Apparently the dinner wasn’t going very well for the candidate. So when the waiter came and asked, “Can I get you anything else?” the guy ordered another filet.

So they waited until the candidate’s other filet came, he ate it, and they left. The next day, when I called the hiring manager and asked how the dinner went, his response was: “He ordered another steak.”

I guess the candidate thought the repartee, the back-and-forth, wasn’t going well, and he was trying to buy some time to make the situation better. He decided to do that by ordering another steak. Not another drink, or another whatever. He didn’t get the job.

I had another candidate go out with the same client soon after, and for the last interview they were having dinner at The Palm.

The next day, I called this new candidate to ask how it went. He said, “It was great. I ordered another steak.”

The hiring manager had told him the story about the first candidate over dinner, and they both decided that they would tell me that, in order to be funny. The second candidate ended up getting that job.

So now, every time I have a candidate go out for a final interview that’s a meal, I tell them this story.

Anthony Fanzo, The Bachrach Group

A few years ago, before Covid, I had an excellent candidate that we sent to a client here in New York. The client—a bank—was a slightly more conservative company, and the dress code was extremely important.

The candidate went in, aced the interview, and then she had a final meeting with their HR department, with an HR person who seemed very inexperienced.

During the meeting, the HR person told my candidate, “We really like you here, but we really need you to be more conservative. You really need to take out the nose ring.”

The candidate said, “Well, that’s not a nose ring. That’s a mole.”

She got the job, but it would have been interesting had she not gotten the job, if that would have been prejudicial or not. It was a totally inappropriate thing to bring up.

Sunny Larkin-Newman, Hospitality Ventures Management Group

Earlier in my career, I was interviewing a candidate for an entry-level hospitality position, and he took the phone interview while going through a Taco Bell drive-through.

He actually told me to hang on for a minute while he ordered something.

I was like, why don’t you call me back when you’re done?

Keith Wolf, Murray Resources

I remember this one really well. We had placed a candidate in a sales role. The client told us that on his first day, they walked by and saw the guy sitting at his desk with his feet propped up, reading a newspaper. On his first day.

Then, during that same week—his first week—his manager took him to a conference with his team. During a break, the manager went up and asked the salesperson how his session was.

The guy said, “Oh, I didn’t go in.”

“What do you mean you didn’t go in?”

“It was so hot in there. The room was too warm.”

The final nail in the coffin was on Friday—the same week, his first week. The manager goes back to where the guy sits, and he’s not at his desk. Now, he’s in sales, so he could be in the field, you never know. The manager calls the guy, and he doesn’t call him back. The day goes by, nothing.

Monday comes around, and the salesperson walks in the office like nothing happened. The manager says, “Hey, I tried reaching you on Friday.”

The guy goes, “Oh, no, I’m not selling on Fridays.”

The manager’s like, “OK, I get that, but I would expect a call back.”

And the employee just says, like, “I just don’t really operate that way. You know, I do my thing and then I’ll call you. Like, I’m here now.”

It was the wildest, strangest, most entitled deal. And this wasn’t some kid, this was an experienced person, he had great references, everything. He just didn’t think it was a problem.

So the manager just walked him out. He was like, “Today’s your last day.” And apparently the guy was furious.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.