Worst Interviewer(s)/Interview Ever

A lot of people have been sharing stories about bad intern experiences or rough interviews, so I thought I’d throw mine in as well.

For some context: I’m currently a summer analyst at a solid group at a decent BB (think BofA, Citi, Barclays, UBS). The summer’s been fine overall, but honestly, it’s been incredibly boring—mostly due to how big the bank is and how much compliance and bureaucracy you have to deal with. That’s just part of banking, but I’ve been looking to work somewhere a bit scrappier, so I’ve been interviewing at leaner shops (EVR, GUG, Moelis, etc.).

One of my interviews was scheduled for just 15 minutes, so I assumed it’d be some basic intro and maybe a few fit questions. I join the call, and the first thing I see is this A1 wearing the most atrocious shirt I’ve ever seen, and his hair literally looked like a loaf of bread. There was also an associate who started off quiet, and a VP who joined for the last two minutes and seemed pretty chill.

The A1 starts with typical fit questions—asking about my interests and background—when out of nowhere, the associate cuts him off mid-sentence and starts grilling me about my school. For context, I go to a super-target, and he starts asking what I think of the education there, my favorite class, and even my favorite text from that class, like he thought I was lying about my answer. After I respond to everything, he just goes, “Ok,” and leaves the call. No goodbye, no follow-up—just gone.

The A1 looked visibly baffled, and the VP seemed equally confused. To be fair, the A1 seemed kind of clueless—he had no prior IB experience before joining full-time and came from a non-target. But still, treating your analyst like complete dogshit in front of a candidate is insane. I get that the associate might’ve been trying to pressure test me, which is fine, but the way he did it speaks volumes about the culture at the firm. If you’re that comfortable disrespecting someone publicly, I can only imagine what it’s like behind closed doors.

Maybe he was just salty he couldn’t break into PE—because frankly, I wouldn’t want to work with him either. How someone can still be that awkward after five years in the industry is beyond me.