A great resume can get your foot in the door, but a bad interview can send a person right back out.
An interviewer turned to the “Am I The A**Hole” (AITAH) subReddit for feedback after telling a job seeker to shut up.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However there are no official voting acronyms and no final judgment given.
Sirtuinsenolytic asked:
“AITAH for telling a guy to shut up during a job interview?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I was interviewing this guy for a very good software engineering position.”
“He passed the first round, and both I and everyone involved in the second round really liked his resume and experience. On paper, he had everything we were looking for, and honestly, this looked like a life-changing opportunity for him.”
“Then he shows up, very serious and not smiling at all. I’m used to that in tech interviews, and I understand it can be an intimidating environment.”
“We did a round of introductions, and then he opened the interview by saying, ‘Let me tell you a little bit about myself’. We said, okay, go for it.”
“He started talking and talking about his personal and professional background. After about three minutes, I jumped in to ask a follow-up question based on something he mentioned. He replied, ‘I will answer, just give me a moment’, and continued talking.”
“A coworker jumped in with another question, and he said the same thing to her.”
“At this point, we were kind of looking at each other, but decided to let him continue and give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“But after more than five minutes, I jumped in again with another question. I had to talk over him to do it. He finally paused and answered, but in such a long-winded way that he ended up veering into another topic.”
“My coworker asked another question, and the same thing happened.”
“At this point, I was ready to end the interview. I tried to politely wrap it up several times, but he was unable to read the room and just kept talking.”
“I finally raised my voice slightly and said something like, ‘Thank you very much for sharing your background. In the interest of time, I’d like to ask if you have any questions for us’. This is standard protocol and helps us prepare answers for future interviews.”
“He asked a question about the team. As I was answering, he raised his finger and interrupted to talk more about his background. I let it go.”
“Then he asked another question, which my coworker started to answer, but again, he spoke over her to talk about himself.”
“I tried once more to interrupt politely, but he kept talking.”
“At that point, I was done.”
“I said, ‘John, you really have to shut up and listen’. He was surprised, as was my coworker, but he finally stopped talking.”
“I continued, ‘You walked into this room with a 99 percent chance of getting the job. Now that chance is zero. The only reason is because, in less than fifteen minutes, you’ve demonstrated that you don’t have the capacity to listen at all. So I’m telling you now, you’re not getting the job. But if you take anything away from this interview, let it be this: no matter how good you are technically, if you can’t listen, you’ll never excel in this career’.”
“He apologized and said, ‘Can we start again?’.”
“I replied, ‘You had your chance. Best of luck in your future interviews. Make sure you listen’.”
“Looking back, I know I could have handled that differently, but I still feel bad for the guy.”
The OP later added:
“It’s not only about him talking too much—he talked over people, didn’t actually answer any of the questions we asked, and when asking us questions, he didn’t even wait until we were done answering to interrupt and keep talking.”
“Maybe he was nervous, but this was just rude, and we couldn’t even clarify questions we had about his background because he wouldn’t answer them…”
“We cannot have someone like that working in a team, particularly because we work with a lot of third parties and customers.”
“If you cannot stay quiet, let other people talk, answer simple questions, and listen, you’re not a great employee. Particularly for this position and field overall.”
“Because I’m the director of that department, he wasted my time, my team’s time, was disrespectful to my team, and honestly, it was heartbreaking seeing someone so talented losing such a good opportunity for something so dumb.”
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was a bit harsh, but it was something the interviewee needed to hear.
“NTA. Honestly, he needed to hear it from someone in a position of hiring authority. Sure, his ego may be bruised, but that likely needed to happen.” ~ ElemWiz
“I interviewed someone once who wouldn’t stop talking. When the hiring manager asked what I thought I told him the person was qualified, but monologued the entire time. Someone else had that same feedback.”
“Hiring manager ended up calling her and gave her feedback, and she apologized and he brought her back in to try again. We all liked her, she just wouldn’t stop talking.”
“Second time around, she was fine, she took it to heart and ended up getting hired. She was at the company for at least 8 years I know.” ~ Sea_Voice_404
“I work with a guy exactly like this. Brilliant technical mind. You can put any system or piece of hardware in front of him, and in a month he will have expert-level knowledge on it.”
“But holy sh*t, he just does not know when to shut up. Talks over others, goes on tangents about tangents, will answer a yes/no question with 20 minutes of superfluous jargon, etc…”
“It results in the organisation having a fantastic resource that nobody wants to use, and it’s hurt his career because people will go out of their way to avoid dealing with him (he’s been stuck as a ‘software engineer’ for about 20 years).”
“If he actually lost his job, I legitimately don’t know how he would pass an interview to get another one.” ~ redditorperth
“NTA, there’s always someone like this, and maybe you gave him pause for thought in life, being blunt. You probably avoided a future PITA, too.” ~ Ok-Accident-7128
“I’m pretty sure everyone in a technical field has this guy somewhere in their office.”
“Mine was named ‘Skip’. Retired now. Refused to go by his birth name, 60+ years old, wore sandals in the office, and carried around a comically large metal thermos that clanged against his badge as he walked.”
“Had very hard opinions on things, loved to hear himself talk, turned most people WAY the hell off with his rigid rules and brusque delivery…..but damnit if he wasn’t available at all hours and the only guy in the place who kept that antique database system (and seemingly half the other random computer systems in the place) running with his encyclopedic knowledge.” ~ LastBaron
“I worked with a guy like that as well, except in his case he wasn’t even a brilliant engineer. All he had was the gift of yap.”
“He would talk over everyone but he only did it once with me, because I was the only one who called him out on it publicly during a meeting where he tried to hijack my point.”
“I just said his name in Mom Voice (I’m not even a mom and was probably 40 years younger than him) and told him that I wasn’t done speaking and he could have his turn after I was done. He never interrupted me again but still kept interrupting everyone else.” ~ alleswaswar
“You actually gave him more feedback than many people would have. NTA.” ~ BillyJayJersey505
“NTA. In this day and age of litigious-happy people, it is very rare for a candidate to get legitimate feedback, especially about why specifically they are NOT getting a job that hasn’t gone through 5 different HR sanitization protocols to the point of being useless.”
“You did this guy a favor by actually being honest with him and giving him actionable feedback for future interviews. If he can’t understand that, then he is only proving you more correct in your assessment.”
“Were you a bit harsher than strictly necessary? Probably. But it definitely sounds warranted to get the point across.” ~ Frejian
“NTA. I messed up interviewing someone once. It was someone that worked with my then wife (now ex). Interview was going OK and he started dropping f-bombs.”
“I don’t mind foul language. The Army taught me how to use ‘fuck’ like it’s a comma.”
“But there’s a time and place for it and an interview is not the place. I hired him against my better judgement and ended up firing him a year later because he was horrible at his job.”
“Trust your guts, you made the right call.” ~ WithAnAitchDammit
Training and skills aren’t worth much if everyone finds the person insufferable.
If a person is losing jobs because of their behavior, someone should let them know.