A man has been left scratching his head after being asked to sing a song in his job interview. He explained how he applied for a job with a major UK energy supplier – and spend weeks putting together his CV, cover letter and prepping for the interview.
However, there was one question that caught him completely off guard and ultimately caused him to fail. Taking to Reddit, he said: “Made it through the phone interview and was asked to come to a hotel for the next phase which was an aptitude test, there was about 30 of us in a big conference room, around 20 were sent home and the final 10 were asked to stay on and do a face to face interview in a hotel room.
“It was going quite well although I found it strange that they were filming the interview, anyway at the very end of the interview the guy said ‘one last thing, could you sing me a song’.” Confused, he asked the interviewer to repeat himself, believing he’d misheard what he just said.
He added: “I said what? And he said yeah just anything that comes to mind, just sing something, I just flat out said no, and the guy kept at it, he eventually said it can be anything, sing happy birthday and I just said no, not doing that.” With that, the interview came to an end and the 19-year-old was told he’d been unsuccessful.
He added: “The guy turned off the camera and said ‘you did well, and I feel bad for you but you won’t get the job’, he then told me his boss insisted nobody who refused to sing at the end could be hired no matter how good they did.”
While he regretted not singing the song at the time, he now believes he dodged a bullet. He said: “I found it extremely strange, I was even annoyed at myself for not just singing happy birthday as he suggested, but now when I think back I’m glad I didn’t, it was clearly a test to see how easy I would be controlled.”
Commenting on his post, one user said: “I would of probably sang The Smiths ‘I was looking for a job and I found a job, heaven knows I’m miserable now!’ Another user added: “Hey, glad for you standing up for yourself.
“This unusual task revealed something unfortunate about me. I’m kind of goofy and social, so I probably would have sang a song. I’d have thought, ‘that sounds like fun; here’s my favourite song.’ After reading the comments, it seems like I have a weakness for manipulation. I need to be extra cautious.”
A third user said: “As long as you’re doing it because you want to and not manipulation, its fine, they’d be quite surprised when you showed you actually had a spine, just also don’t let them take advantage if it either. Like someone may like to wash a boat because they like boats, but don’t wash your boss’ boats for free.”
