A woman was asked to crawl and moan at her job interview. Bizarre and humiliating experiences in the recruitment process

During job interviews, candidates may experience unpleasant or humiliating incidents and are often openly discriminated against because of age, gender or physical appearance. The BBC has gathered in a material the strangest experiences during interviews of people looking for a job.

Lae arrived on time for a job interview at a lawyer’s office in Bristol, England. But after waiting for 20 minutes, the interview was canceled and he was asked to come back the next day.

She left upset, and later got a text saying the “cancellation” was actually a test she failed and she didn’t get the job.

She says the experience was “extremely bizarre” and led her to start her own business, where she makes sure the hiring process is simple and fair.

Lae’s case is not unique and according to a British recruitment agency – Hays – more than half of people looking for a job have had a negative experience during the hiring process.

The BBC has heard the stories of dozens of people who have gone through strange, offensive and unpleasant interviews.

Like Lae, Aixin Fu also had an unusual and humbling experience when she applied for a minimum-wage administrative job at a university.

During an interview with a group of candidates, they were asked to crawl on their hands and knees and “moo like a cow”.

“I did that for three or four minutes. I got quite angry because it was inappropriate. But there was also a bit of peer pressure because they were doing it.”she told.

The interviewer told them that he was trying to see if they had a sense of humor, but Aixin thinks that he actually wanted to show them who held the power there.

Julie from Missouri, USA, says she was asked an awkward age-related question when she applied for a part-time copywriting job. She said that at first everything was going great, but at one point the person she was interviewing with asked her: “How many years do you think you have left?”. Julie, who is in her 60s, was very affected by the situation she was put in and felt discriminated against.

But ageism isn’t the only unpleasant experience people can have during interviews. Pearl Kasirye, a marketing manager, says she was asked about her background during an interview for a PR job at a fashion brand in Milan.

Pearl lives in London and left her native Uganda to live and study in Europe since she was a child. She recounted that her employer told her that he would give her a Ugandan salary, not a European one, because of her origin. Under these conditions, Pearl no longer wanted the job.

Many people said they were discriminated against during the hiring process because of their gender. According to data from employment platform Applied, one in five women were asked if they have children or plan to have children during the interview, as it is illegal in the UK for employers to ask candidates about their marital status if they have children or if they intend to have children.

Publisher: DC

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