Drunkenness, farting & falling asleep: unprofessional interviewers

Emma Finamore
16 Sep 2015

Awkward...

A new study has revealed that the majority of UK job hunters have witnessed unprofessional or inappropriate behavior such as farting, falling asleep and even drunkenness, during the job interviews.

According to the research, over a third (37%) of interviewers haven’t read the candidate resume, and 41.1% have shown up to an interview late.

Some candidates have been asked inappropriate and discriminatory questions – 15% admit to being asked their age, and 8.5% have been asked about their family plans, basically whether they are going to take maternity leave.

The job site CV-Library surveyed over 2,200 UK professionals and uncovered the most bizarre interviewer behaviour from the perspective of a job hunter.

A small number of candidates have witnessed some particularly shocking interviewer behaviour: 2.3% have had an interviewer pass wind, 1.5% witnessed their interviewer act drunk and 1.1% - that’s 22 people! - actually had an interviewer fall asleep during the meeting.

Sinead, 25, now a PR officer in London, has experienced this sort of inappropriate behaviour first-hand. She said: “I was asked my religion in a job interview once. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I just asked him what his was.

“Afterwards, he followed my outside and asked me on a date. And I said no – because he was clearly married – and turned down the job offer he’d given me earlier. It made me feel really uncomfortable, and I was anxious before job interviews for a while after that.”

Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library said: “No candidate should ever be subjected to inappropriate or rude behaviour and some of these revelations are unacceptable.

“However, candidates should be understanding of interviewers who are under a huge amount of time pressure, often interviewing five- eight candidates in one day, and certain mishaps should be forgiven.”

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