20 Interview Flops Where Hiring Managers Figured Out Candidates Were Lying: 'They literally started crying when we brought out a laptop for the skills test'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Feb 16, 2024 8:00 AM EST

Sometimes, embellishing a resume can come back to haunt you forever. Obviously, honesty is the best policy, but it can be tempting to over-exaggerate in such a competitive job market. It can be hard to stand out. Sometimes, it's even accidental. Perhaps the way you phrased something on your resume gave the hiring recruiter the wrong impression of your skillset. Look, we know that scenario is likely quite rare, but we often side with job candidates here at FAIL Blog. This time, however, we're going to take a look at the candidates who were caught lying on their resumes when hiring managers confronted them during interviews about their so-called "experience."

This list of anecdotes was compiled from the following r/AskReddit thread, and in this case, we're not dealing with hiring managers who had some kind of axe to grind. These were folks who wanted their candidates to succeed, and it was the interviewees who got themselves into trouble. For more stories like this, take a look at this list of "unwritten" adulting rules.

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  • 01
    bumford11 "hi, my name is... uh..." checks notes 3.9k ↓ Share
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  • 02
    r/AskReddit. Posted by u/ChocovanillaIcecream = Hiring managers of reddit: what are some telltale sign that your candidate is making things up?
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  • 03
    BaconReceptacle. As someone who has hired many technicians in IT positions, I'm amazed at how many people would fake highly technical knowledge. I remember I needed a telecom engineer with very specific knowledge of a very specific voice system. I was getting suspicious of this one candidate so I started asking about the exact syntax of command lines and this guy was actually throwing out made up commands! I was both fascinated and annoyed. 37.7k ↓ Share
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  • 04
    Shyless21 One woman I interviewed literally took a pause and read the answers to the questions straight off of Google (online Skype Interview). I noticed it because they were really weird pauses and googled it myself and literally followed along like subtitles. 26.8k Share
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  • 05
    tvb1313. When you're doing a video interview and you can watch them try to google stuff in the reflection of their glasses. Small props for being clever though, he was paraphrasing the question back to me as a way to use the voice assistant. 23.8k Share
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  • 06
    Laxice7 . 4 yr. ago I work at an architecture firm and I kid you not, a candidate attached one of our projects in her portfolio. Exactly same 3d rendering. It wasn't even listed on the company website, how she got it is still baffling. The hiring manager just played along 20.5k Share
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  • 07
    fc All buzz words no context, examples, or personal opinions. 12.4k Share
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  • 08
    dgran73 Maybe more of an answer about general competence but in my observation the smartest people are comfortable saying they don't know something or acknowledge limitations in their knowledge or experience. Naive or bluffing candidates want to project an air of knowing everything, which is implausible. Another signal is how eager they are to go into depth. I interview programmers and technical staff, so I like to ask them about the project they are most proud of. I listen carefully and ask a f
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  • 09
    [deleted] We had someone come in and interview for a call center position. Their resume claimed they had 3 years working in a call center in town. When she arrived, she was very lethargic, and couldn't answer basic interview questions. When asked what she did at Call Center A, she literally just said "call center rep." When asked to elaborate on her duties, she repeated the same thing. No details were given. She even claimed that she has never been asked such hard and detailed questions during a
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  • 10
    teamtouchbutts · Putting fluent in English on their resume and not knowing a word of English when I conduct the interview in English 9.2k Share
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  • 11
    CaveatAuditor. At a job fair I told people that we were doing a lot of work in the programming language Balrave, and asked if they had any experience with it. A disappointingly high number talked about using it for classes in college, and writing some side programs in it after they heard about it, and so on. They must have felt silly later when they Googled it and discovered that there is no programming language Balrave, I'd just made it up as a way to tell who was lying to me.
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  • 12
    takecareful. A common one I see a lot is work history that is grandiose and excessively overqualified, especially if it's difficult or impossible to verify. I am in a high immigration city and deal with lots of international candidates, and have met a vast amount of people with titles like "Executive Director of Worldwide Distribution" or "Senior Vice President of Global Operations" from a company in Bulgaria or Cambodia or Dubai with no phone number or English website. The position descriptors
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  • 13
    Communist Pants. We had an interview candidate who said their Excel skills were "9.5 out of 10" and they knew how to do Pivot tables. They literally started crying when we brought out a laptop for the skills test and asked them to make a pivot table out of sample data. 5.7k Share
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  • 14
    iujohn3 STAR questions (Situation- Task-Action-Result) are designed to root out people that don't have real experience. Or if they do have experience the questions will expose their level of skill and work personality. If I ask "Can you handle underperforming reps,?" you can bulls a vague answer easily. But if I say "Tell me about a time when you had to coach an underperforming rep - what was the scenario, what actions did you take, and what was the result?", that's much harder to bull your way
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  • 15
    bumford11. "hi, my name is... uh..." checks notes ↑ 3.9k ↓ Share
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  • 16
    ErecSchunn. Well, I was testing a potential welder once. He showed up in shorts, muscle shirt, and flip flops... To do a weld test. And interview. I turned him away citing safety concerns about his wardrobe, and never rescheduled. Figured he was too dumb for me to deal with. 3.4k Share
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  • 17
    BAR eozyo. I once asked to a supposedly experienced front-end developer "can you code valid HTML?" Her reply was more than enough: "yes, all my software is legal." 3.2k Share
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  • 18
    Crazeeeyez. Agree with many of the comments here. My own view : 1. no examples just vague conversation or talking points 2. avoids or can't answer follow up questions 3. multiple interviewers hear a different Story and take away. I had one person tell me they lived and breathes operations and another interviewer they never worked in operations before. Do you think we don't talk before making a decision?? 1.5k Share
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  • 19
    Diet Coke I don't see a lot of things people are totally making up, but it's easy to spot when they are heavily embellishing work history. It's totally fine to have worked in a restaurant or retail store, I'm hiring for entry level professional positions so you expect that kind of work history. I'll take your app a lot more seriously if you focus on the customer service aspect of the job and don't try to make it sound like you, the cashier, were running the place. 1.4k Share
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  • 20
    Amadpate Sketchy job history, or several jobs in a short time span. I had a woman once that had around 10 jobs over the last 2.5 years-she claimed to have a 'wealth of knowledge' from all of these different 'opportunities to learn'. She talked around most questions, and long story short, I found out that she and a friend would apply at companies as minorities, and then quit and sue for discrimination. She had sued 8 of the 10. Bullet dodged. 1.3k ↓ Share
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  • 21
    nu NewYork Giants Fan1. 1] They ramble and the answers make absolutely no sense. 2] They never answer the question asked. They talk about something they are comfortable with in the hopes I don't notice that they didn't answer. 3] Give them an easy test. One that, if you knew your skill you should pass easily and within 5 minutes. If it takes longer, you either lied at on your resume or what you say you are good at. 1.1k ↓ Share
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  • 22
    Alh840001. Telltale signs that the candidate is making stuff up makes for great stories, but it isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is that (I am convinced that) there are people that are great interviewers and poor interviewers. My boss hired a great interviewer, months later we escorted him out of the building because he was beyond worthless. I wish I knew how many rock stars I/we passed on because they s at interviewing. 829 Share
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workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace manager job work askreddit hiring human resources reddit thread Reddit company job interview interview toxic-work-environment
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