The nightmare interview

Inquisitive, insulting - and illegal
Alison, a mother of three, walked out of an interview for a teaching job because barbed comments about women with children taking too much time off and expecting others to cover for them, made her angry. ‘The Head was like something from a previous century – even the others on the interview panel looked uncomfortable. She spent ages quizzing me on my childcare arrangements, my absence record (I hadn’t had any absences from my current post), my children’s age and state of health. I had the feeling these were illegal questions anyway, but went with it for a while, because I felt I had all the right answers. Then she launched into a tirade about people with children being so selfish and expecting others to do more while they did less.

'It was so ill informed and insulting, I felt I could no longer be polite. I told her that I disagreed with everything she believed and because of that was no longer interested in the job. Then I got up and left. She rang me later that day to apologise and ask me if I’d consider taking the job. I turned it down because I didn’t want to work with someone who thought and behaved as she did.’

Points to ponder