Our company has a printing operation, and years ago we needed to hire an experienced person to prepare jobs for the printing presses. So we put an ad in the newspaper with the technical name for the job: stripper.
You can guess the rest. A young woman walks in the front door and says she wants to apply for the stripper job. She had experience, all right, but not in the printing industry. After someone explained the job's duties (and the dress code), she decided not to apply for the job. x:-8
James Sokolowski Senior Editor M. Lee Smith Publishers
I conduct all back-ground checks before I call anyone in for an interview. One applicant's back-ground check came back pretty good. I called him in for an interview. The receptionist led him to the conference room. I came in and here he is on his cell phone talking to a friend. I sat down waited for him to get off the phone. When he got off of the cell phone I smiled at him and said thank you for coming in the interview is over.
Nicely done! For style points if you knew his cell phone number you could have said "excuse me" dialed the phone, waited for him to answer and then told him over the phone that the interview had concluded.
We had an appllicant for a management position in her second interview with the Executive Director. The Executive Director excuses herself during the meeting to leave the office to attend to an urgent matter. She comes back a few minutes later and the applicant is eating pretzels from a jar that was on the ED's desk. She said she was hungry and hadn't had time for lunch.
Well, after all they were there; and, were to be eaten one assumes. At least the applicant didn't take one and munch on it in the middle of the interview. I admire her time management......used her own lunch hour for the interview (it appears) and figured out how to grab lunch on the run. Hire her.
I recently had a gentleman whose resume and app was accompanied by a biography that listed dates of children's birth with little captions, (In 1984 we were blessed...), surgeries, medical conditions, etc. It was very thorough! Anyway, we get to the interview and I didn't get to ask all the very HR questions - the guy had a power point presentation to list his short term and long term goals, and how he felt he could help the company. It was a construction-type sales position, and he had already made contacts with the local Chamber. I've never seen anyone more prepared in my life! Or more anal! He got the job - so I guess we'll find out which one he is...
The first was several years ago - I was hiring factory employees for a manufacturing company. I received an application from the son of one of our workers and decided to call him in for an interview. He reports for the interview in sweatpants, a tshirt, baseball cap and tennis shoes that are torn with his feet hanging half our of them. I bring him into the interview room wherein he informs me that he wants an office position. I ask him what kind and he says "you know, one where I can where a suit and stuff". He then tells me he is currently going to the local Technical College for Marketing, although his application says he is studying "Marctng". Thinking that I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, I give him the applicable tests for a clerical position. His test scores were too low for me to be able to offer him a clerical position so I explained this to him and sent him on his way.
A couple of weeks went by and he called and asked that he be allowed to test for a factory position. Because I was still hiring, I set up an interview. He scored well enough for me to be able to offer him a position so I did. I also asked him when he wanted to start since he was currently working and wanted to hive his employer notice. He gave me a date and I scheduled him to begin then.
On the day he reported for work, he reported late and to the wrong office. Upon coming to the correct location he informed me that he did not have any identification with him and asked that he be allowed to start another week later because he had not given his current employer notice (he was only working a part-time job).
On the AA/EEO questionaire there were boxes to check race. One guy left them all blank, then drew his own little box, wrote "white" next to it & checked that instead.
My other story isn't very funny but interesting enough. I had just started recruiting full-time for a call center and was giving an applicant a typing test in my office. During her practice-test, I had to step out to take care of something. Her score was horrible, something like 15 wpm. However when she took the real test while I was there, she got a perfect 55wpm. I was amazed! I interviewed her and ended up not hiring for various reasons. About a month later, I started getting bounced check notices from a checking account I had recently closed. I couldn't figure out what was going on and within another day, I got a call (at home) from a police officer from a nearby town. He had a woman in custody with a driver's license with my name & address on it and a social security card in my name!! It turns out that when I left this woman alone in my office for the practice test, she went through my purse & robbed me (fortunately enough, only stole an old book of checks from the acct I had just closed). She had a fake ID and SS card made in my name & had been bouncing checks all over the place for a month. The funny thing is that the first check she wrote/bounced was to the little diner down the street from my office & was dated the day of her interview!!
I have 2: The female applicant for an office position who came to an in-house job fair, where we were interviewing all applicants. As she was waiting to be interviewed, she kicked off her shoes to put lotion on both her feet! I told my boss, who was to interview her, NOT to shake her hand! And my fave - an applicant arrived to interviewed. When I asked him if he already filled out an application, his reply was to pull it out of his pants!!
When asked what position applying for, candidate responded:
I interested in position for advancement, travel. A position where people are conginal and work as a community, also doing things outside the office. We spend a majority of life in the work place. I like a office with windows, I like having flowers and plants in my office. I want upto date computer and office equipment.
I had a female applicant, who worked previously at a meat cutting plant, put her previous job title as "Cute Meat" on her application. It was a nice laugh for the day.
The funniest job application I ever received was one from a high school student. This applicant included in his application a recommendation from one of his teachers. Obviously, he did not read the recommendation because I can't believe anyone would include this. The recommendation said: "Johnny" is the perfect student - pefectly horrible. Please take him as a employee before I lose my mind and my job. "Johnny" didn't get the job.
Being new to HR, I was especially intimidated by an older gentleman who had for a short time been in the Army. His immediate supervisor had been "President of the United States" and of course I could contact him for a reference.
Another one that seemed good on the surface was the former secretary whose previous job responsibilities included "basically ran the company". Don't we all feel like that some days!
How about the woman who ran in the front door 15 minutes late for her interview with a dry cleaning bag over her shoulder and asked the receptionist if there was somewhere she could change clothes.
I have a similar scenario...but he didn't use the bathroom!
Some guy put on a dress shirt (apparently over a tee shirt) but unbuckled / unzipped his pants and tucked the shirt in! Right in our main lobby!! Boy was our receptionist quite shocked (and a little creeped out!)
When I worked at a financial institution, one of the questions on the application was, "Have you ever been bonded?" An applicant checked "No" but next to it wrote, "My boyfriend tied me up once."
Comments
You can guess the rest. A young woman walks in the front door and says she wants to apply for the stripper job. She had experience, all right, but not in the printing industry. After someone explained the job's duties (and the dress code), she decided not to apply for the job. x:-8
James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers
Nicely done! For style points if you knew his cell phone number you could have said "excuse me" dialed the phone, waited for him to answer and then told him over the phone that the interview had concluded.
Paul
The first was several years ago - I was hiring factory employees for a manufacturing company. I received an application from the son of one of our workers and decided to call him in for an interview. He reports for the interview in sweatpants, a tshirt, baseball cap and tennis shoes that are torn with his feet hanging half our of them. I bring him into the interview room wherein he informs me that he wants an office position. I ask him what kind and he says "you know, one where I can where a suit and stuff". He then tells me he is currently going to the local Technical College for Marketing, although his application says he is studying "Marctng". Thinking that I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, I give him the applicable tests for a clerical position. His test scores were too low for me to be able to offer him a clerical position so I explained this to him and sent him on his way.
A couple of weeks went by and he called and asked that he be allowed to test for a factory position. Because I was still hiring, I set up an interview. He scored well enough for me to be able to offer him a position so I did. I also asked him when he wanted to start since he was currently working and wanted to hive his employer notice. He gave me a date and I scheduled him to begin then.
On the day he reported for work, he reported late and to the wrong office. Upon coming to the correct location he informed me that he did not have any identification with him and asked that he be allowed to start another week later because he had not given his current employer notice (he was only working a part-time job).
As you can imagine he didn't start.
On the AA/EEO questionaire there were boxes to check race. One guy left them all blank, then drew his own little box, wrote "white" next to it & checked that instead.
My other story isn't very funny but interesting enough. I had just started recruiting full-time for a call center and was giving an applicant a typing test in my office. During her practice-test, I had to step out to take care of something. Her score was horrible, something like 15 wpm. However when she took the real test while I was there, she got a perfect 55wpm. I was amazed! I interviewed her and ended up not hiring for various reasons. About a month later, I started getting bounced check notices from a checking account I had recently closed. I couldn't figure out what was going on and within another day, I got a call (at home) from a police officer from a nearby town. He had a woman in custody with a driver's license with my name & address on it and a social security card in my name!! It turns out that when I left this woman alone in my office for the practice test, she went through my purse & robbed me (fortunately enough, only stole an old book of checks from the acct I had just closed). She had a fake ID and SS card made in my name & had been bouncing checks all over the place for a month. The funny thing is that the first check she wrote/bounced was to the little diner down the street from my office & was dated the day of her interview!!
The female applicant for an office position who came to an in-house job fair, where we were interviewing all applicants. As she was waiting to be interviewed, she kicked off her shoes to put lotion on both her feet! I told my boss, who was to interview her, NOT to shake her hand!
And my fave - an applicant arrived to interviewed. When I asked him if he already filled out an application, his reply was to pull it out of his pants!!
I interested in position for advancement, travel. A position where people are conginal and work as a community, also doing things outside the office. We spend a majority of life in the work place. I like a office with windows, I like having flowers and plants in my office. I want upto date computer and office equipment.
Notice the typos too.
Another one that seemed good on the surface was the former secretary whose previous job responsibilities included "basically ran the company". Don't we all feel like that some days!
Some guy put on a dress shirt (apparently over a tee shirt) but unbuckled / unzipped his pants and tucked the shirt in! Right in our main lobby!! Boy was our receptionist quite shocked (and a little creeped out!)
"Filled containers with requested beverages, such as coffee, tea, and carbonated drinks."
"Removed pizza from oven and observed color to determine when pizza was done."
"Recorded orders and computed bill simultaneously, using cash register."
Don't know what else to say about that.
>register."
Multi-taskers like this don't come along every day. I hope you snatched this one up!
Totally true, I can't make that one up!