A buddy of mine kept nagging me to post my interview stories, but I was always reluctant to do so because I might actually refer to someone who reads this forum. But I think that enough time has elapsed, so what the heck.
To give you some background, I worked for several IT/software companies over the years and participated in many candidate interviews along the way. Some were group-style, some were board interviews, etc. I was always the technical aid to the management interviewers - they would ask me afterward "Is this guy okay? Does he know his stuff?" etc.
Here goes...I'll give you two stories to begin with.
Story #1 - B&B
This was a board interview. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept, it's where a large panel of people (from different departments) sit along one side of a giant table...and the candidate is on the other side. Sounds pretty scary? Well, apparently this candidate didn't think so.
It was typical practice for the candidate to be in the room way ahead of time. He was in there long before any of us arrived. As we started to filter in the room, we said hello and took our seats. There were about 7 of us in total on the panel side and we were still missing 2 members: the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and his second in command (just a systems guy, but he had the longest tenure and therefore some of the greatest clout).
While we were waiting, there was no idle chit-chat or talk wih the candidate. He was just sitting there with this really goofy look on his face. I remember thinking to myself that he was way too relaxed. After all, this was a senior programming position he was interviewing for. This was not just another random interview.
In comes the CTO and his 2nd-in-command. They were chatting quite a bit walking in the door and were laughing to themselves about something. Even as they took they're seats they were still chuckling. Then, out of the blue, the candidate speaks up and asks, "So...which one of you is Beavis and which one of you is Butthead?"
The room went completely silent. I would have laughed had I not been so shocked. Everybody was in complete awe. Apparently the candidate thought this would make a funny "ice-breaker", but he was so wrong. The CTO's face turned bright red. He was so angry he couldn't even speak...then he just got up, picked up his folder, and left the room. No one knew what to do. Finally, the receptionist came in the room and asked the candidate to come with her. We never did hear from that candidate again. Boy was that a stupid thing to say at an interview!
Story #2 - Sit Down
At a completely different company, in a much smaller work environment, I had to sit in with the all-in-one President/CTO/Systems Admin and interview a potential candidate. I was the lead programmer and we were interviewing the candidate for a web programming position.
In walks the candidate and shakes both of our hands. It is a small office, so there is not a whole lot of room to move around. On the side of the candidate is a dry erase board where we would usually spec-out our stuff. Anyways, the interview is going along, and we notice that the candidate is quite animated. He's using a lot of hand gestures and sitting forward in his chair. Then, he starts to get excited when telling us about one of his past projects. He leaps up and starts to erase some of what's on the dry erase board...without asking. He's excitedly drawing some diagram on the board, and I look over to the President and you could see the steam coming out of his ears. Surprisingly, this goes on for at least a minute or two. Finally the candidate turns around and exclaims, "It was such a great project! We sure nailed that one!" and he tosses the marker back on its slot.
The President just about screamed, "Would you please SIT DOWN!!!"
Now you have to picture what happened the instant he said this. The candidate sat back in his seat so fast that you would have thought it was military. I mean, he sat down. It was instantaneous. I had such a hard time keeping from laughing and actually had to leave the room!
I never did go back in there because I couldn't keep myself together. It wasn't shortly after I left that the candidate was escorted out. The President wasn't upset that I left the interview early because he had absolutely no intention of hiring the guy anyway.
If you like these stories, let me know. I have plenty more.