Worst job interview answers 25

[Bernoulli31]

Just wanted to share this..
We recently had a young grad in our office to interview for an entry level mechanical engineer position.

Q: What type of systems would you like to work on / are you interested in?
A: HVAC! I want to design HVAC systems. I have a passion for it and want to do pursue my career in HVAC.
Q: What does HVAC stand for?
A: Heating, Ventilation,.. and.. err.. hmmm... I forgot!

I design aqueducts in a parallel universe.

 

[CheckerHater]

What do you you expect to be doing 5 years from now?

Celebrating 5th anniversary of this conversation.

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

 

[Terratek]

Perhaps the answer about playing video games was born of cynicism after not getting a job for so long. But he could have been a decent guy that might have been a fine employee. It's hard to believe someone with an engineering degree would be so inept, but I guess anything is possible. I'd probably probe someone a little if someone gave me a response like that if only out of curiosity. Maybe it he was trying to be humorous and just made a bad joke. Got too scared to clarify after it bombed...

 

[MintJulep]

Interviewer: Explaining basic responsibilities of the position.

Me: "What position are you interviewing me for, because that description is not what I applied for and what your HR invited me for."

Interviewer: "Uh. Hold on...."

 

[hendersdc]

When asked about why certain decisions were made on a previous project they brought up as an example demonstrating their skills they gave the answer "that's the way we have always done it". When pressed further for analysis or reasoning there was none. That candidate had 10 yrs working in the same, very narrow, capacity in their previous company doing the same type of work and had never tried to understand "why" or improve on performance.

 

[zeusfaber]

The mid-late career engineer who was interviewing internally for a promotion. Less than a quarter of this exchange is imagined.

Could you tell me what you're proud of having done in your current job?

Well, I've been part of a team that's responsible for......

That sounds interesting. What did you actually do as part of that team?

So the process the team worked worked with was divided into stages which ....

Oh yes, I know that process. So what was your own contribution to that work?

Ah. Well I was involved in ....

If I were to press this little button here, making your chair fold away and drop you into a small tank of hungry piranhas, how long do you think it would take you to muster up enough initiative to start climbing out?

According to the procedure, responsibility for dealing with that situation would lie entirely with the ....... team.

A.

 

[monkeydog]

zeusfaber -
Don't know if your pulling our leg(s) or not, but that was funny.

 

[CWB1]

MacGyver, even if that extreme of an answer was given with a straight face I'm not sure I'd care. Some folks enjoy video games, personally I enjoy working with my hands on old houses/cars/tractors/etc. IME most engineers do other things during layoff, not classes or other engineering fluff, they do fun things they enjoy and/or whatever necessary to pay the bills. I'd much rather someone be honest and tell me they read Tom Clancy, was busy with their kids, got a part time job bc they needed money, or most anything else beside the lil bs lies.

 

[IRstuff]

"not classes or other engineering fluff, they do fun things they enjoy"

That presupposes that these are mutually exclusive.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[Lomarandil]

(I've been told) for "normal" people... they are.

(I've been known to run a calc or play with an arduino for fun... and I'm here on my own time after all).

----
The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I'm sorry for posting a totally frivolous item, but considering the topic being covered by this thread, when I saw this I couldn't resist:

https://vimeo.com/239050403/cdd07b248e

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Ron]

John....that was all too accurate and hilarious!

 

[bridgebuster]

John, ditto what Ron said. Here's another video along the same lines from a TV series called Baroness Von Sketch

Link

 

[CWB1]

I'm waiting for the video showing the old folks with an outdated skillset, no knowledge of modern technology or practice, and a thoroughly entitled attitude pushing their work off on junior employees, coasting through lackluster careers into retirement while griping about "lazy" millenials. The only thing more ironic is when they call their peers in government thieves while pushing for social security increases, enjoying a pension or two, and the 401ks they traded future generations' pensions for. Unfortunately younger folks today are too busy working to create much less post this garbage. JMO but THAT is closer to reality today.

 

[bridgebuster]

@CWB! how about calling your video "A Day in the Life of Bridgebuster"?

 

[Sparweb]

CWB1,
This might be what you're looking for:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...with-americas-economy/?utm_term=.e64e5fb8366e

STF

 

[WARose]

CWB1,
This might be what you're looking for:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2...

I hate to get into this generational squabble.....but this article is a little silly. (And I'm a Gen Xer.) Boomers "chewed up resources"? What generation hasn't chewed up what is available? You think (for example) strip mining started in the 1960's? Ran up debt? Check the debt after WW II. But probably the most ridiculous part of this is: "[boomers were] born into some of the strongest job growth in the history of America, gobbled up the best parts, and left its children and grandchildren with some bones to pick through and a big bill to pay."

That's just beyond silly.....first of all: what about the job market in the 90's? That's where I got my (professional) start. And secondly, what "parts" of that market were not supposed to be "gobbled up"? Is the author here saying that if Boomers had not taken certain jobs......they would still be there.....and there would be no "big bill to pay"? Silly.

 

[berkshire]

I was in the defense industry until right after the gulf war when a president who will not be named here cried " Peace in our time." and the industry expecting fat contracts to replace all of the stuff used in the gulf war found itself with nothing. All of a sudden , guess what no job. That was the job market in the 1990s.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[WARose]

I was in the defense industry until right after the gulf war when a president who will not be named here cried " Peace in our time." and the industry expecting fat contracts to replace all of the stuff used in the gulf war found itself with nothing. All of a sudden , guess what no job. That was the job market in the 1990s.

I would think anyone would see the writing on the wall (with the end of the Cold War) that there would be cuts in defense spending. (The "Peace Dividend".) I certainly did: I thought about going into the military right out of high school....but realized I would likely be part of a downsizing force.

(By the way: "Peace in our time" was Neville Chamberlain....not Bush 41. You may be thinking of his New World Order statement.)

 

[IRstuff]

Since I've graduated from college, there have been numerous recessions and military wind-downs. When I graduated from high school, we had a massive recession from the end of the Vietnam War, where PhDs were driving taxis because there were no jobs.

This "soaked up a lot of economic opportunity" is baloney. There weren't any millenials, or Gen-X/Y, so how was anyone supposed to "preserve much for the generations to come?" Were they supposed to go jobless and become hobos?

"the generation that was born into some of the strongest job growth in the history of America, gobbled up the best parts, and left its children and grandchildren with some bones to pick through and a big bill to pay" is more bullcrap.

Look at the wealth growth in the past 40 years, it wasn't the people that got the factory/mining jobs that no longer exist; it was the already rich, who go substantially richer.

The author misses Oregon; he should go back to it. This is real fake news.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[bridgebuster]

@CWB1 - here's a TV commercial that may be prophetic when you become one of us old folks:

Link