Job candidate walks out of interview process after enduring four interviews in a row without a break: ‘I was being interrogated by a rotating panel’

• “I walked out of a job interview today for the first time in my life”

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  via Andrej Lišakov

  Woman being interviewed in an office.

  _{Model representation.} 

• It all starts like any other job process: you send your resume for a job you think would be good for you, get a call back from the hiring person with a few details about the job, get an invitation for the first round of interviews, and you go from there. Since that is how it started for this job candidate too, they were definitely hopeful that this opportunity would be the end of their unemployment.

• So today I did something I’ve NEVER done before. I literally got up and walked out of a job interview.

  For context, I’ve been unemployed and actively searching for work. I was invited to interview for an administrative assistant position at a company that already had multiple concerning employee reviews online.

• My husband read the reviews beforehand and immediately told me he didn’t like what he was seeing. But I decided to give the company a chance and form my own opinion.
  My husband drove me there and waited outside.

• When I arrived, I was brought into this HUGE, practically empty conference room. I’m talking rows of black leather chairs, bright fluorescent ceiling lights, red carpeting, a projector hanging from the ceiling, a giant conference table, and a TV mounted on the wall.
  It looked like some kind of corporate training room from the early 2000s.

• It was silent. Nobody talking, no background noise, nothing. Just me sitting in this enormous room waiting for someone to come interview me.
  I already felt uncomfortable and had this overwhelming urge to leave, but I convinced myself to stay and hear them out.

• Sometimes, you can determine the energy of a workplace from the first step you take through the door. If you're lucky, the energy you feel is exactly the one you've been searching for. Unfortunately, most experience the exact opposite. Sitting in a silent room while you are waiting for someone to finally acknowledge your existence seems to fall under the latter.

• Then the interview started.
  First, TWO people came into the room and started interviewing me.
  They eventually left.

  Then ANOTHER TWO people came in and started questioning me.
  Mind you, this was supposed to be an administrative assistant position.

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  via pixelshot

  Young Woman Waiting in an Office Waiting Room.

  _{Picture does not depict real parties.}

• But instead of anyone clearly explaining what my actual day-to-day responsibilities would be, I kept getting hit with questions like:
  “Have you ever done payroll?”
  “Have you ever recruited people?”
  “Can you handle a demanding job?”
  And I’m sitting there thinking, WHAT THE H*** IS THIS POSITION ACTUALLY FOR?

• Am I doing administrative work? Payroll? Recruiting? HR? All of the above?
  I couldn’t get a straightforward understanding of what I’d actually be responsible for.
  And the entire time, different people were coming in, asking me questions, and leaving.
  It felt less like a normal job interview and more like I was being interrogated by a rotating panel of people.

• Then, after the SECOND group finished questioning me, one of the guys said something along the lines of:
  “Let me go get the third person to interview you.”
  THE THIRD ROUND???
  At that point, FOUR different people had already interviewed me, nobody had clearly explained what my actual responsibilities would be, and now I was apparently supposed to sit there and wait for ANOTHER person to come question me?
  Absolutely not.

• While applying for jobs, people usually expect to go through a few rounds of interviews before they finally get an offer. They talk to the hiring manager, one or two bosses, and an HR representative. Usually, however, all these conversations happen in the span of a few weeks, not on the same day.

  So when this job candidate kept being told that another person is going to walk into the conference room and interview her, it naturally felt, well, unnatural. There are only so many interviews one person can go through in a day, and four is definitely too many. 

• The SECOND that man walked out of the room to get the next interviewer, I grabbed my belongings, got up, and WALKED RIGHT OUT.
  I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t announce I was leaving. I didn’t explain myself.
  I just DIPPED. LMAO.
  And I’m not even kidding when I say I felt like a bada** walking out of that building.
  But afterward, I started feeling guilty.

• I’m unemployed. I’ve applied to hundreds of jobs. I know how difficult the job market is, and part of me wondered whether I had just thrown away an opportunity.
  But at the same time, why should being unemployed mean I have to sit through an uncomfortable interview process when I can’t even get a clear explanation of the job?
  Maybe this is a normal interview process for some companies, but I’ve never experienced anything like it before.
  Has anyone else ever walked out of an interview halfway through because something just felt completely OFF?
  Did you regret it, or were you glad you left?

• In later updates, the job candidate went on to share:

  I’ve been unemployed, applied to hundreds of jobs, and dealt with some genuinely awful workplaces. So walking away from a potential opportunity wasn’t a decision I took lightly.

  I’m not against employers having a thorough interview process. I’m against wasting applicants’ time, being vague about job responsibilities, and expecting people to jump through hoops without even knowing what they’re potentially signing up for.
  Being unemployed doesn’t mean I have to abandon my standards or ignore red flags.

• No one wants to find themselves making the tough decision to walk out of a job opportunity when they have nothing else in hand. But if you don't put yourself first, no one else will do that for you. Keep up the hard work and determination, and something better, and exactly right for you, is bound to come your way.

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