Job Interviewer asks SUPER Inappropriate Questions

Have you ever been in a job interview where you start to get uncomfortable with the questions that are asked and possibly you've even been asked something inappropriate? Well, today I'm reacting to Sarah Catherine's video called my worst job interview experience. Know when to trust your gut. Apparently there's some pretty inappropriate questions in here. I am very interested to see how she reacted to them and also provide my own commentary of what I think is going on. And if you're new here, I. I'm Madeline Mann. This is self made millennial. I am a human resources leader and job search strategist. You may have seen me in these places. New videos on Thursdays. Okay, let's see what Sarah had to go through.

One job opportunity actually invited me in to do an interview. It was just a general marketing assistant job. Overall, it just felt very impersonal. She was literally just reading down this list of just really generic questions, and I don't feel like she really got a good feeling of who I am as a worker and as a marketing professional.

Okay. It is so rough to go through a job interview where the interviewer is giving you no energy. Right.

It's.

It's like having to interview in a drive through. Hi, welcome. What can I get you? Hi, yes, I'm Madeline. I would love one job, please. We'll see. Would you like your pride with that? No, no pride. I will say, though, having someone read through a list of interview questions is actually a good sign. It's called a structured interview, and that is a great way for a company to reduce bias and ultimately pick the best, most qualified candidate. Does that cheer you up? No. All right, let's get back to it.

Right around the first of the year, they sent me an email and they said they wanted me to come in. So I show up to this job interview. The woman that originally interviewed me walked up to me. She said hi. She was super friendly and said, now I'm just gonna warn you, there's gonna be some big personalities in that room today.

Okay, what does big personalities mean? I feel like that's a code word. Big personality equals. This person is totally out of line, and everyone's too scared to say anything. Other code words also include work hard, play hard, meaning this job is going to take everything out of you and say goodbye to your loved ones. We're like family, AKA we're highly dysfunctional, wear lots of hats, AKA do four jobs, get paid for just one. I could go on.

So I walk in and it's just her, me, and then one man came in and he sat right next to me and he shook my hand, introduced himself. I'm assuming he was top dog because he took control of the room from then on. Hardly anyone else spoke the entire time, including myself. To be very honest, he says, it sounds like you're not really sure who you are right now. And I'm like.

Um, I am in my 20s and I'm kind of figuring myself out like any other 20 something year old. As a person, I know who I am. As a job, of course I'm figuring that out. That's why I'm here getting a job. I didn't say everything exactly like that. Didn't really say that last part, but this is just what's going on in my head. And then he says, oh yeah, you're only what, 24 or so? Yeah, you should, that's fine, that's normal. And I'm like, okay, so why did you even say that?

How old are you? 24. Oh, it just, it makes my ears bleed when people talk about age in a job interview. Because age is a protected class. It should not be discussed in an interview. Even they shouldn't ask you about your years of graduation because those can be a proxy for your age. Such as, there's plenty of times I've been in a job interview where someone said, oh, I see you went to UC San Diego. My cousin went there. What year did you graduate? And sometimes you just answer the question because you don't want to make it awkward, but other times you really want to nip it in the bud because they really should not be asking that. So I do have a video on how to respond to inappropriate job interview questions. So I'll link that down below.

And then he asks a few more questions. Pretty much cuts me off every single time that I try and answer any of his questions. And then he turns to me and says, so how do you deal with men?

And I literally just turn to him and I say, can you be more specific?

Okay, she rocked this. Can you be more specific what a chef's kiss response to that? How are you supposed to respond? Right? Keep in mind that in the job interview, if someone asks you a question and you really don't know what to make of it, it's such a good option to ask a follow up question. And if someone says something a little off color, maybe it's an off col joke or a strange question you can ask, could you clarify what you mean or what did you mean by that? And for most people, they'll realize that what they said was totally off putting or not the right thing that they meant to say, and they'll walk it back and they'll change their question. Not always, though.

And he says, you know, in my many years in business, I've noticed that women have many different idiosyncrasies than men when it comes to working in the office together. So I was just wondering, how do you handle men such as myself who as a stereotype goes, middle aged white men who have large egos, how do you handle us? I'm just, oh, my God. This was the moment that my gut was trying to tell me, you don't want this job. I really, really, really wish I had either told him off or just stood up and walked out. But in that moment I was like, okay, you need to be professional, whatever. And so I answered his question and I said, well, I have worked with some men who, who do have large personalities, but like women, it depends on what type of communicator you are as well as the man or woman. And you just have to learn the communication styles and how to work with them that way, whether it is a man or a woman.

Okay, what I love about her response here is that she changed a little bit of what he was asking. So he said, how do you talk to white men? And she changed the question to how do you communicate with. With different communication styles? And that's something that you can do in the interview too, of if someone asks kind of a strange question or something that, that seems almost too narrow. You can reposition the question in a way that will still allow you to give a great answer that shows your character, that shows the way you work, but doesn't have you stumbling over using their exact words. That is something that I drill into my clients to not take questions at their face value. And also I want to make sure that something that people get wrong all the time is that they answer tell me about yourself in a totally wrong way and they take the question at face value and it just goes wrong. So I'll link a worksheet down below that you can use to craft your perfect answer because you will be asked that, I'll link it below.

Walked out and just got on my phone and started yelling at anyone that I could call about how awful it was and how much I don't want this job. And so the next day was the day I was hearing back from the job, that I wanted the job I currently have. This awful job actually ended up calling me first. It sounded like they were going to offer me the job and without hesitation I said please let her know that I'd like to rescind my resume from this job opportunity and thank you and hung up.

Boom. Love it. How good does that feel having this hellish interview and then saying bye bye.

Click.

I know this is pretty salty of me to say, but there is this bit of catharsis when you do end up landing the job offer and you get to say no to these companies who dragged you along or have you jumped through hoops or talk down to you in the interview and you say no, I'm saying no to you. Do you also love that feeling? Please don't make me feel alone here put I love that feeling in the comments if you do too. Now I know some of you comment saying I know that I would love that feeling, but I never feel it because I'm not able to land the interviews and if that's the case, I got you. I will land a free resume workshop, a masterclass in the comments so you can get your resume looking great landing interviews. You beautiful, ambitious starfish.

Trust your gut. With these types of experience, no job is worth feeling less than or feeling uncomfortable. And odds are if you're not feeling good during the interview stage and you don't have a good feeling about it, then the job itself probably isn't going to be the best experience. I don't think any job is worth that.

Oh this is so true. Raise your hand if you have ever felt in your gut that a job opportunity is not right or but you keep rationalizing it to yourself because you're so optimistic that possibly this could be the right opportunity. No, don't do that.

Don't do that.

I've definitely done that, but don't do that. Huge thanks to Sarah for sharing this video and allowing us to all learn from her experience. If you like this reaction video, make sure you put a like on this video so I can make more of them. I also did a reaction video to someone who resigned from TikTok and kind of all of the toxic things she experienced. So I will link that if you're interested in watching that next and be sure to subscribe to this channel so you get notifications each week on how to improve your career. You've got this wi Fi high five.