Job interviews typically highlight only a curated portion of who we are, as we often try to present our most professional, polished, and carefully filtered selves. But every now and then, spontaneity happens.
This collection brings together stories told from the interviewees’ perspective.
While some of these unscripted moments may indeed reveal red flags, not all of them should automatically be considered unprofessional — many are simply funny, and some are even quite endearing. In fact, they often reveal something more profound: how our authentic selves respond when the unexpected shows up at work.
Enjoy!
20. The annoying manager
Him: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your coding skills in the foobar language?”
Me: “I’m quite seasoned in that language. I’d say around 8”
Him: “Ah-ha! But I didn’t say if 1=bad and 10=good, or if it was the other way around! So 8 might mean you’re pretty bad!”
Me (out loud): “Oh, that’s right, I should have clarified that with you first!”
Me (thinking): DIAF u moronic manager from a Dilbert strip
19. Legit
This is a friend’s story. She was not a CS student, but happened to interview for a Java developer position.
The interviewer asks her, “How will you sort 100 numbers?”
Her response: “I’ll put them in Excel and click sort”
18. Fake it till you make it
After speaking about a couple of programming languages, the interviewer asks: “Do you know C?”
Me: “I don’t really know C, but I can fake it so the compiler thinks I know.”
I’m still with that company.
17. Confessions of a Bollywood fanboy
It was the design round. We were discussing my hobby projects.
I explained to him my Web Crawler and its intelligence in searching and filtering out high-quality content from the web and saving it locally.
Interviewer: Interesting!! So what did you use this web crawler for?
Me: I collected pictures of Katrina Kaif (Bollywood actress)
It was a spontaneous and honest answer. The interviewer broke into a laugh and moved on to the next question.
16. Counterfire
A friend of mine dropped this in his Microsoft Dev interview.
After a whole day and 4 marathon interviews, HR calls him for feedback.
HR: We are sorry, but we don’t see a spark in you.
Friend: That’s OK, I don’t see fuel in you.
He lived to tell the tale with a wide grin on his face.
15. The BS filter
I was being interviewed for an IT Helpdesk job at a bank a number of years ago and was asked, “Why are manhole covers round?”. I was later told, after answering wrong, that it was to see if the person would say “I don’t know” (correct answer) or just try and BS their way out of it.
14. Mamma Mia!
I had a guy end my interview by asking me what my favorite ABBA song was. I was so caught off guard and honestly kind of creeped out, because I couldn’t figure out how he knew that I loved ABBA.
I found out later that when he spoke to my references, he asked them to tell him something about me that wasn’t on my resume, and my old boss told him that I was a huge ABBA fan.
13. Overqualified
I once solved a coding test with a way simpler solution than what the interviewer was expecting, I saw his face when the test passed, he wasn’t happy. I didn’t get the job.
12. Better have my money
My first job in computers after moving to Ft Lauderdale. The interviewer took me to lunch at a place that didn’t take credit cards. Luckily, I had cash and paid. Got the job, and he paid me back.
11. The no-library challenge
Interviewers were asking me how can I make a network call without a library, how to perform SSL handshake without a library. Basically how to do anything without a library. It got so bad that during the interview, a thought popped into my mind: maybe I should ask them how they would wipe their ass without using paper, water, or hands for that matter? I started laughing hysterically during the interview.
10. Marina Abramović style
The manager came into the room, sat directly across from me and stared into my eyes for no less than 2 minutes without saying a word. I just sat there and looked back. The silence was broken by “I think you’ll do well here.” He turned out to be quite the character.
9. That was random
I was asked if I enjoy bullfighting. I needed a couple of minutes to understand if I had heard that question correctly, especially considering that it had nothing to do with the position I was applying for (Head of Marketing) nor the company industry (software engineering).
8. The audacity
Not during the interview itself, but after. They called to say that I not only didn’t get the job, but that they weren’t hiring any of the applicants, and then she tried to get me to tell her how they could find someone qualified for the job.
7. Exit interview… by accident
The interviewer, a very senior technical guy, asked me, “So, do you have any questions for me?”
I thought about it for a moment and said, “What’s the worst thing about working here?”
He thought about it for a minute, then got up and closed his door, and told me. For like half an hour, in painful detail, getting more agitated as he went. Then he was done, and sent me on my way, saying I’d hear back soon.
The next day, I got called back in. Seems that after he talked to me, he went and resigned, and the HR rep asked what happened in our interview.
After I told them, in detail, I expected to hear nothing further since I would have been reporting to him. Instead, the CTO came in to talk to me, and asked if I would be interested in coming aboard to help him fix all the things that seemed to be wrong with the organization (and solve some cool technical problems as well).
So I did.
6. Looking for a partner in crime
For an IT security position:
“If your employer asked you to do something illegal, would you do it?”
…now, before anyone hollers that this isn’t inappropriate, I found out later that the job had been vacated by a friend of mine, who they fired after he refused to do something illegal for them.
5. Gotta catch ’em all
“If you could be any of the original 150 Pokémon, which one would you choose?”
I said Ditto, because I could become any of them, but that was a lie. If I could be any Pokémon, I would be Pidgeot.
4. Freudian
“Did you have a close relationship with your father?” I’m a woman (engineer), and this was a totally out-of-left-field question.
3. All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall
“If you were a brick in a wall, which one would you be?”
I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was interviewing with Pink Floyd.
2. The bald truth
The hiring manager interviewing me said, “The job is great most days, but there are days when you will wanna pull your hair out.” He was bald, so I said, “That must’ve happened to you already.” He had a great sense of humor, so he and the trainee manager sitting in on the interview laughed, and he told me at the end of the interview that my personality and credentials were exactly what they were looking for. I got the job and left after 3 months because it really did make me wanna pull my hair out.
1. Aw, that’s actually cute
Mine is quite recent. Remote interview in my home office over Zoom, my son had apparently left a toy in the room. It was a farting ninja. I ignored it at first as I was answering a question, but then I had to say, “I’m so sorry, my son’s farting toy keeps going off. I’m just going to remove it from the room.” I got the job.
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