Not my horror story, but my father's.

He is CEO and primary salesman for a company of ~30 employees. The sales team's focus is on building relationships with the customers and clients; definitely not a cold-call type of organization.

Anyway, he was interviewing this gentleman for a territory sales position, and, after explaining what he was looking for, asked this guy for his sales philosophy. The applicant summarized his style as "If I knock on 100 sorority girls' doors, I'll get laid at least once."

As a response to a standard question on his previous position and why he left, he very candidly revealed that he had to close the doors on a company he bought, and admitted that he 'ran it into the ground'.

Needless to say, he didn't get the job. Didn't even get to the end of the interview either, my Dad walked him out the door.

Probably not jogging, he's probably pushing one out.

I've tossed resumes of people who can't spell check or use basic grammar skills. I mean, come ON.

I also love the kinds of people who submit their resume for a technical position (developer) and interview as ifthey are going to be running the place:

"When you bring me on board I'll have your department in tip top shape! I'll make sure all the other employees do exactly as I tell them to so my inestimable experience is used to it's peak! I won't have anyone doing *anything* I haven't approved nor will anything get signed off on without my express permission!"

I'm paraphrasing there, but not much. That was even after they were told that they would report to me. What. A. Tool.

After interviewing at my last job, my new manager related a story about one of the previous applicants:

The guy showed up in a t-shirt (not the best attire for an interview, but not out of the ordinary for a retail job), made it through the interview with flying colors, and the manager mentally prepared to call the guy later and offer him the job. As the interviewee walked away, my boss could now see that his shirt had the words "F**k God!" (asterisks removed) emblazoned on the back. Mind you, this is an extremely conservative southern town where easily 50% of our customers are elderly Bill O'Reilly devotees. Did the guy think his potential boss would see that and say, "Awesome! You're hired!"?

That such people make it to the interview process and several of us smart folk here still have a hard time getting that far makes me sad.

My personal favorite is the ones who send you all this experience on their resume for HTML/CSS/Client side etc and tell you to look at their website for an example of their code. But when you view source on it, the whole thing was built using a generator and all their widgets are downloaded off DHTML widget sites or are Frontpage bots. None of the code is theirs. The ones who are smart enough to at least remove the meta tags stating it was built with Homesite get a gold star up from me. Maybe not a job, but at least they have some clue so I'll bring them in and let them explain why they consider that an example of their work.

When it comes to real code, it's the guys who have experience with a technology for longer than it's actually existed that really do it for me. We had a guy walk in with 5 years of supposed experience with .NET technology in 2002. And he didn't work for Microsoft, didn't even know what Frameworks was, or participate in the beta. And even if he had it would have only given him one year.

It's not just the hardcore geeks. This also goes for a tech writer we had submit his unfinished 400-page novel, and the graphic artist who sent me a selection of background wallpapers involving mostly-nekkid women and various Kai's Power Tools filters as his portfolio (they weren't even good Oogaba and he didn't work for an "educational" site - those might have got him a foot in the door).

As far as clothing, I can't say much for either side. I had a gal interview me for a job while she was wearing a wet suit. She'd just come off the lake from practicing with the company rowing team. Great conversation starter, and I did get that job. One time I had a wardrobe malfunction that resulted in a 2" button falling off the front of my jacket right in the middle of the interview. Didn't display anything, but it just sort of clunked down on the table. I probably turned plaid but what you gonna do so we just went on, both of us carefully not noticing that button. I ended up with that job, too.

One of the VP's at my job has a very interesting interviewing method. Two examples:

1) Candidate comes in and says "I am very intuitive and can figure out any technology very quickly without instruction". VP hands him his brand new cell phone and says "Add your phone number and name to my contacts". Candidate fumbles with phone for 8 minutes while VP stares silently at him. Guy gives up and hands phone back. No job for him.

2) Candidate comes in and says "I am very neat and organized". VP says "Did you drive here today?". Candidate says "Yes?". VP says "Let's go down and have a look at your car". Car is spotlessly clean and neat. She gets the job. I would have failed this test miserably. Then again I wouldn't have made the claim in the first place.

Apparently bringing a friend/sibling/acquaintance with you to an interview isn't a bad thing, but having them lay down on the couch in the lobby and fall asleep is frowned upon. Someone I interviewed for an entry level IT position did fine, had a good attitude, willing to learn, not much experience but we were willing to give the girl a shot until someone reported to my manager of the sleeping friend in the lobby. She didn't get the job...

Some other things that I would say are not quite so obvious, but might affect your shots of getting a job:

1) Showing up late for an interview, even just a few minutes gives a bad impression. Try to be at least 10-15 minutes early. It shows you are excited about the job, and that you are capable of being on time.

2) Dress for the job. I have been guilty of not following this suggestion in the past, and it may have cost me a previous opportunity according to a co-worker, but I am actually happier with my current position that I think I would have been with the previous job I applied for...and I dressed similarly for both interviews. I tend to wear dress pants and shoes, and a sweater or button up shirt for interviews, but apparently ties are smiled upon by some of the more old fashioned interviewers.

3) Study for an interview like you are going to take a test (we actually do give our interviewees a test), especially if it is a programming position. Syntax can slip from your memory quicker than you think.

4) Get a degree... Unfortunately, even if you know the stuff backwards and forwards, without a degree you will most likely not even be given a shot. I don't necessarily agree with this practice, but it is how things work, so you've got to play the game.

1. Come into the interview drunk with the mistaken belief that the receptionist and HR rep won't be able to smell the rum on your breath. When the HR rep breaks the first part of the interview off early, power walk around the parking lot while chain smoking for ten minutes. Then throw a fit about you haven't been drinking when informed that the interview process is over (even though nobody ever accuses you of being drunk).

2. Call the receptionist an "a**hole" and further berate him because you showed up 15 minutes before the lobby opened and he didn't arrive to let you in early until you'd already been waiting for ten minutes. Do this all in font of the CEO's Administrative Assistant.

3. During your interview (which they flew you to Michigan for), inform the HR rep that you won't be coming into work on the days when it snows.

4. Vehemently refuse to surrender your camera phone at the front desk because "it's against the Constitution".

5. Inform the HR rep that under no circumstances will you sign a non-disclosure agreement.

As an Engineering Project Manager I've interviewed alot of candidates for various engineering positions - mostly Mechanical Engineering. I really like to give candidates a few basic "what-if" type problems for them to answer at the end of the interview. I usually tailor the problem and difficulty to the position - Co-Op positions it's very basic, Senior Engineers a bit more involved. I never present a problem where I expect them to perform advanced math on the spot and it's usually a generalized problem like "I need a mechanism to take the cap off this bottle - give me ideas of approaches you'd take to designing something". What I'm looking for is creativity and enthusiasm in their response. I like when the person starts to brainstorm ideas with me - it provides insight into their ability to work on a development team. The blank stares are the worst type of response.

My worst exprience was an interview for a Principal M.E. position. I have pretty high expectations for a Principal Engineer. I asked the guy a question which was really a mid-level Engineer technical problem - explain the approach to sizing a motor for a specific mechanism. His response was that he'd call the supplier and ask them what motor to use. Yea, wish I'd thought of that. While we're at it maybe they can design the whole thing for us, eh?

Is it too much to ask that a candidate knows how to speak English?

<--Getting gray hair after interviewing 5 candidates today

While you didn't reverse the input (heck, it's not even a function), what you wrote would've gotten you MUCH further than the blank stare.

I've consistently and sadly lowered the bar for my programming questions. I used to ask candidates to write a string matching program, and after they did a basic first pass, add support for wildcards. Now I'm down to the situation described above. I don't even expect them to get it perfect, but you got to be able to give me a clue that you could solve it given time.

During my second or third interview (trying to get a job), I slightly ahem, embellished my experience and then I got nervous and forgot the details. So I tried to lean over the table and read them from my resume - held by the interviewer. Ah, to be a teenager again.

1. Understand the job you are interviewing for:
I was interviewing a young woman for a position working in an emergency room.
Me: "how well do you deal with stress?"
Her: "oh, very well; I'm just not the kind of person that stresses easily"
Me: "that's great - those are the kind of people we need in an ER: folks who just go with the flow."
Her: "I'm not THAT kind of person. I have just found that for me, setting aside the appropriate amount of time for every little task means I get it all done, in the right order, and then I don't get stressed."
Me: "so you're saying you avoid stress by effective scheduling?"
Her: "exactly!"
Me: "so as long as the emergencies cases are evenly spaced, or well scheduled....?"
Her: "I'll be fine!"
Me: "how nice"

2. Make sure you know what kind of recommendation your references will give.
After interviewing an enthusiastic but rough-around-the-edges woman for another ER gig, I asked if I could call her former employer as a reference. She told me absolutely, she left amicably looking for further challenges.
Me: "what can you tell me about XX?"
Former employer: "wow, she didn't waste any time! I just fired her yesterday."
Me: "okay, thanks for your time"
Former employer: "do you guys drug test there?"
Me: "that's really all I need"
Former employer: "because she missed a lot of time due to rehab"

Or a 35 year old man who worked for seven years in a doggie day care.
Me: "would you hire him again?"
First Reference and Former Employer: "that guy? NOT ON A BET!"

3. And always test out that new blouse before the big day. Similar to MG above, I had an interviewee who was doing fine in the interview, when in a simple re-adjustment of her posture, the top two buttons of her blouse popped open. Being the gentleman that I am, I maintained strict eye contact with her while I continued to make the point I was expounding upon (in fact expounding WAY more than was really necessary, to give her time to recover). I actually felt horrible for her, as she was a painfully shy person, and it happened three more times during the interview. By the third time I was tempted to make a joke just to take the pressure off of her, but she didn't seem like the type who would be helped by that. So we ignored the fact that her blouse was halfway open during a large part of the interview. I gave her the job (despite this, not because of it) but it took her two months after that to make eye contact with me.

So I could just write down "I'd Google it" ? On a serious note, I've only had a Programming Logic class and I'm pretty sure I could BS my way through the pseudocode (in a very inefficient and error prone way).

If that's a joke, I don't get it. If it's an actual question, about which part?