‘Clearly you have not read the room’: Job seeker calls out rude interviewer, ends the call

A job seeker recently took to Reddit to share an interview experience that quickly turned sour. Frustrated with dismissive hiring practices, he confronted an interviewer who questioned his short tenure at previous jobs—jobs he had lost due to layoffs.

“Interviewer asked me why I was laid off twice in a year and made a snide comment that they’re not sure why the hiring manager even considered me for the role,” he wrote.

Rather than staying silent, he fired back: “Clearly you have not read the room and seen how poor decisions by management such as yourself have resulted in companies laying off people.” He then ended the video call, adding, “I have never been so proud of standing up for myself.”

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After reflecting on his decision, he emailed the recruiter to share his experience. Surprisingly, the recruiter apologised and assured him that the hiring team would be reminded to stick to fair assessment guidelines. “I’m glad there are recruiters out there that care and try to make job searching fair for everyone,” he added in an update.

Take a look at the post:

His story resonated with many online. One user wrote, “The sad part is, that hiring team, by NO MEANS will ever see themselves as the problem. They probably laughed this off, as you being crazy, as they look to repost this role for the 3rd time, while complaining about the pipeline…”

Another user shared a similar experience: “More people need to do this. I had a call lined up with a hiring manager 2 days ago. They no-showed, then HR apologized and said they wanted someone who had previously held a senior title—even though my last three titles were higher up than the role I was applying for.”

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A third user wrote, “Yep. Hiring managers and recruiters are modern day bullies.”

A user commented, “Good job, OP! That interviewer is a clown and obviously feels entitled to say whatever they want to applicants. Only suggestion would be to make sure you let the recruiter and hiring manager know what was said, so the interviewer doesn't keep getting away with this shitty treatment.”