In this video, an HR “professional” commits a multitude of mistakes that could get her in legal hot water. Ignore the lame acting (especially mine) and see how many you can spot.

The answer key is below (but no peeking until after you’ve tried it yourself). Also, see if you can guess how many donuts I shoved into my mouth during the filming of the video (that answer’s below, too).

Happy Hunting!

Mark

There are a total of 50 errors. They are:

1. Not realizing that she was interviewing a celebrity who’s been dead for more than three decades
2. Unprofessional clutter on the desk
3. Unprofessional attire
4. Not getting up to greet or shake hands with the candidate
5. Offering the candidate food during the interview, thereby rendering many of his answers unintelligible
6. Not reading the resume in advance
7. Mispronouncing the candidate’s name
8. Allowing only five minutes for the interview
9. Asking where the candidate lives
10. Asking him if his residence is a halfway house
11. Ignoring a gap of more than thirty years in employment
12. Invading the candidate’s personal space
13. Bad-mouthing the company
14. Using unprofessional language (“craphole”)
15. Demeaning the company’s production process
16. Asking the candidate if he’s married
17. Flirting with the candidate
18. Unbuttoning her blouse
19. Exposing an “I’m Single” T-shirt
20. Asking the candidate’s birthdate
21. Making an age-ist comment (“You are remarkably well preserved”)
22. Inquiring about the candidate’s national origin
23. Making an ethnic joke (“Is that why you’re Hung-a-ry all the time?”)
24. Pre-offer drug testing
25. Ignoring the candidate’s suspicious behavior when informed of the drug test
26. Not allowing the candidate to leave when he freaked about the drug test
27. Saying that drug tests are conducted only to scare off “lowlifes”
28. Asking the candidate if he’s in the reserves
29. Implying that reservists don’t have regular attendance
30. Ignoring the fact that the candidate’s only reference is dead
31. Failing to check references
32. Unprofessional gum chomping and blowing a bubble
33. Asking about pending arrests
34. Asking about worker’s compensation claims
35. Asking about disabilities
36. Showing displeasure at the candidate’s facial twitch
37. Telling the candidate not to twitch in front of clients
38. Looking for candidates for only a week
39. Finding the candidate to be qualified despite his utter lack of skills and experience
40. Making a demeaning comment about another candidate
41. Discriminatory anti-pregnancy comment (“she looked like she was about ready to pop”)
42. Offering the candidate on the spot
43. Giving the candidate a high-five
44. Not following company policies
45. Insufficient job-related questions and numerous job-unrelated questions
46. Lack of open-ended questions
47. Talking more than the candidate
48. Taking no notes except birthdate
49. Not describing any of the pertinent details of the job
50. Ignoring the candidate’s theft of company property (the donut bowl)

As for the number of donuts I crammed into my mouth during the filming of this video, the correct number is 83. Don’t try this at home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.