I Walked Out of a Job Interview After Three Unbelievable Questions
Have you ever had a bad feeling about a job even before setting foot in the company? That happened to me a few days ago, and I should have listened to my gut. The company's reputation was in the gutter - the reviews on Glassdoor were all red flags, and their rating was around 2.1. They also had a history of paying fines for cutting corners and not complying with regulations. But the salary was really good and the commute was short, so I convinced myself I could help fix things there. Deep down, though, I was worried that just having their name on my CV could be a black mark on my career later on.
The interview started, and it went south right from the beginning. This is roughly what happened:
Interviewer: Tell me about a time you disobeyed a direct order from your manager because you knew it was in the company's best interest.
Me: Sure. In my last job, a manager asked me to track client data on a personal Excel file. I suggested we use our shared Salesforce dashboard instead, because that would create a permanent, accessible record for the whole team and prevent data loss if...
Interviewer: No, that's not what I'm asking. I want an example of a time your manager told you to do something, and you said 'no' and did something else entirely.
Me: It's not my practice to directly refuse to do my work like that. If a manager asked me to do something I had serious reservations about, I would discuss it with them privately. But I've never been in a situation where I was asked to do something explicitly wrong.
Interviewer: Okay. Let's look at it from another angle. Can you tell us about a time you put the company's interests ahead of a colleague's, even if it was ethically questionable?
Me: I always try to find solutions that serve the company without harming my colleagues. I can't recall any time I did something ethically dubious on purpose to a team member.
Interviewer: Alright, one more question. Tell us about a time you bent the rules, or maybe even broke a minor law, because you knew it was the right thing to do for the business.
Me: I have never broken the law, and I wouldn't, regardless of the situation.
Interviewer: Come on, everyone bends the rules a little. We're just looking for an honest story.
Me: Look, I'm going to stop this right here. These questions are completely unacceptable, and I'm withdrawing my candidacy for this position.
After I ended the interview, I regretted not using the ai interview tool recommended by my friend. After I told her what happened in the interview, she told me that it would have given me instant professional answers, get through these silly questions and pass the interview smoothly at the same time 😞
So, the conclusion next time I won't be entering an interview without interviewman tool.
I also discussed the interview with my current manager (my contract is ending, so she knows I'm job hunting), and she was shocked and told me I did 100% the right thing. My colleagues at work were divided. Some were on my side, but the rest thought it was some kind of weird stress test to see if I'd cave under pressure to break the rules, and that the 'correct' answer was to keep refusing. A few of them also said it was unprofessional of me to leave the interview, no matter how bad it was.
Honestly, I don't see how I could have stayed. Am I crazy, or was walking out the only sane choice in that situation?