Blunders that could cost you a job

Crying is never a good look in interviews - especially in tough economic times when resilience is crucial. Photo / Supplied

The internet is full of lists of blunders that job-seekers have allegedly made. Some may be urban legends. Others will have happened, such as the proofreader who spelt the word "proofreading" incorrectly on her CV and the candidates who answer phone calls or texts during interviews.

One Hays recruitment consultant had a client ask him to wait while he went outside to argue with his girlfriend on the phone.

"When the candidate returned, he continued to answer our question as if nothing had happened and he made no apology for his actions," says Jason Walker, managing director of Hays in New Zealand. "Another candidate even tried to promote his own network marketing business at the end of the interview."

Recruiter Robert Half has seen some real bloopers over the years, including a candidate whose mother came along and did all the talking, another who handcuffed him to the desk and a third who asked: "What happens if I wake up in the morning and don't feel like going to work?"

We asked a number of local recruitment companies and related professionals for their stories of strange job-seeker behaviour.

Inappropriate email addresses: The email address hotlover@gmail.com might be good on the dating scene but it could end your chances of landing that dream job, says Jo Mills, coach at Career Analysts, who has seen some real shockers.

It's easy enough to have two or more email addresses, one for personal use and another for professional use.

Likewise, "Wotsuuuuup" on an answerphone message isn't going to get you a job, says Frog Recruitment's Renee Daysh.

Strange pastimes on the CV: Mills had a job-seeker list "alien abduction research" as an interest on his CV. "Interests of partying or alien abduction research may be suitable for some roles, but for others those interests may detract from the other great skills you offer," she says.

Unusual grooming: James Cozens, a trainer/consultant at InterviewSkills, has been interviewing accountancy job-seekers for decades and has seen some very unusual grooming, which diverted his attention from the interviewee's skills.

In one case, the interviewee was wearing a badly fitting and mismatched wig. Every time the candidate moved his head, the wig moved in another direction.

In another instance, Cozens says he should have been alerted to a candidate's eccentricities by the suit the young man was wearing, which smelled of mothballs and looked more suited to a pensioner.

The young man won the job, but didn't fit in at all well at first. Within the first week, he managed to turn up to the company's annual beach party wearing the same three-piece woollen suit he'd interviewed in, and then tried to learn to ride a moped in the company car park and crashed into the business owner's Rolls Royce.

Cultural misunderstandings: Janine Begg, practice leader for Careers New Zealand, was coaching an Asian man who appeared to be experienced, personable and an ideal candidate for the sales jobs he was seeking. She conducted a role-play interview with him to determine why he wasn't being chosen for the roles.

At the point an interviewer would ask "any questions", the man became very enthusiastic and said: "I want you to know I am very good at bribes. I will always win business for our organisation by doing whatever it takes to beat the opposition.

"I am very good at finding out about what we can offer them [and] what their family situation is. I will sit outside their house and notice if they have small children [that gifts could be sent to]."

Rudeness: In a previous role, Begg telephoned an unsuccessful candidate to let him know he hadn't got the position he'd applied for. The candidate interrupted her and said: "Oh-WHAT-ever".

"What he didn't realise," she says, "was I was about to suggest he might be interested in a short-term contract that could have led to something else. Obviously I wasn't going to make that suggestion after his response."

Desperation: Begg had a client who, before being coached by Careers New Zealand, enclosed self-addressed envelopes with applications and said at the end of the covering letter: "If you are not interested, please send the CV back - I have been applying for lots of jobs and it's costing me money printing [them] so I would like to re-use them."

Likewise, Brad Gatehouse, principal at Numero, says one candidate turned up at an employer's office and demanded to be seen, even though the interview had been cancelled.

Crying at interviews: Begg has had cases where potential employees cried at interviews. One had been made redundant the previous Friday and was asked about her previous employer at the start of the interview. She burst into tears and told a sorry story about how she just wanted a job where she could work nine to five, go home and forget about it.

"We are in times of rapid change and what you need are resilient people who will use their initiative," says Begg.

She recommends job-seekers "rehearse, rehearse, rehearse" all answers to potential questions.

Every day of the week, job-seekers walk into recruitment agencies and job interviews and do exactly what they shouldn't: sometimes costing themselves any chance of landing the job. In theory, bad interviewees could still be good employees.

That, perhaps, is a reason to put them through other tests - whether it be reference checks or psychometric profiling - which can turn up a good candidate who made mistakes interviewing, or vice versa, says Cozens.