Worst job interviews: 40-minute wait, crying question and illegal bias

A BBC Business report has collected accounts of difficult job interviews, including a candidate left waiting 40 minutes, another asked whether he was a crier, and an applicant whose interview ended after one question. It also examines when interview questions become illegal and what candidates can do.

A 40-minute wait Tiara Allen arrived on time for a retail interview, but the interviewer did not. She waited for roughly 40 minutes in a shopping centre while the interviewer's colleague called them two or three times, according to the report. When the interviewer arrived, Tiara says she was told the meeting had not been in the schedule. She needed work and accepted the job when it was offered, but says she would act differently now. She said she would not take a job if the employer took that long, and she saw the treatment as a sign of how the company might treat staff.

Asked if he was a crier Chas Edwards was interviewing for an assistant role at a New York book publisher when he was asked, for what he recalls was his first job, whether he was a crier. He thought the interviewer was joking and said he did not cry. He later learned that this was why he was hired: the previous assistant had cried too often, and the interviewer wanted someone who would not. Chas describes it as a bad sign and the job as terrible, with a miserable boss. He lasted 13 months without crying, he says, but was 'crying inside'. He also says no one had previously lasted three months with the boss. He is grateful in some ways because later jobs have seemed better by comparison, and he says he can 'cry anywhere now'.

One question, then the end Corinne Card was applying for an administrative job when the first question asked whether she liked working with people. She answered yes, but was then told the job would not be for her and the interview ended. She said she did not know whether it was a deliberate trap, asking who would answer that they disliked working with people.

When interviews become illegal Corinne Mills, joint managing director of Personal Career Management, says candidates can ask an interviewer to clarify a strange question, perhaps by repeating it back. If the line of questioning is off-putting, she says, it can reveal what working for the company may be like, because interviews are also a chance for candidates to judge the employer.

Some questions are not only uncomfortable but illegal. Discrimination against a protected characteristic is against the law, meaning employers cannot treat candidates less favourably because of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage, pregnancy, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. Employment lawyer Roy Magara says women being asked whether they intend to have children is a 'quite common' form of bias. He has also seen a case in which an older candidate was told after an interview that he did not fit the 'vibe' of a younger team.

If a candidate believes bias affected an interview, Roy Magara says they can send the company a subject access request to see how their application was discussed internally.

A conversation, not a test Euan Cameron, co-founder of hiring software Willo, says that despite the power imbalance between employer and candidate, applicants should not overthink the process. He describes an interview as a conversation between two people. As Tiara Allen's experience shows, it also helps when both people turn up.

Source: BBC Business.