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Recruitment & retention

Large insult nothing compared to drip

by Personnel Today 17 Oct 2006
by Personnel Today 17 Oct 2006

There have been so many tales of interview-based skulduggery that have come Guru’s way now that he’s beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be more of a challenge to get his disciples to send in examples of talented, erudite applicants who got the job.


Here are two more stories, which show that you don’t even need to get into the office to mess things up:



Dear Guru


Our receptionist told me about a man who came to us for an interview. He approached her at the reception desk and exclaimed: “Wow, you’re massive!” The poor lady, startled at his rudeness, uttered that she had actually been trying to lose weight recently. Horrified, the man pointed to the plaque behind her head that listed all the organisations registered within the bigger group and said: “Actually, I meant the company.”


Disciple Tracey



Dear Guru,


My favourite recruitment tale starts late one Friday afternoon. The phone rings, and I answer.


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“‘Ave you got any jobs?” enquires the caller, who sounds like she is calling from a damp cavern or basement and accompanied by occasional dripping sounds. Following a discussion about her chosen career path (“I’ve mostly worked in shoe shops”), and how the only vacancy we had was for an environmental health technician, I asked her if she had subscribed to our vacancy website. She hadn’t, so I offered to give her our web address. “Aw, I don’t fink I’ll bovver dear. I ain’t got a pen and I’ll have to get out of the bath to get one,” she replied.


Disciple Charlie

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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