5 of the worst job interviews ever

Job interviews can be stressful for both the candidate and interviewer.

However, it's often safe to assume the candidates get the shorter end of the stick, which can result in some horrific, hilarious and cringe-worthy stories.

A Reddit thread asked hiring managers and recruiters for their nightmare interview stories, and the responses did not disappoint.

Here are five of our favourite “horror stories”. Feel free to continue reading the rest here.

1. Why you should never let nerves get the better of you

"Had a guy show up 40 minutes early for an interview, obviously crazy nervous. 30 minutes later, me and my team greet the guy, and you could tell by the fantastic handshake the nerves were still there, and this may not go well.

“Motioned him to the board room to do the interview, we sat down and before I had even asked the first question, he had barfed all over the table. Funny thing was he was one of the better applicants, so he did get a call back."

2. The honest interviewee

“Interview went great, got to last 2 questions about drug test and background search. He said all was great, and don't expect any problems.

“After the interview, during small talk walking to the car, he informed me that he just got out of prison for stealing payroll money from his previous employees, at a little over 1 million dollars.”

3. One more for Team Honesty“I interviewed a guy to work as a manager selling internet, home phones, mobiles etc. The job wasn't overly hard but you had to memorise a lot of product info that updated (or changed completely) monthly and the targets were expected to be met but were impossible to meet.

Anyway, this guy came in and I asked him why he wanted to job. He said, ‘Well I really just wanted something super easy where I could kind of do nothing. I mean you guys don't look like you work very hard. Also there are some hot chicks that work here and I'd like to get to know them.’

I asked him what made him think that the job was easy and he replied, ‘Well the thing is, I'm really f***ing smart.’

I literally looked around to see if I was on some candid camera show.”

4. The Scott Thompson copycat

“I'm a recruiter. There was candidate who sent in a resume for a hard to find skill set. It looked great, he had all the required skills. When I called him and asked him a few questions and wanted him to expand on his skills, he couldn't do it. I'm used to people fabricating their experience and skills, but this guy actually admitted he lied.

‘But my resume says I can. Submit me to your client. I'll get job.’

I told him there's no way I'm going to submit a fake resume. He then asked if he could refer a friend who could do the job. No, thanks, buddy.”

5. Why experience sometimes doesn’t matter

“I'm a software QA manager. I like to give them an intentionally buggy simple program to see how they approach testing. One girl, supposedly with five years experience, asked if there was a way to turn the volume down on clicking the mouse. The physical click you get when you push the button. No further questions.”