Nightmare Applicants

After 15 years in Human Resources, these are some of the worst mistakes I saw applicants make.

1. Sloppily dressed—The worst example I can remember is a guy who showed up to turn in his application wearing very dirty blue jeans and a white undershirt that was filthy and had giant yellow armpit-stains. The guy also looked like he had not shaved in 3 days. While the job only paid $1 over minimum wage, I still put his application on the very bottom of the no pile.
2. Confrontational—I can give several examples here. One applicant turned in his application by slamming it down on the desk and saying we now had 48 hours to interview him, according to state law. I never could find the law he was citing. Another, when calling to check on the status of his application, accused me of nepotism, simply because I had decided to interview other applicants—he instantly went from a maybe to a no.
3. Lying during the interview—While most people are pretty honest, I know how to spot a B.S. artist, so when I see somebody feeding me a line, I move them to the no pile. One applicant who said she had taken a few years off to raise her children caught my attention as a potential liar, and when I ran the criminal check she had actually been in prison for 2 1/2 years. One applicant had left his last 3 jobs due to plant closings.
4. Bad job history—Lots of applicants I saw openly admitted to leaving their last job due to a conflict with their supervisor, poor attendance, or having too many jobs in their recent past. One applicant had listed 5 jobs for a period of 6 months.
5. Going back to a job that fired you—I had several people who I fired, along with a lot more that I was glad to see quit, come back and apply to return to work. The best was a guy who quit while on a final warning for misconduct. On his way out the door after turning in his resignation he mooned a security camera (I am not kidding at all) and then 2 years later he applied to come back and work for us.
6. Having your possessive boyfriend “escort” you to the interview—I saw this twice in my career so far. If you have a boyfriend like this, start confronting him about his trust issues.
7. Dressing provocatively for the interview—Any woman who does this automatically goes into the “no” pile, immediately. The best example was a woman who worn a skirt with a button-down slit. The buttons kept conveniently popping open, so that she could draw attention to her legs as she redid them and giggled.

I’ll try to add more as I remember them.