From Stephanie Hull of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation:
- One candidate allowed her hamster to run loose in her home. During her interview, it ran up the back of her shirt and popped out on her shoulder, next to her collar.
- During one candidate’s interview, a floor lamp toppled, spraying glass shards. She was cut and bleeding on camera.
- Another candidate chatted with a committee while sitting on her bed, propped up by ruffled pillows. (Fully dressed, but it was still a little disconcerting.)
- Then there was the candidate who was seated in front of a firearms-training target that showed several bullet holes grouped around the heart and the center of the forehead.
- A candidate with a large dog failed to secure said animal in another room, so it came bounding in and leapt onto her lap mid-interview, knocking everything over — and howled loudly for the rest of the interview when finally forced to stay in the adjoining room.
Do you want to avoid these problems and look good on camera during your next interview? Check out Hull’s full piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
I dunno, this all sounds harder than “sorry, my video isn’t working for some reason. Can we just do audio?” 🙂
Years ago, my cat jumped onto my lap and sat there during a Skype interview. I got the job and was remembered as “the one with the cat!” when I got to campus.