The Worst Interview Ever

I wasn't going to write another article this week but, after many years and many interviews, I have a new Number 1 on "The Worst Interview Ever" chart, so I thought I must share it.

For those of you not in the recruitment industry, even us recruiters have to use the services of agencies on occasions called Recruitment to Recruitment agencies or Rec to Rec's as they're more commonly known. I don't use many of them, in fact I think I've only ever used 3 in my time and they're pretty good. But, as with most industries, speculative CV's arrive occasionally that you just can't help but take notice of.

Two weeks ago I received one of these spec CV's. I've had spec CV's from this agency in the past but the quality of the CV's and the experience of the candidates left a lot to be desired, so no interviews I'm afraid. However, this CV was different. The candidate had just under 3 years experience and it was in our sector. The email from the agent stated that they had this candidate "exclusively" and that he was "red hot"; their words, not mine. The achievements listed on his CV were impressive and the reason he was on the market seemed genuine enough (I won't go into that, not relevant to this story but you can figure out the rest). I'd have been mad not to see this guy so I agree terms with the agency and set a date for interview.

I was really looking forward to the interview as I get quite excited about sitting down with someone and listening to the great things they've done, it gives me a real buzz. I had a glass walled room in the open area of our office that we use for interviews, it's known as The Cube (yep, you got it, the TV game show).

We used that room as it allowed candidates to get a great view of the business in full flow and you get a real feel of the office atmosphere. But it also gave me about a 10 second view of the candidate on my approach. That's when it started to go pear shaped!

As I got closer to The Cube I could see that the guy sitting in there was dressed like Rigsby. For those of you not familiar with the 70's sitcom Rising Damp, one of the greatest sitcoms every scripted by the way, Rigsby is the main character and he's the person facing the camera in the title picture of this article. Among other things, he was famed for his dowdy tea stained shirt, threadbare cardigan and disgusting nylon trousers, also with stains on (not sure if that was tea?). I was expecting a sharply dressed recruitment machine to be in the room but what I actually got was a shabby looking oik and even worse, one that stank of fags (cigarettes in case there are any Americans reading this).

The urge to just turn around and go back to my office was great, but as they say, never judge a book by it's cover, even if it does stink of fags. I really had to bite my lip and not say anything, maybe I should have, but I didn't. So on with the interview.

Once we'd cut through the niceties it was on with the grilling, the numbers. I'm not going to go into huge detail here but it's safe to say that his numbers didn't stack up. I'm pretty good with numbers and I figured out very quickly, from the answers he gave me, that he was running about 155 contractors with an average time sheet value of £455 per contractor. Yes that's right, over £70K GP per week! Impressive eh? with less than 3 years experience. Whilst in some sectors that may well be the average, in his sector it's about 4x the average. When I questioned that, and considering I know about 90% of the people he claimed to supply and I'd done my homework before he came, he stuck to his guns.

At this point I lost interest and it was time for me to finish this nonsense, but just before I did, I made the mistake of asking him if there was anything he'd like to ask me. Considering he was probably the cockiest person I've ever met, and I've met a few I can tell you, I was expecting him to say "no" and just leave or "when can I start?". But he didn't, he asked me "how do you think I've done today?".

I'm a Northerner, so I'm wired up to tell people how it is. It's got me into a lot of trouble over the years but it's also got me out of a few holes too.

So I tell him, very politely (for a Northerner) that his appearance is atrocious and that he smells of fags. I tell him that as a "Professional Recruiter", as he referred to himself on his CV, he should know the importance of looking good, and smelling good (or at least not smelling bad) at an interview. I tell him that his CV was a pack of lies and that if you don't know your numbers then stand up and admit it, don't try and b******t your way through them. I tell him that he's let himself down and that he should be embarrassed at the way he's conducted himself. I also tell him that the agency that sent him are as much to blame for his terrible performance as he is as they clearly didn't do any vetting or preparation whatsoever. All they did was stick a target on the back of his scruffy clothes and send him in front of the firing squad.

Good recruiters are very difficult to find because for every good one, there are a hundred or more just like this guy. They walk into interviews thinking they've got the job just because they have a couple of years experience and they write random numbers all over their CV without being able to back any of them up under questioning.

As for the agency?, I gave them the same feedback I gave to him but without the Northern politeness. I told them the bad news that their email addresses were now filed under...

But I also told them the good news is that out of an estimated 1000 recruiter interviews I'd conducted to date, they had gone straight in at number 1 for The Worst Interview Ever. At least they'd achieved something!