Anyone ever interview for a job you didn't know you weren't qualified for?

This is why you fly to Houston from NO.

By the way, that sucks. Usually, its the other way around. I'm fibbing a little bit because most job descriptions are stupid so I'll add in some shite to match what they are asking for and I'll figure it out when I'm hired like any other capable human being.

They didn't know you were coming from NOLA?? Is your NOLA address on your resume?

How big a company is this? Did HR set up the interview?

It seems to me like a couple of things happened.

1) The job description is not right / was never looked at by the hiring managers.

2) The hiring managers never looked at your resume.

Not sure this is a company I would want to work for.

Sucks about having to make the trip and I assume burn a vacation day or two. Hopefully you got to stop at Buc-ees in Baytown and got some good snacks for your troubles.

We learn from each experience. I do a phone screen anytime we are searching for a candidate. 30 minutes to see if there is a good match before asking someone to come in for several hours.

Yes.

I interviewed with a large O&G company for an Environmental Manager position.

Once the interview began with a panel of about 20 other people, I quickly realized this position was for the Air Compliance Environmental Manager for the entire state of Texas. I had zero air experience.

It got awkward really quick as they started to quiz me on air regulations.

It is the only interview that I've had where I didn't get a job offer...

I've been on both sides of this issue.


A bad job description has been due to the functional manager charged with getting together the job description having no idea what the job actually entails. When the people who actually do the work interview the candidate they're confused because questions don't match the posted description. Figured that out going to interviews and saw it again later in management with peer managers not knowing what their department actually did.(usually masked by some supervisor doing their job)

Or if dealing with recruiters they'll fudge resumes just to get people in to take an interview. Candidates come in and get creamed due to being unprepared. Figured that out by getting un-doctored versions of the resume from candidates smart enough to bring copies of their resume to interviews.

I do a deal of hiring and hate people having to go through bad interviews as well as wasting both our times. So I have team leads do 15-20 minute pre-screens before we have anyone come visit. If a candidate asked to do a phone interview or a Skype interview I wouldn't be opposed. Maybe you should ask for that next time you might have to travel?

Interviewed for a job once that I was qualified for, but they didn't ask me about anything relevant.
Asked me what cereal I am most like, what my hobbies are, what did I do on my Friday nights during college, etc.,
Definitely caught me off guard and I bombed on the questions.
Guess I wasn't as qualified as I thought. I hate those stupid questions that make no sense.
Anyways, good luck in your job search.

Here's my guess:
The HR director's niece knows two releases of VBA and has SQL down cold. She has a minor in computer science and an MBA in systems.
You are just another resume they can claim to have interviewed before they give it to her.

I was offered an interview with the Coast Guard to be using a language I never took one course in. The ad on the USAJOBS website did not even spell out what language I would have to use. I had to call for that info. I guessed those suckers needed 2 more people so they could give the job to the pre-selected person.

if you see programming in the job description, ask about it next time.
did you take a course?
did you use it on the job previously?

HR is terrible at nuance. Do an extensive phone interview before you go that far next time.

I applied for an engineering position in a location that I needed to be due to my wife and her graduate school requirements. I got the interview and it became clear immediately that they were looking more for a mechanical engineer. My background lends toward environmental engineering. Their job posting was very very vague and admittedly I was applying to anything in the area that I thought I could talk my way into.

About five minutes into the interview with the director and manager of engineering, I explained that I could definitely learn what they needed me to know, but I had researched a ton about their environmental challenges and offered some ideas on how I could be valuable to them in that capacity.

They stopped the interview and invited the environmental manager to join us. After discussing environmental issues and operations, they thanked me and I thanked them. I got an offer for a position they created for me three days later.