What’s the most awkward interview experience you’ve ever had?

With the semester winding down, we’re in a time of the year full of interviews. Seniors are applying to jobs and many of us are applying to internships or summer jobs. Interviewing can be an exciting and nerve racking process, but sometimes it’s just plain awkward.

The most awkward interview experience I’ve ever had was when the man interviewing me addressed me as Erin Hurley and started reading a description of her from her resume. Erin Hurley and I are both junior Television-Radio majors at Ithaca College so most of his description was correct, but we are definitely not the same person. I told him my name and he started flipping through resumes to find mine. He had no idea who he was interviewing and there was no way to recover from that.

Luckily, I’m not the only one who has experienced interview woes. Here are some experiences other Ithaca College students have had:

Jenna Harner ‘16

“During an interview for an internship, I was asked, ‘What state would you get rid of and why would you get rid of it?’ I was pretty thrown off because I didn’t want them to think I was being mean or that I was petty with some things. I said Alaska because as pretty as it is sometimes, no one deserves to be that cold for the majority of the year and they deserve some warm weather and sunshine. Plus it’s too far away!

“I was also asked, ‘There’s a 30 second commercial and you’re the product – what does it look and sound like?’ I talked about how it would be something really upbeat and fun. You’d find yourself grooving to the beat. A summer country song would be playing in the background and it would be at the beach at sunset. There would be a bonfire going and lots of good friends hanging out with each other and laughing!

“For the same internship, one of my friends was asked, ‘Why is the penguin in the corner wearing a sombrero?'”

Rachel Mooney ‘17

“The interviewer asked, ‘Where are you right now?’ I responded by saying, ‘My living room.’ Turns out they were asking what school I was at. That’s how my interview started and it went downhill from there.

“She went on to ask me to name a time when I had to voice my opinion and it wasn’t the popular one. I talked about a group project for school. One of the students in my group liked to take on more work for herself and thought she should be the lead presenter, but in our practice session she didn’t have the material memorized to get through a single sentence. I had to be the one in that scenario to make the suggestion that we change the speaker order. When I explained the story in the interview, it didn’t exactly come out great. I kind of just came across rude because I was so nervous when the scenario didn’t really even fit the question.”

Eric Bass ‘16

“For a phone interview I had recently, the recruiter sent me her number to call her, which was sort of a weird move on her part, but okay, I’ll bite. She didn’t answer. We rescheduled for the next day, but I still had to call her. When she answered, she didn’t have anything to say so there was a good amount of silence that didn’t need to happen before she finally said, ‘Man I hate starting interviews. So awkward.’ She proceeded to ask me one question and ask if I had any for her. I think she was new.”

Katie Clauss ‘16

“The interviewer asked me to name something about me that he wouldn’t find on my resume. I was young at the time and it caught me off-guard. I said, ‘Well I like to sing country music,’ which is probably super embarrassing. He chuckled and asked what singers I liked. I then proceeded to talk about Hunter Hayes and my kind of borderline obsession.

“I got the internship and he ended up remembering the conversation down the line and gave me two tickets to a country music festival sponsored by our station, so I guess it paid off!”