my interviewer berated me and called me a liar by Alison Green on November 10, 2020 A reader writes: I royally screwed up today in the middle of an interview process and got weird reaction from the recruiter in the process. Where do I go from here? I’ve been underemployed as freelancer for the past few months due to COVID-19 and have been actively job searching and networking to not much […] Read the full article →
why don’t people walk out of bad job interviews? by Alison Green on January 13, 2020 I hear a lot of stories about terrible job interviews – the interviewer who demanded to look inside a candidate’s purse, interviewers who are rude and hostile or even explicitly insulting, candidates who are left waiting for hours after taking time off work, and much more. One common denominator in these stories is that when […] Read the full article →
I was invited to a 300-person cattle-call interview, and now the company wants to know why I’m not interested by Alison Green on March 18, 2019 A reader writes: I’m having an odd time with a company and was wondering what you thought of this process. I applied to a position on LinkedIn for a communications assistant on Friday. On Saturday at 6 am(!) I got an email asking me to schedule an interview for Monday. On Sunday I figured why […] Read the full article →
was this interview as bizarre as I think it was? by Alison Green on January 3, 2019 A reader writes: I recently went on my first interview in my field after finishing school two weeks ago, and the interview was odd in a few different ways. 1. Although I’m white with a British background on both sides, my last name is one that one would assume is Korean or Indigenous. The first […] Read the full article →
employer said I didn’t have enough “passion” when I couldn’t interview on a Saturday by Alison Green on November 20, 2018 A reader writes: I recently applied for a job and was excited to receive an invitation to interview. They were looking to fill the position fast and wanted to know if I could interview two days later on Friday. That was tight, but I moved forward since the job seemed like a great fit for […] Read the full article →
a job application asked me to rank if torturing a person was worse than prostitution by Alison Green on February 12, 2018 A reader writes: I’m trying to change fields from copywriting freelancer to something in the admin assistance sphere. It could be that my greenness is showing, but is it typical for applications to ask you to rate atrocities? After submitting a resume and cover letter, I was directed to fill in an online form. The […] Read the full article →
I’m supposed to write 23 mini-essays in 24 hours before an employer will even interview me by Alison Green on February 5, 2018 A reader writes: I am in the early stages of job searching and have a situation that I’m not sure is abnormal or not. I received the following questionnaire to complete after I applied for a director level job in the nonprofit/association industry. The initial request was to complete this within 24 hours. I was […] Read the full article →
why are employers so rude to job candidates? by Alison Green on July 5, 2017 A reader writes: I’ve been job hunting for about 18 months and I can’t handle all of the broken promises. I’ve had people make offers of help and then disappear. I’ve had interview offers rescinded (mostly involving scheduling conflicts until I find that the job has been filled). I’ve been told to follow up and […] Read the full article →
interviewer told me to clear the whole day for a phone call by Alison Green on June 14, 2017 A reader writes: I received a call back for a position that I’ve really been hoping to get. The job has pretty decent pay for what it is, and the location is somewhere I’ve been hoping to go for quite some time. However, the person I spoke with informed me that I wouldn’t be able […] Read the full article →
how to deal with a bad interviewer by Alison Green on June 7, 2017 A reader writes: I recently interviewed for a position that I think I’m under-qualified for. The position is to be a dean of department at a university which requires 7+ years experience in a similar post and a great deal of knowledge about financial markets. I graduated from the top ivy league school in the […] Read the full article →