Win an Ipod Touch For Your Hiring Horror Stories

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Comment by Dan McCarthy on March 21, 2009 at 7:30am

At a previous company, we had just implemented a new process of using background checks. We were all new at the process, and still learning. I was the HR manager, sourcing a position for an engineer.

I got a hit on my very first background check! Yikes, turns out my hiring manager’s top choice had a record of DWI convictions. And not just one, but several.

I consulted with our attorney and was told we couldn’t not hire her because of this, and I wasn’t allowed to tell the manager the specifics of her record. Driving was not one of her essential duties. I could, however, raise a red flag on her judgment.

Alas, this did not deter the hiring manager. He had worked with her at his previous company and his mind was already made up. “Hey, we all make mistakes, I know she can do the job”, he said.

So he hired her. Turns out she had a nasty temper too. Within six months she was fired for using proprietary information from her previous employer.

Comment by Colleen Kelleher on March 20, 2009 at 7:40pm

My very first hire ever was for an HR assistant position. I learned several very valuable lessons from that particular hire; the first lesson being: always interview more than one candidate, even if the first person you interview seems to walk on water. I had been running the whole HR show at my company and was swamped with paperwork, and so we placed an ad for an HR assistant.

During the interview--I only interviewed the one, remember?-- the candidate (I'll call him John) was extremely personable and did well in the interview, and all his references checked out. So, eyeing the stacks of work piled up all over my office, I pushed him into a second interview with my bosses, who liked him and approved the hire.

Four weeks and three write-ups later, John and I were seated in my office at the end of a workday, in a termination meeting. Long story short, he was woefully incompetent and terminating him was an even easier decision than hiring him had been. He tossed off a few scathing comments as he left my office, but these were nothing compared to the damage he did that evening. Right after the term meeting I'd cancelled all his passwords to bar his access to any HR systems. But there were two systems whose password cancellation processes took a full business day to complete: our health insurance enrollment website, and our printer's website. Around midnight that night, John used his still-valid passwords to cancel my insurance, the CEO and COO's insurances, and about 10 other employees' insurances....several of whom had just added their newborn babies to their policies. John wrapped up his night of revenge by ordering everyone new business cards with creatively vulgar names and phrases on them. The ones he ordered for me were his parting shot: He added an 's' to the end of my first name, inserted a middle initial ("A"), and changed my last name to C***.

Comment by Irina Shamaeva on March 19, 2009 at 10:29pm

A long time ago (15 years or so) I was a software engineer on a biotech project with the goal to replace an obsolete software application with a modern one. We were expanding the team, and I interviewed a programmer who seemed very nice and quite social, and apparently had a horrible boss at his last job who wasn't making the right decisions. (I had no clue that this was a red flag that he complained about the boss at his interview with us).
When the guy was hired he showed lots of enthusiasm to do the project "right". Soon enough we were busy exploring all possible software methodologies and inviting gurus to talk to us about them, to select the best - but it always seemed too hard to make that decision. The problem which database to use was even harder! Representatives kept coming to our office and giving us demos. The document describing the future replacement application was growing by the day. Soon it was too heavy to even carry around the printout. Every potential feature was discussed in meetings (with over 20 people calling in from different locations) and given priorities. We discussed those features over email cc'ing everyone involved (or not involved). At the same time, after a while I came to realize that the guy had trouble programming. After he'd write a few lines of code he'd get lost in all of the further possibilities and methods he could use and would never complete even a short piece. I tried pushing for us to get going with at least a minimal set of features; this resulted in the guy going behind my back and complaining to our boss about me being careless. Months passed and we were creating more ideas and more questions about the future application. At that time I signed up for a gym membership; that was a wise thing to do and very much helped keep the stress down. I dreamed of getting the new application out to the users, but we remained as far from it as ever before...
After a while our boss made a wise decision to "promote" the guy and assign him to work with the marketing team. The rest of us finally got a chance to be productive and the programming went quite successfully after that.

Comment by DAS on March 19, 2009 at 4:37pm

I worked as a recruiter for a large bank that was located next door to the Unemployment Office. This was a while back when people who were collecting unemployment had to physically go to the unemployment office on a regular basis. Not like today where the unemployment claim is called in or electronically filed.
Apparently this women, who was collecting unemployment, had forgotten she needed to visit the unemployment office. When she remembered, she had been at the beach. She left the beach and wend DIRECTLY to the unemployment office. Upon being questioned by the unemployment office if she had looked for work recently, she replied "no". Unemployment was not going to continue her benefits unless she could prove she had recently looked for a job.
I'm sure you can guess what's coming next. Being that the Bank was right next door, and being that she needed to show she had recently applied for work, she came to my office to apply for a job - in her bathing suit. - No Lie - I'm certain she really didn't want a job with the Bank - but my "Evil" H/R Director Hat went on and I took the time to interviewed her - she didn't get the job. BTW - In case you're wondering, I am a women.

Comment by Carolyn Warfield on March 19, 2009 at 2:17pm

My favorite: the woman with the licking problem. Yes, licking.

We were interviewing potential independent contractors for environmental health/safety. One of our top candidates looked dynamite on paper: 10 years' experience, certified in our somewhat unique areas of business, highly recommended by a well-respected colleague.

She struck me as somewhat strange when I greeted her for the interview, because she kept scratching the back of her neck. Every few seconds, she'd reach around and scratch--with long, purple fiberglass fingernails. How do you conduct safety evaluations of theatrical rigging with those nails? More practically, how do you type with those nails?

The panel began to ask questions. Before she responded to each, she'd stick out her tongue--pointed, not flat--and flick it around one side of her mouth. When she had done so a couple of times, I asked her if she wanted some water, thinking that the habit might be in response to a nervous, dry mouth. Nope, no water wanted.

She flicked that darned tongue and scratched her neck through the whole interview. At one point, I lost track of what she was actually saying in response to the questions and instead started counting the spittle drops on the table.

Comment by Amey Kennedy on March 19, 2009 at 12:47pm

I used to do recruiting for a temp agency and a large client of ours put in an order for a general office clerk. They knew who they wanted, the son of long time employee, and they wanted the guy to start THAT day. Now our policy was to have all candidates complete an application, tax forms, you know the drill…oh, and they needed to pass a criminal background check.

So, the guy comes to our office to fill out paperwork that morning and starts with our client that afternoon as requested but against my advice and better judgment because the background check hadn't been processed. Two days later, the background check comes back and sure enough, the guy has a record. And not just any record, but he had apparently just been released from PRISON for a violent crime. I couldn’t get on the phone to my client fast enough, but my contact in HR was gone as it was now 5pm on a Friday. I spoke with someone else who didn't want to confront this guy herself; she wanted me to do it. I was happy to, cuz I guess I roll tough with the violent crims (whatev), but it was at the end of the day and our client was 45 minutes away which meant I had to call the guy. Glory be, I’ve never been cussed at as much in my entire career as I was during the 10 minutes conversation with this dude. Oh and for good measure he wanted to come to my office first thing Monday to “discuss.” I said come on in (cuz I’m bravely stoopid like that). Fortunately, I think his Mother got a talking to by her company for referring a criminal because instead of the dude showing up, Mom + my client called me Monday to apologize for “the misunderstanding.”

Comment by Ben Eubanks on March 19, 2009 at 12:05pm

Story 1
My parents own a small business. The company is pretty small, so they have a tough time finding the right person for the job. When I started college, they hired a young guy to take my place. They were thrilled, because the guy was always on time and did what he was supposed to.

Fast forward a month
I get a few days off from school, so I go to work to earn a few bucks. The guy is talking to me in a very friendly way, and I ask him how the work is going. He says, "I think it sucks. And the boss is a jerk." (Hint: he had no idea the boss was my father) I just kind of nodded and moved off to get some work done.

When I went to lunch with my dad later that day, I asked him how the new guy was doing. He replied, "He is late most of the time, he is disrespectful, and I think he's on drugs. Plus, last week when I asked him to do something, he started mumbling under his breath. When I asked him if he had any respect at all, he shouted back, 'No!'" I do the nodding thing again and stick to my lunch. I don't have to repeat what the young guy said, because he won't last too long anyway.

Fast forward a few weeks
Against his better judgement, my dad loans the guy a few thousand bucks to get a car, because he is having trouble getting others to bring him to work on time. My dad figures it will entice him to straighten up and stop slacking at work. After buying a piece of crap car, young guy decides it's time to leave without paying it back.

My dad found out that the guy hadn't even paid the people he got the car from yet. The next weekend, he drove over to where the guy lived and found the car. He got it towed, got the car dealer to pay him his money back, and everyone ended up where they first started (goof had no car, car dealer had it back, and my dad got his money).

I often kid with my dad about hiring that guy, because he's usually a good judge of character. You never know what kind of nut you're going to get!
-----
Story 2
My dad had a guy come in and go through an interview and a tour of the business. The guy said he really needed a job, because his wife was pregnant and she couldn't work. (As you can tell from the previous story, my dad's a softie for that sort of thing!) After taking several hours of his time, the guy asks for a breakdown of exactly what he would make in a week's wages. Payroll is fired up and a sample paycheck is printed for the applicant. He looked at the stub and said, "I can make more money on unemployment," then he walked out.
1) He didn't even think about the fact that it was a 2-week probationary period making ~$2 less per hour as a trial run of his skills. What a doofus.
2) Unemployment isn't going to last forever. What was he thinking?
3) He's got a baby on the way. Does he even care?

Comment by Stephen Hosick on March 19, 2009 at 11:39am

Employee Relations people are thinking, "We want your firing horror stories" should be next. These are the "fun" ones!

Comment by Lisa Lotzer on March 16, 2009 at 3:53pm

@Kerry - Just when you think you met them all....another one walks into ones life! (heehee) Oh, and these days I bet there is an agency that would take the complaint :0)~

Comment by Trish McFarlane on March 16, 2009 at 1:30pm

I had an odd one while in HR for a temporary services firm. I interviewed a woman for an administrative asst./receptionist position. She was very well put together- professionally dressed, articulate, etc. I had been looking for someone to fill a receptionist position at a well known medical supply company in the area. I assigned her to the job. Things went well for about a week.

Then, the worst happened. One morning, I received a frantic call from their office manager. Apparently, my "perfect" candidate had shown up to work not wearing a blouse and missing her teeth. She was only wearing a vest, bra, and skirt!! They told me to come immediately to fire her. As I drove to the client (in utter humiliation for providing such a worker) I received another call from the office manager.

They decided to keep her and let her continue working. I asked what happened and they said "We just made her put a table cloth on like a cape and she put her vest over that"!!! I still will never believe they kept her at their front desk wearing a table cloth. I can just picture the red and white checked print.....

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