Interview stories

As a recent grad, and with only a handful of interviews under my belt,I’m always eager to hear how others have done on their interview and what their experience was. It seems that the combination of nerves, fatigue (by prepping their portfolio all night),and a potential new employer sometimes gets the best of people resulting in something going wrong, and hilarious stories.

I’ll start.
A couple of years ago, during my very first interview my nerves definitely got the better of me. A local company that did some interesting work was at a local job fair looking for young graduates to add to their design team. I managed to schedule an interview, printed my resumé and portfolio and was on my way.
The interview was great and the interviewer said that they’ll keep in touch. Just as I reach to shake his hand and round up the interview I drop all of my papers. And… they… went… everywhere… Not a big problem, he and I gather them again and I’ll be on my way. However after doing so, and joking with him that the nerves got the better of me, I dropped them again, knocking over his cup of coffee staining him and all of his papers.
After profusely excusing myself and helping to clean everything up I became bright red and was thinking to myself how did I wreck this interview in 10 seconds flat. He definitely wasn’t happy and I guess that my nervous smile and light jokes didn’t help. I however did receive a call and was asked back for a second interview.

Other encounters include:

  • Not finding the exit of the building and being locked-in by security.
  • Displays that malfunction colorize and scale everything wrong while you’re presenting your portfolio.

Maybe a mild story to start but I’m eager to hear what or who you or your colleagues have encountered that will be engraved into your memory for the rest of your lives.

Hi all,

Interesting topic; thought I’d share:

For my first design job after graduating I’d only had 2 days to prepare, around a full time job, and so had 2 very late nights. After a day of work I got on my bike, portfolio in hand and cycled about 12 miles to the interview.

I arrived absolutely drained. I was told there might be a sketching exercise and so had my trusty Bic fine point in my pocket. Tiredness and nerves saw me compulsively fiddling with the pen in my pocket for about 40 minutes. When I finally stood up to deliver my portfolio there was a streak of black ink from my hip down to my foot.

Following roaring laughter and a red face the interviewer said “Oh, don’t worry about the portfolio, we had a look at your website.” All for nothing.

I got the job. I lost the jeans.