Worst Interview/Job Experience: Can You Top Mine?
I rlly wanted to move to California and I was applying to every job under the Sun. The first call I got sent me through the roof, and it was for a "finance" job but they were very vague about what they actually did.
That was the first red flag.
My naive self hopped on a plane with some of my own money eager as always, got a hotel and all. Well, the so called "finance position" was more of a sales position. More of a humiliating position.
I was all dressed up telling my Uber about how excited I was for the job and he said is it at Costco?
I said no of course not! And he said "Well it kind of looks like it might be". We pulled up into a mall and he was right. Costco.
The job was to stand in front of a product and basically sell to people who would rather die than talk to you. I almost walked out of the interview as soon as I arrived, and when I came home to tell my family and friends about my opportunity, I got to wear the "stupid helmet"
So can anyone top that?
Let's see.
I went to an interview and I was really nervous. I was also wearing a cast on my arm because I fractured it going hiking. I leaned my arm on the table so my cast arm wasn't just floating around and my arm started to slide off the table, my legs got twisted in the chair, and I fell onto the ground. It was so horribly awkward and embarrassing that I went to the "bathroom" and didn't go back.
I was my embarrassed that I spent the money to get a hotel, plane, outfit and uber just to go to Costco. As far as embarrassing myself in the actual interview that didn't happen because I left as soon as I walked in.
Nah you win.
At least I can laugh about it now (sort of)
Hahaha love the spirit. This one was a little out of my control, but the night before a final round interview with a job I was very interested in out of college, I cut about a third of my finger off. Still caught my flight post-op about 12 hours later and showed up. No offer :').
You definitely win.
However, to rip on myself for a moment. Junior year, I had an interview for a GREAT finance position that I would be lucky to get, and somehow got to the final round of interviews. I studied technicals in and out for days (chugged through one too many 5hour energy shots in the process) until I knew the answer to every technical under the sun (or so I thought).
First question in the interview, I kid you not, what does BMO stand for?
I didn't know.
(Wasn't actually at BMO, but think of a bank that has an acronym for its name).
I had something similar happen to me back 3ish years ago my Sophomore year. Interview went amazing and last question was "what do you like about the culture of the company", I said "I don't know much about the culture".
Was on round 3 out of 4. I'm still waiting to hear back from my thank you and follow up emails.
Well when I was very young and naive looking for work during my freshman year summer of HS, I interviewed at Cutco. The interviewer must have thought that his time was incredibly valuable, as he decided to interview two candidates simultaneously in order to have us duke it out over one position. Judging by the mental caliber of the chap interviewing with me, I should have walked out the second the interview began. Every single question required the lowest level of brain power, essentially just common sense. In the end I was given the offer in front of the other candidate, which I quickly declined and walked out. I have never felt so bad for someone else, as this dude was genuinely nice and probably needed the job. Any company that can rationalize interviewing multiple candidates at the same time is not one I was going to work for. The irony is that I was actually nervous going in.
That was the second interview in my life, the most important one.
I arrived 10 minutes earlier than had been asked to, so I ended up waiting at a conference room for an interviewer to come. I grabbed a bottle of juice and wanted to pour it into a glass, but had been stressed enough to have missed the fucking glass. There were no wipes so I jumped into smearing it all over the table with my hand. Dumb me used the right hand. Later on, I used my stick hand to shake hands with 3 interviewers; luckily, not a single one did say anything. Got the job.
Not as exciting as these other ones but...
Was my very first IB SA interview and I was basically over the moon and excited as anything given this was sort of a second stage of the interview process after a small event where they introduce the company and give us wine to see how we behave in a not so sober state.
I’m wearing my brand new suit for the first time, walk in, sit down. Huge smile on my face, studies some technicals but not super confident...still feel like I should be good.
VERY first question of the interview - a ridiculous maths question followed by “oh sorry, here you go a piece of paper and a pen, you’ll probably need this”. My mental maths was nonexistent, I took the pen and paper and just looked at him with the eyes of someone who had just seen a dead person.
Had no idea how to do it, said I have no idea, sorry. He explain to me how to do it and followed on with the interview.
Haven’t heard back after the interview and made me think that I’ll never get an IB job as obviously the caliber of people needed seems to be miles beyond me.
I tried for many years to get into IB. Had many informational interviews with partners and MDs that I knew through the grapevine, but the dialogue always petered our very awkwardly when they saw that my alma mater and grades weren’t anything special.
Then one day, I was contacted by the global head of HR for a MM IB in NYC, asking me when would be a good time to chat. I was over the moon - finally after years of embarrassment and no success I was getting some traction.
I set up a time and dialed in to speak with an HR rep from the company. The first question she asks me is what groups I am most interested in, and I give her two answers - one that I was very interested in, and one which aligned with my skills in the job I had at the time.
After I said my piece she laughed and told me “That’s not going to happen. Those groups have zero interest in hiring a [job I was in at the time]. I would have thrown your resume in the trash if I wasn’t told to speak with you, so here we are”. She then made some pleasantries about “seeing if she could find someone who would talk with me”, and hung up - we never spoke again.
I was absolutely crushed. To go from elated to dejected in the span of 24 hours was one thing. But worst of all, the person who had referred me was a man who I saw frequently, and whose esteem I cared a great deal about. Failing when he put me up to bat filled me with shame.
About a year after that, I received an offer to join a top BB/EB as an IB analyst. Most unexpected of all, while luck played a large role in my transition to banking, I leaned on zero connections or referrals to get my eventual offer. I just worked my ass off in front of the right people and showed them what I knew I had inside me all along, without the expectation that I’d receive anything in return.
Never let someone tell you what you can and cannot do. I am not saying it’s easy, but I am saying it’s possible, so keep your optimism and don’t be deterred from what you really want.
Good for you. As someone else who had to go through the challenge of lateralling, Lady sounds like a typical ib hr bitch who suffers from what I call gatekeeper syndrome. Gatekeeper syndrome being she almost certainly went to a no name University and has a completely unremarkable background but because she gets to send out the rejections to hungry kids trying to break into ib , she or he has convinced her or himself that she/he is just as "prestigious" as the investment bankers who are actually making the hiring decisions.
Women like this work in HR all over the Street. These are the same women, mind you, who complain about a culture of 'toxic masculinity' in banking. It turns out, treating people like shit isn't an exclusively male trait. What's more, I suspect that if you asked her about this interaction, she wouldn't remember it. After explaining it the way you just did, she would probably imagine she did you a favor by giving you 'candid' feedback. I think we all know this type of HR lady.
Speaking of diversity recruiting, that reminds me of one of my favorite hr interactions. So when you get into banking you quickly find out not only does the condescending hr person not only have a completely unjustified sense of arrogance but he or she is almost always completely incompetent and lazy. Anyways hr lady is complaining to an internal round table about the lack of women representation within the bank despite Management's new initiatives. When the bankers unprompted volunteer to go down to campus for extra recruiting events targeting women business clubs, etc. Hr lady then says how she doesn't want to do that because it would require extra work and travel on her part. This despite the bankers already volunteering to reach out to the respective Career centers and business clubs at their alma maters. Hr lady also routinely fucks up basic aspects of the job usually super day and on campus recruiting event logistics. The hr lady in question also likes to ignore emails , from the banking team no less, when we ask for basic info like hey where on campus is the presentation that YOU invited us to. Oh BTW which campus are we supposed to go to because you invited us all to two presentations at the same time at two different schools, oh and if it wouldn't be too much of a pain in the ass could you send over the PowerPoint presentation you want us to talk through.
3rd (final) stage interview for an accounting role at a commodities trader.
The whole thing was about 2 hours, rotating with 30 minutes speaking to the head of risk, which I smashed the bloke was a New Zealander, so we spent about ten minutes talking about the job, the remaining 20 on the Lions Tour.
Next stage was an interview with the group financial controller, a fairly technical interview, but at the time this was something I was good at, so tore through this one with ease.
The third stage was prep for the fourth stage- a case study. You enter, on the desk there is a fairly thick piece of paper, a pad and a pen. Basic scenario about reaching two deadlines and minimising the cost to the firm. I read through the scenario and do some calculations on the paper provided. I've come up with a solution that is the best given what's on the piece of paper. I finished this one a little early, and wonder why there isn't more to it.
On to the fourth stage, the group CFO enters and asks me about my conclusions and to talk through my thought process. I do this, speaking clearly and hitting all my points.
He nods along and then asks... "So what about the second shipment?" "Pardon me?" "On the other side of the paper..." "oh...."
Needless to say I didn't get any further than that. They kept me as a backup in case one of the others didn't accept, but it obviously wasn't to be.
Lessons learned and all that...
Was wearing a temporary flipper for 3 front teeth (had implants done). Flew out of my mouth right on the table while walking through LBO model.
I had a morning interview at a bank last fall that was one of the most embarrassing things in my life. I didn't map out how to get there from my friend's apartment ahead of time, and I had never been on the NYC subway by myself before, so I left too little time to get there. I had to full-on sprint from the subway station, meanwhile looking at Google Maps to find the office. Well, five minutes before the interview, my phone died because it was cold outside and I still hadn't gotten there (HR had left me a voicemail but I didn't get it until later). I ended up walking in two minutes to spare, but I took the wrong elevator bank, so I arrived on the group's floor a minute late. HR thought I wasn't coming, so they didn't pick me up from the waiting area. When people finally realized, my first interview had already ended, and it was with the MD.
I did the other two interviews that were scheduled, thinking I had blown it. As I was leaving, the MD caught me and interviewed me for five minutes during someone else's scheduled interview. Later that day, I somehow received an offer. I thought it was a joke. The interview still haunts me to this day...
I was working as a business broker - selling $5-10mm businesses and wanted to move up stream. I landed a phone interview at a NYC BB IB firm and the first 5 minutes was all about fit and personality and it went great. Once we started talking about technicals, it started to go downhill and fast. At the time I knew finance and accounting and basic DCF but, complex LBO and merger models were foreign to me. I screwed up and didn't even think to study stuff I didn't know about. I just assumed I could "learn on the job" in which is what I've always done... The VP that was interviewing me ripped me 2 or 3 new assholes. It was brutal. I was sweating, stuttering, and just an overall fool. Halfway through the conversation I mentally gave up and just started writing down every question that was asked. I kept asking for more questions until the interviewer shut it down and said "you cant answer anything I'm asking you, what is another question going to do?" Well, I created a catalog of questions that I studied for the next interview I landed (at another BB IB) and aced it. Got the job. All ended well but, I still feel like a dumbass.
MBA IB recruiting was a cluster
After a great fit-focused 1st round with a BB that i had already developed great relationships through the "coffee chat" process.
Interviewer: "Okay, I have to ask you 1 technical, what factors contribute to WACC?"
Me: "Cost of Equity, Cost of Debt, weighted by their relative percentage of the cap structure"
Interviewer: "Anything else?"
Me: " I mean...hard eyeroll, preferred stock can be included if its a factor"
Interviewer "...anything else?"
Me: "Nope"
Interviewer: "Tax?"
Me: "....."
Guy was trying to hand me the job and I batted it away.
Another story I heard was a kid screwed up a technical, then asked "I'm a little disappointed with how I performed, could I have another technical?" The interviewer really liked the move, asked him another...and he fucked that up too.
After graduating from undergrad at a Big 10 school, I landed a job with a large Chicago trading firm. I was ecstatic... But the starting pay as a trading asisstant was not exactly F you money. The comp structure was low salary, and high bonus. I had bills that couldn't wait until the following March for bonus time, so I decided to get a part time job. I was looking for something that I could do a few nights a week, and some weekends. I bartended in college, so this was my first inclination, but I really could not be out until 2-3am when I was getting into the office at 645am.
So I found an ad for front desk person at a local motel (yeah, with an "M") near O'Hare. It was the esteemed Excel Inn, and it was relatively near where I was living at the time. Morever, they were looking for someone to work only 15-20 hours per week during the 5-11pm shift - so I thought this could work well.
I ran out of my trading job to go to the interview, and made it in time. My interview with the Manager, Brian - who looked like a chain-smoking Kenny G - was in an actual motel room. He sat at the desk chair and I sat on the bed. It was not really much of an interview - mostly a few basic scenarios about giving good customer service.
I figured I would get it .. I mean what exactly were they looking for? I was a college grad with a BS in Economics & Finance. I wasn't a drug addict, didn't have a parole officer or any pending judgments, I would clearly be reliable, what more did they need?
Didn't hear anything for a week .. 2 weeks .. I decided to follow up. Brian wouldn't take my call personally, but someone called me back and explained that I just didn't seem to be "Excel Inn material" .... Tough but fair?
I think it was basically a casting couch moment and you missed his cues, sorry man
As my honours year was coming to an end I got in touch with some recruiters to help in getting the right position. As I go through the standard discussions with them of where I see myself and what I’d like to do (IB, risk, etc) they put me in touch with some interesting companies One recruiter calls me with a position in risk at the largest local retailer (I’m in South Africa fyi), so I’m intrigued. Naturally I show up full suit and tie, but before I can enter the building I need to put on a hard hat and reflective vest. I’m skeptical but still optimistic, until I actually enter the building. Not a single other suit and tie in sight but rather safety boots and hi-viz for as far as your eyes can see. Turns out the position is for literal physical risk, health and safety officer..and if that wasn’t enough, it was a night shift position.
When I was in high school, I was trying to get a job/internship in anything related to finance. I saw a local financial services firm was hiring an intern for “operations”. I thought, “Ok, this will be a chance for me to learn a lot about different products and I can be ahead of the game for college.”
I showed up in a suit and was directed to two individuals who were very underdressed and didn’t appear to be brokers or sales people. Turns out this operations internship was a janitorial role. Cleaning desks, vacuuming, the likes.
I asked if there was any opportunities to work with the brokers, etc. and the response was “No, but when you are cleaning near their desk you can listen in and talk to them, so you might be able to learn that way.”
I interviewed in London at a bulge bracket European investment bank, for a super day. Good interviews all morning, and it seemed likely from the vibe I'd get the offer. After lunch, my interview was with the group head MD. I go to his office. There's a tray near the table with a glass bottle of water, with one of those clasp-type seals on top.
"Want some water?"
"Sure." "Well, go get it yourself."
I popped the cap, and was soaked head to toe in seltzer water.
Mo-fo must have spent 10 minutes just shaking the shit out of that seltzer water (which looked just like still water in the glass bottle).
I still had other interviews after, but now I was drenched, and still had my interview with him, soaking wet.
I thought at the time he was just pranking me to test my sense of humor.
Later I found out he was a grade-A sociopath that no one wanted to work with, and who made my life Hell.