17 managers and recruiters share what happened during their absolute worst interview.

Nobody loves the job interview process, but sometimes uncomfortably regurgitating your resume is an important step to landing your dream gig...

So, when a Reddit user asked hiring managers, job recruiters, and interviewers everywhere, 'What is the worst job interview you have ever had?' people were ready to share the details of the most awkward, cringe-worthy, or overall disastrous moments during the hiring process.

1.

Was interviewing an internal candidate for a position in a parallel department. I was embarrassed for him - he seemed to think he had the job in the bag, and so came totally unprepared and behaved so arrogantly that it was frankly shocking.

He failed to silence his phone (it rang four times before he excused himself to silence it.) and proceeded to grill us on other candidates during his 'do you have any questions for us?' portion. He had dropped by the desk of a coworker the day before the interview and THREATENED HER, 'you know, I hope this interview goes well, I've got dirt on you all LOL!'

He played it off as a joke, but his wife was our boss. He'd been hired as a favor to her for a job he wasn't suited for, was trying to parlay the limited experience he'd gotten into this higher level position, and was so confident in her ability to push this for him that I took particular relish when alternate hiring decisions were made.

She'd also clearly fed him info about the role and written his resume/cover letter for him, and was in a snit herself with the hiring manager for passing him over. - Aleutienne

2.

I had a recent college grad interview for a job. Asked if we had a nap room. Said his doctor required him to take an hour nap a day. If he got hired he will provide the appropriate medical records but requires a nap room. He also asked if when he got hired if he would be one of the bosses of the developers who interviewed him.

I asked why and he said he felt off about the developer and said he would let him go. He then asked where his office would be located and whether they would compensate him with stock options or ownership.

Finally he ended the interview saying he had an 3pm appointment and it was nice talking to me. I asked him to leave. He was applying for an entry level support analyst position. - mgoode87

3.

Watched a guy walk into where I work for an interview...He was wearing a t-shirt that said 'Things that get my d*ck hard'... He didn't even get the job. - Macollegeguy2000

4.

My buddy worked at a good paying job... but, it was very dangerous. He managed to get me a job interview with the advice to stress how safety-conscious I am. Fair enough. So, I'm sitting in the waiting room and I see a very tiny bump on my finger. Like a very small wart or a larger pimple. Anyway, my idea is 'I need to get this off my hand' because f*ck weird growths.

Anyway, I use my teeth to pull it off.... and blood EVERYWHERE! Like gushing. From a wound that's barely the size of a pen point. I ask the girl at the front desk for some tissues, but I pour through those in seconds.

Then, the person for my interview enters the waiting room ready to shake my hand. 'eh, heh' and he looks at my hand with blood-soaked tissues stuck to it. I already see it in his eyes. He's like 'are you f**king kidding me? This guy manages to butcher himself in a matter of 3 minutes??'

The interview was very rushed. Very obvious he had no interest in talking to me, but he had the obligation to. So, he gets to the end of the interview and I could tell he didn't listen to anything I said.

He's like 'I have 8 other people applying for this job. Why should I hire you?' Uh... yeah...that safety speech I was all about? Not going to happen. So, I open my wallet, pull out everything I have ($6), and say as seriously as possible: 'this could be yours.' - [deleted]

5.

Did a phone interview with a guy whose resume said he lived a couple of hours from the job. It became obvious pretty quickly that he had just filled out the application without looking to see where we were.

After asking him more than once if he knew where we were, and him not really giving a solid answer, I asked him directly about how he was going to manage the commute. He said that we weren't that far.

When I told him where we were, and how far away he was, there was a brief silence, and he blurted out, 'Sh*t! I'll move!' I told him to wait on a follow up email to find out the next step. He did not move on to the next step. I liked the guy, though. - Deweyrob2

6.

I interviewed a women for an IT position. A few minutes in she started rubbing one of her eyes. Within a few minutes it was all red and started to swell. She kept rubbing at it and rubbing at it.

By the end of the interview she couldn't see out of the eye at all and a HUGE whitehead had formed on her eyelid but the whole time she never acknowledged the problem even though I asked if she was ok. When the interview wrapped up she tried to shake my hand with the same hand she had been rubbing all over her disease infested eyeball from hell. I politely declined. She didn't get the job. - tizod

7.

I was a director at a company and was asked to interview an applicant who I had worked with at a previous company.

The last time I saw him, security was escorting him from the building because he had listed one of the co-founders as a reference on an application to moonlight for our direct competition. Co-founder got a call asking 'Does this guy work for you?' to which the answer, naturally, was 'Not anymore.'

We found out he had been freelancing as a consultant for quite some time around our industry, which is just leaps and bounds outside the terms of his employee agreement.

All his access was immediately revoked, his phone and laptop were confiscated, and his personal belongings from his desk were mailed to him after we finished the security review. Not sure if the company pursued litigation, but they would have had a case.

So naturally, I tell my boss at the new company that he's untrustworthy, and point out that he lists the consulting on his resume as a current position along with another full-time gig that he's leaving, so he's not even being discreet about it. Boss asks me to interview him anyway because 'his skill set looks good.'

In the interview, I brought up that had two current jobs, and asked him how much time he was spending on the consulting, and whether that would impact his full-time work. He dodged by saying to me 'It hasn't ever been a problem in the past.' I was just blown away. Like, I was there, dude. I was the one who revoked your access. He didn't get the job. - data_wrangler

8.

Worked as a manager for a small company. I did preliminary interviews. Guy shows up in jeans and a plain white t shirt, an hour early to the interview. There's no chairs in the tiny front office so he has to stand there awkwardly while other applicants come and go. Finally, as I call him to the back office, I notice that he's got a pair of boobs tattooed on the side of his neck.

I know this interview is going to go nowhere; my district manager isn't going to hire a guy with bare breasts on his neck, but I have to do the interview anyway. He proceeds to interrupt me every other sentence as I'm explaining the job duties and expectations, because he has a friend in the same industry and knew all about it.

His answers to my interview questions ramble on without pause for me to cut in. The interview lasts twice as long as any of the others that day, and I even skipped some of the questions. I couldn't stop staring at his t*ts. - apathyczar

9.

So I recently got to recruit for a position a lot higher than mine. I do project management, but without the title. Anyway I interviewed this lady with my boss, and this older woman just bombed the interview process. She came in dressed in a very casual wear (Like a muscle shirt with a logo, and yoga pants), and her hair kind of a mess.

Okay no big deal, it's kind of windy. As we walk to the room she starts asking me question like,' Do you like your job? What do you dislike? What's base salary?' No biggie, she just wants to get some insight. Well once we sit down with my boss, the older lady starts to treat me like baby. (Now I'm fairly young compared to the others you see doing my job.)

Her body language completely changed, and even her speech when talking to me. She turned her body to where I saw her shoulder/back. Even when I asked her questions she wouldn't turn around, and would even interrupt me while I was asking questions.

My boss took notice as well as to what was going on and would say 'If you have any questions, lets try to hold it till the end.' After 30min of that we decided to end the interview and thank her for her time. As you can guess, she didn't get a call back. - That479Guy

10.

One guy asked 'Are you guys all uptight with policies, like if I look at a girl's a*s am I going to get fired?' - ThatCrazyL

11.

When asked about his work ethic...he scoffed and said 'I work like a F'n beaver.' F Bomb drop in an interview not recommended. - ThatCrazyL

12.

The worst candidates I had never made it to the interview stage. I had numerous persons sending me cover letters of three sentences ('I apply to this-and-this position', 'I'm available for interview', 'call me for more info') on note paper, written with pencil, with just their phone number on the bottom, no resume. They clearly just applied because they had to for benefits.

The worst interview must have been the guy who was so extremely nervous he was sweating like a pig, threw coffee over his own shirt, forgot most of his English (he was from Belarus) and completely blanked out with every question. I felt bad for the guy, but this was for a lead engineer position where he would have to have lots of customer meetings so we really couldn't hire him. - Abusu99

13.

Best one was, when we got to the 'have you got any questions for us' portion, candidate said 'oh yeah!' then pulled out a book called 'answering interview questions for dummies,' leafed through and went 'ooo, here's a good one!' and asked that. Can't even remember what question candidate asked! - VanillaVelvet

14.

I work in a financial institution: I had a person say that they cannot work more that 4 hours a day and only Monday, Wednesday and Friday. She did not want to interfere with her Welfare Benefits. She also asked what we do if there is cash missing at the end of a shift. - mjmurphy984

15.

I once sat in on an interviewer's debrief for a large organisation where you need professional skills. They were open to recruiting internally for a new position at a higher level, so a few people already in the organisation at a slightly lower level applied and were interviewed that day.

One candidate performed so poorly in the interview and demonstrated such a severe lack of skill, not only did she not get the new position, they decided to have a private meeting about whether or not to fire her from the job she already had. That was in my view, a really terrible interview. - Waitingforadragon

16.

HR director here. Here is a few over the years:

Was told to give an interview for a manager position for some girl right out of college. Could tell it was someone pulling strings, because she had no experience in the field, and her degree was in criminal justice. This was an IT position.

Had a a guy with a killer resume, all the credentials, come in for an interview. Though it was going to go well, he instead was drunk and high. He couldn't even string a full sentence together.

Had a woman go ballistic on me when i asked her about her career goals. I thought i was on an episode of punkd. Best one was calling a reference a guy had left for me: 'Yeah Stan's a nice guy, shows up on time, keeps to himself.

If you need someone to warm a chair for 8 hours a day, he is your guy. If you want someone to do a little more work, I got a cinderblock here that's a little more motivated.' - AM_Industiries

17.

Not a recruiter but I am a restaurant manager. We were opening a new location and doing interviews. Woman comes in for a management position. During the interview, she reaches into her purse and pulls out a bag from Wendy's and starts eating. The other manager tells her to put it away and she tells him it is okay, she can multi-task. - Mynameisinuse