How to Create a Bad Impression with No Effort at All

Most people would agree that interviews are weird and nerve-wracking experience. Even if you expect the strange and stressful, things may happen that will surprise you – particularly if you're the interviewer!

Here are some stories heard while conducting an informal survey of people who have conducted interviews.

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• During a group information session/interview, one of the interviewees fell asleep.

• An interviewee for a managerial job brought crib notes to the interview, from which he read answers to the interviewer's questions.

• An interviewee answered his cell phone during an interview.

• An interviewee asked the interviewer personal questions (e.g., do you have a boyfriend).

• Similarly, an interviewee asked the interviewer out during an interview.

• An interviewee began asking the interviewer for specific types of furniture for her office – meaning furniture preferences, not furniture that would be specific to accommodating a disability – when she had not yet been offered a job.

• When an interviewer briefly left the interview room to get the second interviewer, the interviewee pulled a newspaper from her bag and began reading it.

• An interviewee gave an interviewer a two-page list of his convictions (mostly for assaults) covering several years which, shall we say, were not ancient history.

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Want to make a good impression at your interview? Check out our Interview Skills department!

Also check out:

• How to Create a Bad Impression with No Effort at All,

• How to Create a Bad Impression with No Effort at All – Two!,

• How to Create a Bad Impression with No Effort at All – Four!,

• How to Create a Bad Impression with No Effort at All – Five!,

• How to Create a Bad Impression with No Effort at All – Six!.