Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The worst interview ever!

Yesterday I gave interviews to two of the worst applicants I have ever seen. Here is a factual account of what happened:

Applicant #1:
This person arrived 10 minutes late to his interview. When I asked him about his tardiness he told me that “the thing was broke.” When I asked him to elaborate he said, “the thing on the garage is broke.” He then turned to me with a confused and slightly irritated look on his face and said “I was only 10 minutes late, right?”

I responded by telling him that 10 minutes is a significant amount of time to be late to an interview. He did not apologize. Instead he assured me that "if the thing would have worked" he would have been 5 minutes early.


Here are his responses to questions I asked during the interview:

Q: Why do you want to become a tutor?
A: "I tutored before and I sort of liked doing it."

Q: What do you anticipate to be some challenges when tutoring students in a one-on-one environment?
A: "If they had a hard question and I stumbled on it. That would be like . . . you know?"

I called this person today to let him know that we are unable to hire him. He got upset with me and told me that "people have bad days" and that he should be able to work for us because he "wants the job."

Applicant #2:
This individual showed up dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and was also 10 minutes late
. On the way in to the interview he stopped me to ask if his dad could get a job with us too. His father was apparently waiting for him in the parking lot and wanted an application.

Here are his responses to questions I asked during the interview:

Q: Why do you want to become a tutor?
A: "I am not a greedy person. I want to share my golden treasure of knowledge with the next generation."

Q: What motivates you to succeed?
A. "I don’t want to be an outcast of society. . . ."

Q. What do you feel is the appropriate way to talk with parents about a student's performance?
A. "I don’t mean to crush their hopes, it’s just that not every child is perfect. . . ."

Q. How would you challenge a slow learner?
A. "I would give him problems that are too difficult for him and aim towards his weaknesses – like exposing someone with a phobia to the thing that scares them in order to make them better. I would expose his problems to give him strength."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The second one is not as bad as the first but still . . . what are these people thinking?

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