Recruiting Nightmare Contest

We’ve turned Scott’s worst recruiting nightmare into an Aeron chair.

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The Winner
From Scott in Washington, D.C.:
I've been a recruiter for over 11 years now, but when I first started recruiting, I was supporting a staffing company that provided skilled trades workers to clients in our area.

One of our biggest clients called us up one afternoon to see if we could replace a machinist that we had working on site. Since this was someone that had been working there for some time with positive feedback from the client in the past, we asked why they wanted to replace him. The client then informed us that the machinist was arrested, at work, for murdering his wife and her lover when he caught them together after going home for lunch that day.

We were shocked...

Not only by the fact that one of our machinist had murdered two people, but also by the fact that our client still wanted us to send over someone else.

Our client explained that despite the fact that we provided a machinist that was arrested on the job for murder; they had always been impressed with the quality of people we sent them. They went on to say that even this machinist was in their eyes a good resource since despite his murderous rampage, he didn't take more than one hour for his lunch break and continued to be productive right up until the police showed up to arrest him.

Runner-Ups
From Lesley in Kansas:
I was interviewing applicants for production positions. One of the candidates came in accompanied by a female who proceeded to begin filling out his application form. In the course of this task, they got into an argument. The disagreement quickly escalated and they soon began throwing punches at each other. I called security and had them escorted out of the building but, from my window, I could see that the altercation was continuing in the parking lot. We then called the police. Did I mention that the female was wearing short, short, shorts, a bikini top and pink, fuzzy house shoes?

From Penny in Texas:
I interviewed a candidate for head of our accounting department. Her educational background and references were impeccable. When I asked if anything might interfere with her ability to work, she said she had one small problem. She was required to attend a meeting one day per month, and would not be able to work at all that day. When I asked her what type of meeting it was, she replied, "My parole meeting." When I asked her why she had a criminal record, without any hesitation whatsoever, she said she was convicted of embezzlement at her last job!

From Kathy in New York:
My worst recruiting experience was truly a nightmare. A few years ago I was recruiting for an agency and was tasked with filling some General Labor positions. Three days into the job one of the new employees calls me in the late afternoon asking me to meet him in the park that evening as he had some serious issues he needed to discuss. Feeling awkward to meet outside of hours in a potentially dark area, I suggested we meet at a McDonalds. The employee agreed but never showed at the scheduled meeting. The next morning I received a call from the worksite that the employee never arrived for work that morning. Feeling that something bad may have happened I tried to track him down feverously. That night on the evening news I saw his picture stating that he was wanted for murder - of a woman who ironically fit my physical description. He was found guilty and convicted months later. I guess you never really know that the person sitting across from you is capable of...

From Mary Anne:
Interviews one evening resulted in two standout candidates. The following morning as I was comparing notes on the two, I was called down to security to review tapes in the hope of revealing details on a run of vandalism we had incurred. The tapes not only revealed the vandals, they also revealed my two top candidates, prior to their interviews, engaging, shall we say, in amorous behavior- in a vacant conference room, adjacent to where the interviews had occurred. Needless to say, neither was hired.