I just got home from what was the worst interview I have ever experienced. I’ll do my best not to turn this into a ramble.
I’ve recently began pursuing work again as I’m coming off a 7-month voluntary hiatus after burning myself out so bad that it had begun effecting my health and quality of life.
The interview starts off with your basic questions including “What 10 words would you use to describe yourself?” I’ve always viewed and treated my interviews as conversations as opposed to drills so when my responses were more similar to sentences than words, he hits me with something along the lines of “10 words would have been sufficient.” Y’all I don’t know if I was embarrassed, shocked, or humored because all I could think to reply with was a “Well I hope it was enough to answer your question.”
Later on he asks me “On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel about firing employees?”Full disclosure: it was in response to me leaving my former job in part to having to let a lot of my staff go when COVID started. Wseall did great work together so that hit me pretty hard emotionally. I rated his a question a solid 1 because I was trained to give someone everyone every opportunity to succeed. He rated it a 10 because “he always sets clear expectations so you’re either in or you’re out.” I’m not sure what else I expected from a regional-level corporate employee, but it felt odd actually hearing someone say these things.
We then began talking about my resume. He started to question whether or not I had the 15 years experience I mentioned, when my resume only listed 5 years. And by questioned, I mean QUESTIONED. The way he asked me was like he was trying to find a hole in the timeline. Again, full disclosure, I had one date error on one of my entries but I’m 35 years old, I look 35 years old, and I can’t imagine anyone lying about being a server while in college to land a manager role. The experience I listed was the more relevant chronologically and professionally and while I won’t claim to be an expert resume writer, I would have thought a one-pager with 5 years was appropriate.
Toward the end of the shot-show he says “Wow that only took 30 minutes? It felt like longer.” I laughed and said “Same.”
I can’t imagine why “people don’t want to work anymore.”
And btw, TACO BELL was the offender here.