I Had to Humiliate the Top Candidate to Get Him to Listen

Sometimes interviews aren’t just tough for the candidates. They can be unexpectedly challenging for the interviewers, too. One Reddit user shared a story about an interview he had that went from hopeful to bizarre faster than anyone expected.

Here’s how it all began:

I was interviewing this guy for a very good software engineering position. He passed the first round, and both I and everyone involved in the second round really liked his resume and experience. On paper, he had everything we were looking for, and honestly, this looked like a life-changing opportunity for him.

Then he shows up, very serious and not smiling at all. I’m used to that in tech interviews, and I understand it can be an intimidating environment. We did a round of introductions, and then he opened the interview by saying, “Let me tell you a little bit about myself.” We said, okay, go for it.

He started talking and talking about his personal and professional background. After about three minutes, I jumped in to ask a follow-up question based on something he mentioned. He replied, “I will answer, just give me a moment,” and continued talking.

A coworker jumped in with another question, and he said the same thing to her. At this point, we were kind of looking at each other, but decided to let him continue and give him the benefit of the doubt.

But after more than five minutes, I jumped in again with another question. I had to talk over him to do it. He finally paused and answered, but in such a long-winded way that he ended up veering into another topic. My coworker asked another question, and the same thing happened.

At this point, I was ready to end the interview. I tried to politely wrap it up several times, but he was unable to read the room and just kept talking.

That’s when things took a sharp turn:

I finally raised my voice slightly and said something like: “Thank you very much for sharing your background. In the interest of time, I’d like to ask if you have any questions for us.” This is standard protocol and helps us prepare answers for future interviews.

He asked a question about the team. As I was answering, he raised his finger and interrupted to talk more about his background. I let it go. Then he asked another question, which my coworker started to answer, but again, he spoke over her to talk about himself.

I tried once more to interrupt politely, but he kept talking. At that point, I was done. I said, “John, you really have to shut up and listen.” He was surprised, as was my coworker, but he finally stopped talking.

I continued, “You walked into this room with a 99 percent chance of getting the job. Now that chance is zero. The only reason is because, in less than fifteen minutes, you’ve demonstrated that you don’t have the capacity to listen at all.
So I’m telling you now, you’re not getting the job. But if you take anything away from this interview, let it be this: no matter how good you are technically, if you can’t listen, you’ll never excel in this career.”

He apologized and said, “Can we start again?”

I replied, “You had your chance. Best of luck in your future interviews. Make sure you listen.”

Looking back, I know I could have handled that differently, but I still feel bad for the guy.

© sirtuinsenolytic / Reddit

The comments section was largely on the author’s side:

• Honestly, he needed to hear it from someone in a position of hiring authority. Sure, his ego may be bruised, but that likely needed to happen. © ElemWiz / Reddit
• You actually gave him more feedback than many people would have. © BillyJayJersey505 / Reddit
• In this day and age of litigious-happy people, it is very rare for a candidate to get legitimate feedback, especially about why specifically they are NOT getting a job that hasn’t gone through 5 different HR sanitization protocols to the point of being useless.
  You did this guy a favor by actually being honest with him and giving him actionable feedback for future interviews. If he can’t understand that, then he is only proving you more correct in your assessment.
  Were you a bit harsher than strictly necessary? Probably. But it definitely sounds warranted to get the point across. © Frejian / Reddit
• You handled this well. Once the finger went up to silence you, all the respect went out the window. © Turbulent_Device_200 / Reddit

But not everyone saw him as the good guy:

• “Shut up” isn’t professional and shouldn’t have been the word choice, but the sentiment and feedback was 100% merited. © Escherichial / Reddit
• Unprofessional. Something like, “Sorry, John, we have an interview protocol we have to follow and a strict time frame, so we will have to go straight to the point. *here you add your question immediately*”
  You have to control the interview, as it’s your... job © IngenuitySudden8366 / Reddit
• Sounds like you can’t professionally control an interview, and telling someone to shut up in that environment is pathetic on your part. So many better ways you could have handled this. © NorthShoreHard / Reddit
• His behavior was unbecoming, and the observation that he simply wouldn’t listen was very accurate. A person lacking perception skills and basic good manners should never be in positions of power, especially where overseeing the work of other’s is required.
  Having said the above though, if his behavior was unprofessional, so was yours. Telling someone to shut up in an interview and making a point out of how badly they failed, is at least unprofessional and definitely down right nasty.
  You all knew he didn’t have a chance, you could have chosen a different set of words and perhaps a bit more empathy. You didn’t have to crash him... I sincerely hope that you both work building on much-needed skills in the future. © SituationTop3120 / Reddit

Sometimes, job interviews can surprise us in the most unexpected ways. You might want to check out these 17 interviews that took a truly strange turn.