‘Brutal’ job interview experience in UK triggers anger online

Job interviews are a necessary part of the recruitment process. They are a time for both employer and employee to connect, whether in person or via phone or Skype.

But for many hiring managers, it can be seen as something for a chore – and for jobseekers, it can be a similarly tortorous.

Indeed, for some more so than others – such as Olivia Booth, from Britain, who attended a job interview at a company called Web Applications UK.

Booth described the experience as “a brutal 2 hour interview, in which the CEO Craig Dean tore both [her] and [her] writing to shreds (and called [her] an underachiever)”

“Later in the interview he asked me: ‘How do you think it went?’ He said ‘I’ll tell you how it went’ and listed off everything bad he thought I did in the interview,” she added.

“He told me everything I did was wrong, everything I said, the way I sat, my body language, everything that he could do to attack me.”

Several reviews of Web Applications UK on Glassdoor appear to corroborate Booth’s account.

“[CEO] will scare you (or try) [and spouts] lots of mumbo jumbo really, behaves like Judge Judy – without the smile,” said one poster, while another notes that “[the CEO] is a fierce interviewer and many employees feel the most challenging element of working here was their second interview with Craig himself. He deliberately puts prospective employees under undue pressure to ascertain their ability to handle it.”

Perhaps surprisingly, despite ‘brutal’ interview, Booth was offered the job. She decided to turn it down, writing:

“The interview process yesterday was very uncomfortable for me. I understand the impact that [the CEO] was trying to have, but nobody should come out of a job interview feeling so upset that they cry at the bus stop.”

Her full letter can be read via the images embedded in the tweet below.

https://twitter.com/oliviaabland/status/1090281095805980672

Web Applications UK’s CEO, Craig Dean, issued an apology on Twitter, saying, “I am so sorry that anyone has been hurt, it is never my intent.”

https://twitter.com/UncleThargy/status/1090498634809049093

Responding on Twitter, Booth said “You told me in my interview that people have walked out and cried when you’ve interviewed them so I don’t know why you’re acting surprised for being called out. You know what you’ve done to people.”

Booth is currently fielding multiple other job offers that have come in since her original Twitter post went viral, receiving more than 23,000 retweets and 75,000 likes.