From entry level positions to high-powered executive appointments, interviews can be a daunting prospect with the pressure doing strange things to applicant’s nerves. On the other side of the table recruiters are increasingly throwing in sticky questions to challenge candidates. Business editor FINN SCOTT-DELANY asked for memorable interview anecdotes.

The Argus:

Brian Warren, Quick HR said: “I've had plenty of surprises over the years including a candidate who was clearly drunk at 10am, a man who started crying halfway through the interview and a woman who was so nervous she spilled coffee on me and frantically padded at my thigh with tissues, which was a little disconcerting.

“One man asked if he could take a year off shortly after starting because he wanted to travel the world. Another man said the job was beneath him really and we’d be lucky to have him. A woman once informed me that she didn’t like the building and probably wouldn’t work with that company for long. All of them seemed surprised when they didn’t get job offers.”

The Argus:

Denis Buchan, Classic Consulting, said: “The worst thing I’ve witnessed was when a candidate was having an interview and turned up with her boyfriend. She went in and her boyfriend waited outside but as he was waiting he decided he needed a ‘number two’. When he couldn’t find a bathroom he decided to go to the back of the building and use the car park area. What he didn’t realise was his girlfriend was mid interview and watching it all on the CCTV monitor screen. I had to go and make him clear up the mess while his mortified girlfriend died on the spot. I was so embarrassed all I could do was laugh but the client thought I was incredibly rude and did not use me again.”

The Argus:

Dan Hawes, Graduate Recruitment Bureau, said: “Our clients give us a range of questions to assess suitability and, apart from the standard ones, we’ve asked how many pennies could be stacked on top of each other to reach the top of the empire state building, how much water would flow past you if you stood by the river Thames for 24 hours, how would you calculate how many hospital beds there are in the UK, how would you calculate how many golf balls there are in the UK, if you lined up all the roads in Germany, how many miles would they span?”

The Argus:

Clare Smith, Mayo Wynne Baxter, said: “Obviously as a law firm, we tend to ask mostly serious questions, but for certain senior roles one of our directors likes to throw in a curveball right at the end such as ‘if you were a chocolate bar, what would you be and why’?

“On one occasion when asking a candidate how he had prepared for an interview – expecting the usual response about having researched on the internet, checked the website, etc – was amused to get the response ‘well, I had a shower, I shaved and bought a new suit’!”

The Argus:

Liam Hackett, Ditch the Label charity, said: “We occasionally give a problem for the interviewee to resolve but throw in quite a few figures and questions into one. We do this to measure how the interviewee deals with a stressful situation and to see how they organise the figures and multiple questions to produce a coherent response.

“We do throw in quite a few fun questions; we once asked an interviewee to leave and then come back into the room pretending to be her best mate. We then asked her to talk about her personality and character, as if it was her friend describing her. For some reason, when people do this they are hugely honest – sometimes perhaps a little too much!”