If you want to scupper your chances of getting a job, make sure you are late for the interview. It’s the most annoying thing you can do, closely followed by exaggerating your qualifications, according to interviewers surveyed by DDI, the talent management consultancy, and Monster, the jobs website.

But these seem minor bloops compared with when candidates get it really wrong. Learn some lessons from these interviews from hell.

The absolute disaster. “This story relates to an interview for a junior sales post,” says Mark Rhodes, the head of marketing at reed.co.uk. “The candidate’s first mistake was to turn up in a white suit.” Wanting to find out whether his credentials were better than his fashion sense, the interviewer asked a few simple questions about his CV. “The candidate started to mumble and said he couldn’t answer the questions,” Rhodes says. “When asked why this was, he said that his girlfriend had written his CV for him.” The kindly interviewer tried to put the candidate at ease by talking about the company and asking general questions. “He continued to give mumbled responses. When asked whether he was nervous, he replied that he’d only just got out of bed and hadn’t had any breakfast.” The interviewer terminated the session — after just three minutes. Unsurprisingly, this on-the-ball individual was not given the role. Rhodes points out the importance of first impressions and of knowing not only about the company that you are applying for a position with but also your own CV — and wearing a decent suit.

The cocky candidate. “I once interviewed a guy who was quite experienced and older than me,” Rhodes says. The interview was going along fine, until: “In the middle of the questions, he came out with, ‘Come on son, dig deep’. ” His arrogance didn’t stop there. “When asked at the end if he had any further questions, his reply was, ‘When do you want me to come back for a second interview?’ ” He didn’t get the job.

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The old romantic. “It’s important to smile, make eye contact and build a rapport with your interviewer,” says Katherine Burrage, a recruitment executive at RM, an IT company. But that went a bit far with one candidate. “I was asked out for a drink toward the end of the interview.” She politely declined his offer.

The grilling — by the interviewee. Jenny Ungless, a career coach for Monster, the jobs website, has been interrogated by a couple of candidates. “I had someone who, when it came to the ‘have you any questions?’ part of the interview, proceeded to grill me on holiday entitlement, flexitime, working hours and pay,” she says. She advises against being “so obsessive” at interview stage because it makes you seem purely money-driven. Leave it until you’re negotiating the contract. You’re in a stronger position then anyway because they have already offered you the job.

The ignoramus. “We had one candidate who was quite surprised to hear that we supplied IT equipment to schools and education providers,” Burrage says. “He thought we were Royal Mail.” As an interviewer, she spends a lot of time preparing for an interview and expects candidates to do the same.

Ungless agrees. “I heard about a candidate going for an interview with IBM, and when he was asked what IBM stood for, he didn't know,” she says. For those looking for employment with the technology giant, it stands for International Business Machines.

The weird behaviour. “I interviewed a candidate who produced a paper fan at the beginning of the interview and proceeded to fan herself vigorously the whole way through,” Ungless says. “Admittedly, the room was quite warm, but it was rather distracting.” She says that the fan summed up the candidate’s entire attitute — she acted as if she owned the place.

So remember: what you think is a quirky idiosyncrasy could be taken as a bizarre affectation.

Nice recovery. A story with a happy ending from Rhodes: “We have a director here who is relatively young-looking and fresh-faced. Someone coming in for an interview with him met him in the lift beforehand and they had quite an informal conversation. She had made the assumption that he was an office junior.”

She must have had an excellent interview. After starting off on the wrong footing she managed to redeem herself — and she got the job.

Read about more interview blunders and share your interview stories on our blog, Snakes and Ladders

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