[2-minute insight]

Experiences of bad interviews, posted online, serve to scare other qualified potential candidates, researching an organisation, away. Resharing posts on LinkedIn and Twitter is easily done at the touch of a send-button.

86% of candidates check out sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed and LinkedIn to review an organisation, so you’re in danger of limiting your future talent pool if you’re conducting bad interviews.

A case back in 2019 had a graduate candidate interviewing for a job. Her account of the interview was “abusive”. She endured a “brutal 2-hour grilling with the CEO” who “picked apart her character, her writing” and even the “way she was sitting”.

She accounted that he called her an “underachiever” making her feel “Uncomfortable” and “Belittled”. He reduced her to tears. Bizarrely, despite the concerning and questionable interview practices, they offered her the job.

Not so bizarrely, she declined. Furthermore, she posted about her experience and subsequent job rejection on Twitter. This received over 5K replies and more than 40K retweets. Her story incited anger. To further fuel the furore, she also went on to give an interview with BBC’s Radio 5.

She’d had a bad interview.

Despite the rebuttal and apology issued by the CEO in question, the damage was done. The story was out there, spreading quickly.

There are two sides to every story, unfortunately however, due to the human negativity bias, a poor candidate experience like this gains more traction than a positive one.

You never know what will go viral and what won’t on social media and who in your future talent pool sees it.


Samantha Lynne
I help business owners & hiring managers streamline candidate interviews to make right-first-time hires for the long-term.