As it’s Halloween it seemed an appropriate time for the team at BlueSky PR to ask recruiters for their scariest candidate experiences. Who knew how frightening it would get… from assault, to lies, to criminal activity.
Following the piece in the October issue of Recruitment Grapevine where Clayton Recruitment told tales of non-violent confusion and inappropriate attire, and One Way talked of outrageous excuses, turtle trouble and false teeth, here are a few more stories we’ve been permitted to share:
“We had candidate come in for interview once who had very long witchy nails and Medusa type hair… we were more than a little intimidated.” - Anonymous
“We once had a candidate come in to Branch chewing gum. We said that it is okay for a registration, although it is bad practice for interviews. When asking the client for interview feedback, the client informed us the candidate was nervously chewing gum so he asked if it was a habit or whether the candidate just forgot. In a panic, the candidate had apparently then stuck the gum to the bottom of the interview desk!” - Katie Gibson, Director at Pier Recruitment
“Not everyone takes rejection very well. After giving one candidate the unfortunate news that she didn’t get the job, she reacted perfectly reasonably on the phone, but the following day one of our consultants thought they saw her in the car park. They thought nothing of in until more and more consultants reported seeing her outside the office on different days – this carried on for almost a year. Thankfully this was a few years back and she seems to have left us alone, for now.” - Anonymous
“We once had a candidate come in to a registration wearing VERY brightly coloured socks which were quite visible under his too-short trousers. We advised that he change his socks to a less alarming colour for his interview a few hours later. We have since found out that he turned up to his interview sock’less with ankles coloured in marker-pen. Not quite what we had in mind!” - Katie Gibson, Director at Pier Recruitment
“We have had numerous candidates pull out of interviews for fake deaths in the family, fake funerals and fake terminal illnesses. All of which have been proved to be untrue through the power of social media!” - Richard Hanwell, Associate Director at The Sterling Choice
Have a scary candidate experience you’d like to share? Add your stories in the comments below.