the guys is turning in a Western Union form. The kid was an ass the entire time, molesting his underage girlfriend in between me asking questions, since his forms were incorrectly filled out.

Then one of the girls asks if we're hiring. My manager could barely take her seriously.



Another one. The applications are filled out in the in-store kiosk. They recently changed the questions they ask, things like, "You are working on a task when a customer asks you for assistance. You are busy, but there is another employee working nearby, who has been there longer than you. What do you do?"

I had one guy start to bitch and demand a manager. He tells me, "I think I entered the wrong application! This must be for a manager to fill out!" I explained to him that potential candidates for management go through the store to do it through a different training system, so there's no way that could happen. Still requests the manager. Guy was old enough to be my dad.



I'm glad I'm leaving, I'm sure they'd hire some of these people. I can only imagine what kind of BS drama the younger girl could bring.

[Lone Wolf]

Put irrelevant and personal information on your resume. I had a friend who used to work in a CD store and she told me they actually got resumes that said things like "I like candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach" Just when I thought I'd heard it all.

Or how about this...

Come to an interview, tell the interviewer(s) how enthusiastic you are about joining the company and becoming part of the team...then make it obvious throughout the course of the interview that you know next to nothing about them, their mission statement and what it is they actually do.

[McGoddess09]

At my place, your application will get tossed if you do this:

Ask for one in Drive Thru.

Hiring manager figures that if you can't walk in to the store and ask for an application, then you are too lazy to work. Trust me. We remember who are the ones who came through drive thru.

[Custard Chick]

This isn't totally sucky or stupid, but enough to make me roll my eyes and sigh.

Lady came in to interview for a production manager position. Interviewed well, knew her stuff, but extenuating circumstances made my boss pass over her.

#1: Her mode of transportation was unreliable. Something called 'slugging' (don't quote me on that, I've never heard of it until now). Basically, people wait at designated 'spots' (shopping malls, any place with large parking lots) and wait for people to pick them up and take them to Metro stops, train stops, bus stops, or their job. Complete strangers picking up other complete strangers. She said herself, it's a completely faith-based system. You basically have to trust the driver/passenger to not be a crazy psychopath.

#2: She was pregnant. At least 6-7 months. I know an employer can't discriminate, but honestly, who's going to hire a woman who's in her third trimester when she's only going to be going on maternity leave in a few short months for an extended period of time? Just doesn't make sense. Especially when we're as small as we are (a grand total of 6 people) and I just started barely 2 months ago and am still trying to figure things out.

[draftermatt]

I had to hire a new QC guy because our old one walked out on Tuesday. Mainly because the one owner, The Duke of Idiot, pushed him to it. That's right King Jackass (the owner who hates me) wasn't involved.

Anyway, before we try the paper and other data bases, I put an ad on Craigslist.

Ended up hiring one guy from there.

But 1 guy sent an e-mail stating:

"Hi, I work with concrete as a finisher, I want to work for your company"

The other guy had a nice Resume, too long though (3 pages). But he's an Engineer (overqualified) and lives in New York State.

No comments made about wanting to relocate, why he's looking for work as a QC tech for $13 an hour.

[Becks]

If I had a dollar for every guy named Tom in a position of authority at my former place of employment...

[nomorecarts]

my store used to have 3 managers with the same name. it got confusing

[HawaiianShirts]

How not to get hired at my store? Have this conversation with me (real, from today).

(For background, I need to explain that my store has a total of five managers, two of whom have the same name but not the same gender. For this story, we'll say they're both named "Al," as in "Al short for Allison" and "Al short for Albert.")

Me: *STORE* Customer Service, this is HawaiianShirts.
Prospective Employee: I need to speak to Al.
Me: We've got two Als here. Do you need the guy or the girl?
PE: I need to speak to Al the hiring manager.
Me: We actually don't have a hiring manager. Al the guy, or Al the girl?
PE: Al the hiring manager!
Me: Okay, I have two people here named Al. Both of them are managers, and both of them are hiring right now for their respective areas. I need to know which one you need or you won't be able to get the help you need.
PE: I don't see why this is so hard. I need to speak to Al!
Me: Yeah. Do you need Al the guy manager or Al the girl manager?
PE: Just lemme talk to a manager!

So I handed him off to Al the guy, explaining my side of the conversation. Turned out that was the Al he needed, which was disappointing for me. But Al basically blew the guy off. He told PE that he wouldn't hire him because of his severely limited availability, then he said to me, "Didn't want him working for me anyway."

[Becks]

What it was all the paper I had in the house, it's why I need the job, lol

Sounds like a good reason to me.