can I cut short a whole day of horrible, rude interviews?

by Alison Green on January 22, 2025

A reader writes:

I’m a recent grad, and I’ve been searching for my first full-time position. Recently, I was invited to second round of interviews for an event planning position at a national organization with a recognizable name. It included a schedule of seven virtual half-hour interviews with different groups of people at the organization and a request for me to prepare a 10-slide presentation of a potential event for the organization and challenges I might face. I thought seven interviews were overkill for such a junior position, especially as the organization does not specialize in event planning, but I was happy to participate.

The seven interviews were horrifyingly awful. In the very first one, I was asked a very technical question about a product the organization produces. In response, I was clear that I was new to the field, did not know enough technical info to answer the question successfully but was excited to learn, and tried to redirect to my event planning experience. I was then reprimanded by the person who asked the question for not having knowledge that I think would take several degrees and 10 years in the field to acquire. The other three interviewers seemed to take their cues from the first interviewer, and were very dismissive. Their tone was along the lines of “You definitely don’t know this, but how do you…” including saying those exact words to me. They were correct, I did not know!

I clicked into the next Zoom link utterly certain it was not the right role for me. Each of the remaining interviews, with the exception of one with five similarly junior employees who I would not actually be working with, was similarly challenging. I was asked questions that I was very uncomfortable answering, with very little relevance to the role and the responsibilities: for example, how I would solve a crisis like the Israel-Palestine conflict, or tackle a hate crime that had happened to a specific employee, enacted by an employee in the next group to interview me, who they named. All cameras were off for my presentation, and I wasn’t asked a single question — including by my potential direct supervisor, present on the call, who left it to me to wrap up the meeting in dead silence.

I’ve since found another role, where I was asked sensible, relevant questions during the hiring process, but I can’t help wondering about how I should have handled that series of interviews. Was there a way I could have pulled out of the entirety of the planned day and consideration for the position after the first interview of the day? Was there a way I could have expressed feedback — perhaps to the very lovely HR person — after the truly horrific day of interviewing? And frankly, why would they have that many people (I want to say a total of 50) take the time to interview me?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think I was underqualified for the position. The first round was an interview with someone from HR, and my understanding of the role was that I would provide support logistics for the several large conferences the company hosts — booking rooms, tracking RSVPs, sending invitations, and the like. They clearly decided they didn’t want me during the first 10 minutes (I sent an email the next day thanking them for their time and politely withdrawing), but I am genuinely confused about how and why the day went the way it did.

They asked how you would solve the Israel-Palestine conflict in a job interview for a junior events planning position?!

Or how you would solve a hated crime perpetrated by one employee against another, then sent you to interview with the doer of the crime?!

WTF?!

Yes, you can cut short an interview if it becomes clear that you’d never want to work there or that moving forward isn’t a good use of anyone’s time. Most of the time it makes sense to see out an interview through to the end — since the employer might have a different opening in the future that you would be considered for if you make a good impression now — but there are a few situations where it makes more sense to just call it to a halt:

* if an interviewer is being abusive or insulting

* if you’re in the middle of a day-long series of interviews (and so it’s not a matter of just getting through the next 30 minutes, but of investing hours more of your time and theirs)

* if it becomes clear that the job is absolutely not right for you for an easily explainable reason that you’re comfortable being straightforward about (for example, it turns out the job was advertised as mostly X but turns out to be mostly Y and you hate Y, or the hours are obviously not the right fit)

In those situations, it’s fine to say something like:

* “I really appreciate your time, but as we’re talking I’m realizing that this wouldn’t be the right match for me.”

* “As we’re talking, I’m realizing that this job wouldn’t be right for me, and since I want to be respectful of your time I don’t think it makes sense for me to continue with the rest of the day’s meetings.”

* “It sounds like this job is really focused on X. I’m actively trying to move away from X and focus on Y, so this doesn’t sound like it would be the right match. I don’t want to take up more of your time so why don’t we wrap up here and you can focus on other candidates.”

Again, the bar should be fairly high for doing this, but in situations like the ones above it’s a reasonable choice.

To your other questions: It would be fine to give feedback to the HR person afterwards! You could say that the questions gave you a very different idea of the role than she had (and be specific about the two questions you shared here because those are %$&*#!) and/or that the interviewers were dismissive to the point of rudeness. As for why they’d have that many people interview you: they’re terrible at hiring! That explains basically all of this.

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  1. cele*

    LOL. As a Senior Events Manager, this is absurd. Interviewing with FIFTY people for a junior planning position?! Asking how you would solve global conflicts?! Consider this a bullet dodged, imo.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      Yes, as a fellow events planner, I completely agree that these questions (and the entire interview process) were beyond ridiculous. I plan conferences in an area in which I had zero knowledge/experience of before starting this job. We have people with the knowledge that I don’t have and it works fine! Maybe they thought they were testing your ability to be diplomatic and stay calm in tough situations with those ridiculous scenarios – but actually, they were telling you that they have no idea how to interview people to successfully identify candidates with the skills they need for this role.

      I would be willing to bet money that this events department is an absolute dumpster fire that couldn’t organise successful tea party for teddy bears, much less an actual conference.

      1. cele*

        Totally agree. Prior to this job, I worked at an organization that really, truly had no idea what goes into an event, and it was SO difficult to get what I needed. That’s definitely not the kind of place you want to learn logistics!

    2. Ama*

      Yeah this is definitely an org that doesn’t know what questions to ask a potential event planner which probably means they don’t actually know what an event planner does. And as someone who worked for an org like that (I regularly had to defend the skills of the event planners I was contracting with because senior management seemed to think I “shouldn’t be spending time” giving them details like what set up we wanted for the room and a briefing on who our VIP attendees were) – OP is definitely better off without this particular job.

      2. Meaningful hats*

        I was once the sole event planner for a company that held multiple large-scale events per month. Nobody there understood why I burned out after 18 months because, “The venue staff sets up the tables and everything so what do you even have to do?”.

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          Ohhhh, screw those people. I hope they has a rude awakening when they discovered exactly what you were doing all day after you left!

        2. Emmy Noether*

          I organized ONE large event and it nearly drove me bananas (on top of my normal workload, but still…). I had respect for event planners before that, but it definitely skyrocketed after. Setting up tables would be the easiest part.

      3. Elizabeth West*

        I’m struggling to understand what they DO think an event planner does. Going by the first WTF question, do they think they would organize an invasion????

        My entire brain just short-circuited.

          1. TooTiredToThink*

            I can’t imagine the Israel-Palestine question would be helpful in any context except two: 1) they were incredibly lazy and not thinking it through 2) they wanted to test the politics of the interviewee to weed out those they didn’t want.

        2. Wildbow*

          The way I read it, they decided, “We’ll take in a huge number of applicants, and then we’ll be brutal in cutting the list down. By the end, the person who is left will be the best of the best, forged in hellfire.”

          So all of the interviewers are going into things with the mindset of whittling down the 50 applicants to 1 by any means necessary, self-reinforcing, probably with a fair measure of bully culture in the mix (“Did you see how she stumbled when I asked that? Haha.”).

          1. Jam on Toast*

            My BIL is a logistics officer in the military. He is literally tasked with organizing the supplies and getting the right people to whatever part of the country or world on time. He is absolutely using event planning skills to do this.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      I’m actually visualizing this completely screwed up team now all high-fiving each other because they made it into AAM.
      It’s the only logical scenario!

    4. Munich Insecurity Conference*

      They were not asking LW to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

      They were gauging how she deals with difficult people, or people who want to be controversial or tendentious.

      Those personality types show up very frequently for conferences, especially for “ideas” conferences like TED Talks, or the World Economic Forum, or Renaissance Weekend.

      1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

        I really dislike these comments that engage in fantasy, where the clearly weird behavior is explained away.

        Yes, they were asking her to solve the conflict. They were not gauging how she handles difficult people. You know this because they didn’t ask, “tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult person”. This wouldn’t even be a good question for a poli-sci major.

        Also, she is entry level – she probably hasn’t dealt with your imaginary tendentious person! And as a junior event planner, she would not be moderating a conference.

        You don’t need to work so hard to justify crappy interviewers who don’t know what they’re doing.

        1. Tea Monk*

          Yea, they picked such a bad example. It’s highly emotionally charged and the skills to defuse that conflict are probably not the same skills LW needs to defuse a situation in which the spaghetti the caterer made was served cold

      2. Goldenrod*

        “They were not asking LW to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They were gauging how she deals with difficult people”

        Actually, they were. According to the LW, the question literally was: How would you solve a crisis like the Israel-Palestine conflict?

        You weren’t there (so far as we know), so you can’t say with certainly why they asked. The question, on the face of it, is absurd.

        If they wanted to gauge how LW deals with difficult people, they could have asked how LW deals with difficult people. They did not. They asked LW how to solve a global crisis. Which is CRAY CRAY.

        1. Munich Insecurity Conference*

          If they wanted to gauge how LW deals with difficult people, they could have asked how LW deals with difficult people.

          …which would lead to a generic reply with glittering generalities. A concrete, laser-focused question is often better. YMMV, of course.

          1. Strive to Excel*

            “Laser-focused question” – sure, but it’s only useful if it’s something that’s *likely to come up in a job*.

            How about:
            * A long-time subcontractor has abruptly hiked their price and is being combative when you try and negotiate with them
            * An key internal employee isn’t providing their calendar for you to use to schedule
            * A key stakeholder is insisting on a specific venue that is far out of the budget of the event

            Just to name a few.

          2. Kay*

            I mean – its not like anyone in the entire world has yet solved the Israel-Palestine conflict, so… What? They expected the potential junior event planner pool of candidates would be the unsung unicorns this world didn’t know should be the front lines of peacekeeping missions worldwide and they were going to win a Nobel Prize for their novelty?!?! Come on now, back to planet earth and reasonable job related interview scenarios.

            But to answer that question I would have said “I wouldn’t, that is far outside my area of expertise, but to be clear, I am interviewing for the position of events coordinator correct? If so, can you provide some insight on this question? Do you regularly experience military conflicts at the events I would be hired to plan?” and then I would wait in silence for their response and try not to laugh.

            1. Mizzle*

              And just think… this unicorn who could solve this conflict… they want to hire them to plan their events at a junior level salary while the conflict rages on. Priorities, man!

          3. Mentally Spicy*

            It’s the OPPOSITE of a laser-focussed question! It’s way too broad, way too big and is utterly irrelevant to the work experience.

            And, I would argue, is essentially unanswerable except by an geopolitical expert who is steeped in the context and history of the region in question.

            The only real answer to the question is “I’m not an expert on this subject and don’t feel comfortable giving an answer”. Which is about as generic and generalised as it gets!

            1. Munich Insecurity Conference*

              It’s the OPPOSITE of a laser-focussed question! It’s way too broad, way too big and is utterly irrelevant to the work experience.

              You and I can — and probably will! — agree to disagree on this point. Fair enough.

              But my broader point is this. The company gets to decide (within the bounds of law and decorum and what not, but none of that is implicated here) what questions to ask, and whether those questions yield meaningful information. The interviewee of course gets to bow out of the process if s/he dislikes the questions. None of this means that either side is evil, or malicious, or acting in bad faith.

              Not every interviewer is going to mesh with every interviewee, and that’s OK.

              1. Nah*

                I’m frankly baffled at your argument for this being an acceptable question and now I absolutely *have* to know how on earth your own response to this question, *as asked* “how would you resolve the Israel/Palestine Conflict?” in an interview.

          4. Irish Teacher.*

            A concrete laser-focused question can be better but this one was a terrible example for a whole host of reasons. Firstly, it is extremely political and any solution anybody suggested would be likely to give information on their politics and possibly even hint at their religion. Also…it…doesn’t tell you anything about how they would deal with difficult people.

            Asking “how would you deal with a conference attendee who kept pushing their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” might be a reasonable question, though even there, I’d be inclined to choose a less fraught example, as this is also a question that could be very upsetting for anybody with relatives in the area or even anybody who isJewish or Muslim. But asking “how would you solve the conflict?” doesn’t even answer that question. If somebody says they favour a two-state solution or they would put pressure on one side or the other to end the conflict, that…really doesn’t tell you anything about how they would deal with an issue of conflict in the workplace.

            It’s also too theoretical. Even if they did answer about how they would negotiate peace between the two sides (and I don’t think most people would; I think most people would just say something like “I’d encourage both sides to engage in talks”), what somebody thinks they would do if they were a neutral peacebroker in a war situation does not necessarily tell you anything about what they would do in a more everyday situation, both because the situations are so different and because people aren’t really thinking of themselves when they imagine themselves as a UN peace envoy or whatever; they are thinking about what the ideal response would be.

            And as I mentioned above, the example is terrible because it could be triggering or traumatic for a lot of people and also because you’re unlikely to get an honest answer because it is so controversial. Most people are going to be tying themselves up in knots trying to say something neutral so that if the interviewer has strong views on either side, they won’t judge the interviewee as possibly being on the other side.

            But mostly, it just…doesn’t get the answer to that question if that is what they want. Most people would interpret that question as being about whether you support a two-state solution or whatever, not how would you deal with people who were difficult while you were trying to negotiate peace.

            1. Vultures, vultures everywhere*

              You guys are all missing the point. It’s perfectly obvious why they asked specifically about Israel-Palestine (and not Tigray or wherever). They specifically want to know whether OP has Strong Feelings about this particular conflict.

              We have seen almost 18 months of obnoxious and disruptive protestors spoiling all sorts of events. Some of these events have been cancelled, no doubt at great cost to the organizers. Often the protesters disguise themselves and worm their way into the events. Most (not all) of them are pro-Palestine.

              A junior event planner has a lot of discretion in hiring vendors and admitting them into the event venue. If someone were minded to disrupt an event, having an organizer as an ally would be a tremendous help. The LW is also a recent graduate, and most of these protestors are coming from campus activism backgrounds.

              They want to make sure she’s not a mole or sympathizer who is going to ruin their next high profile event. And that’s reasonable in the context of all these protests.

              I am very surprised that no in this very long thread has latched on to this.

            2. Munich Insecurity Conference*

              Firstly, it is extremely political

              There are roles where political skills are important and you have to demonstrate political judgment. (Certain kinds of high-level conferences can be among them.) If an applicant finds that triggering, then those roles aren’t right for that applicant. The employer also is within its rights to define those roles.

              What is your fragile applicant going to do if an Israeli cabinet minister shows up at her conference?

              2. Irish Teacher.*

                I wasn’t talking about fragile applicants. Having triggers doesn’t make a person fragile.

                And firstly, we have absolutely no reason to believe this is a role related to politics. I think we can assume it isn’t or the LW would have mentioned it. So yeah, even if the kind of roles you have mentioned might not be right for somebody, it sounds like the job the LW was being interviewed for would be fine for them.

                Nobody is saying there is no role where it might be appropriate to ask somebody’s opinion on politics. What we are saying is that it is not appropriate for this role.

                There is a difference between asking about politics in an interview for a role in which it might be relevant and asking about a particularly controversial political issue as a way to try and guess how somebody might deal with difficult people.

                And there is also a big difference between meeting an Israeli cabinet minister and being asked a question that, as others have mentioned, has a pretty good chance of being intended to “suss out” if you are a certain religion or hold particular political beliefs.

                People who have experienced trauma are still able to meet people who have connections to that trauma. And even if they couldn’t…honestly, to deny say a Palestinian refugee a job in events management because you’re concerned that an Israeli cabinet minister might some day show up at an event being organised and the potential employee might not want to be the one to greet that person…would be bizarre.

                1. Munich Insecurity Conference*

                  We have absolutely no reason to believe this is a role related to politics. I think we can assume it isn’t or the LW would have mentioned it.

                  We know that it’s a high-profile organization (aka “a national organization with a recognizable name”) that runs conferences either as a core part of its business, or at least a significant enough part that it has in-house event staff. An organization with a national footprint like this is likely to have some controversial speakers on its roster (particularly in an age when practically everything is controversial politically).

                  Let me take one example. There are a quite a few dedicated conference firms that organize investment conferences as part of their core business. A good example is Adam Smith Conferences, which organizes conferences in emerging Europe and Asia. (Adam Smith Conferences is but one example of a company like this, to be clear.)

                  If you surf to the Adam Smith Conferences website, you’ll see photos of their events, includes logo placements. Among the recent conferences they’ve organized are the “Russian Wealth Advisors Forum,” and among the organizations that sponsor their conferences are Ukraine Invest (the Ukrainian government’s FDI promotion agency) and various professional service firms with long client rosters in both Ukraine and Russia.

                  You don’t have to be the Secretary of State to recognize that this is a diplomatic and cultural minefield. And yet it’s a minefield that the conference organizer, including its event planners, will have to deal with if the firm wants to play in this sandbox.

                  To be sure, much of the burden of navigating the difficult question will fall on the organizers — but not all of it. Junior event planners will need to chase logos from sponsors for banners and rotating Power Points, for example. They may need to get involved in controversies about whose logo goes where, for instance, which can get surprisingly heated. If the event planner is oblivious to world events and can’t field these inquiries with finesse, you have the potential for blowups and majorly annoyed sponsors.

                  The organization could also be a big media company — the Financial Times has an investor conference unit, for instance, and IIRC the Economist does too — or a think tank, some of which have in-house event planning staff. Again, those are all the kinds of organizations where showing some political savvy, and awareness of current events, is an important part of the job, even at junior levels. Even at a less geopolitical organization like TechCrunch, the planners will still be interacting with Israeli companies and will want to know that its staff can interact with them notwithstanding personal opinions about the conflict.

                  Now again, do we know anything about the nature of this company with metaphysical certainty? Of course not. (The business *could* be organizing the annual retreat of the Hawaiian Birdwatchers Association, I suppose.) But is that *likely*, given the little we know? Equally, of course not.

                  Drawing inferences is a thing. I *certainly* think it’s reasonable to presume, absent evidence to the contrary, that the employer knows its business, that there is a rational basis for asking these questions, and that it finds the responses valuable. Moreover, that presumption is far more likely to hold than saying, “welp, 50 people all woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

        2. Jennifer Snow*

          I suspect they were trying to elicit information on the interviewee’s political positions for “culture fit” purposes. Which is also a horrible sign.

      3. Armchair analyst*

        I’m actually in agreement with another poster who thinks the question was asked to sus out the applicant’s political or personal views on the topic, which may be interesting but seem to have no bearing on this job

      4. Crooked Bird*

        Wait–do you mean they were *impersonating* a set of difficult people for her to deal with??

        It’s genius! Genius I tells ya!

    5. Tiger Snake*

      My thought was that the company is actually trying just do all their hiring at once – so on their end, they have multiple panels for the different roles they’re hiring for, and then by some amazing, terrible mix-up, LW has ended up being put on ALL the different candidate lists instead of the just one she wanted.

    6. Raida*

      I wonder if the interviewers all sucked because they wasted so much time doing stupid policy sh*t like using up three members of their technical team to interview a graduate for an unrelated position… That they just hate it.

    7. Avi!*

      “Do you find that Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and hate crimes are a common result of your conferences?”

  2. CTA*

    I was once invited for a day of several hours of interviews with a company. In the instructions, the company stated that they reserved the right to cut the interview short and cancel the remaining ones if they deemed fit. So if a employer can decide to cancel the rest of my interviews because they don’t deem me fit (after I block out an entire day for them), then I could definitely withdraw if I saw it fit. On the day of the actual interview, none of my interviews were canceled (I didn’t get the job either, but I found opportunity elsewhere). This was during the peak of Covid when all interviews were remote, so I have no idea if that employer still has that policy of cutting interviews short and canceling the rest.

    1. Antilles*

      The situation is so bonkers that it makes me wonder if it’s the opposite version of that:
      The company was required by company policy that you must interview X candidates, but had already decided on their preferred candidate. They didn’t want to actually cancel the interviews themselves because The Policy Requires X Candidates, but hoped that by sending the interviews completely off the rails, OP would pull out.

      1. Snow Globe*

        I have a hard time imagining a company policy that would require 50 people (!!!) to interview X candidates.

        1. Artemesia*

          In academic hiring it would not be unusual for a candidate over two days to be judged by 50+ people in one on one and panel interviews and then in. multiple presentations.

          1. lebkin*

            The idea that you’d go through 50 people once for interviews is more than I’d ever want to do. That it’d a regular thing in academia? That’s a whole field of nope for me.

            1. JFC*

              Definitely common in academia. My husband is a department head in a university and hiring is always a whole drama.

              1. Munich Insecurity Conference*

                Day-long interviews are also common at professional services firms, including banks, consulting firms, and law firms. Consulting firms are more likely to have group interviews.

                This advice will go against the consensus here no doubt, but I think this is a situation where OP should put on his big boy pants and complete the interviews, for several reasons:

                – You get practice interviewing. (Yes, tough interviews are a thing.)

                – You will get a poor reputation in the industry by flaking out midway through. If the company he eventually joined is in the same industry, it would be unsurprising if people from the first company know people at the second.

                – Professional conferences, particularly “ideas festivals” type conferences (I have no idea whether this firm was one of them, of course), attract strong personalities and will have panels on contentious topics. The event planner is not exempt from interacting with them. That is what this company was testing for.

                1. ABC123*

                  But what type of interaction would a junior events planner have with them? I highly doubt they would be responsible for moderating debates or anything like that.

                  Wouldn’t a behavioral question about the actual job duties still makes more sense?

                  Something like. “We host debates about the Israel/Palestine conflict. If a panelist suddenly attacked another what would you do”.

                  You don’t need to be a Nobel laureate to know something like. “Evacuate the crowd, call security and a manager” is probably the right answer

                2. JSPA*

                  For intro level support planning staff? Hah, no. And it’s not like it was one or two left-field question out of many relevant questions. Unless they actually intended to hire for a bouncer / enforcer / crackpot-distractor.

                3. Squishy*

                  Have you … worked with any events planners? There is no world in which being asked to propose a solution to such a conflict is appropriate for that role. How are you so sure this was their angle?

                  “Big-boy pants” is patronizing. I personally wouldn’t see this as flaking out; I’d see it as courageously standing up to bananapants interview processes that shouldn’t be tolerated.

                4. Irish Teacher.*

                  This issue isn’t that the interview was tough though. It was that, especially if you are correct about what they were trying to test for, it a poorly done interview, since those questions don’t even give you an accurate indication of how the person would deal with difficult personalities.

                  So I have my doubts that this is much value as regards getting experience of interviews, since it’s such an outlier.

                  And while it’s valid to say that the person would have been better off completing the interview, it has nothing to do with “big boy pants.” Ending the interview would, arguably, be more of an example of putting on one’s big boy pants because that requires a lot of confidence in oneself whereas continuing the interview while internally rolling your eyes is the easier option.

                  Personally, I would continue the interview just because it is the easier option and hey, it gives me a funny story to tell, but that’s not putting on big girl/boy pants.

                6. Munich Insecurity Conference*

                  Have you … worked with any events planners?

                  Since you asked, I am a serial entrepreneur. One of my businesses runs a biannual conference, which is small but that attracts high-profile attendees. (It’s not the Munich Security Conference alluded to in my username, but it is fair to call it similar/adjacent to that kind of conference.)

                  I have had two occasions to hire an event planner for the conference. I absolutely want to know that the event planner:
                  – Knows a little bit about the themes of the conference and understands something about the regions of the world we work in
                  – Is savvy enough to avoid diplomatic/social faux-pas when working with people from those regions
                  – Can deal with the aforementioned strong personalities
                  – Is OK working with high-profile figures from countries that may be controversial from a geopolitical perspective

                  Those are not my first criteria for picking an event planner — I want to know first and foremost that he or she can create the right atmosphere for the event — but they are absolutely relevant.

                  To give one example of why, a high-profile business figure from an Asian country once contacted our event planner out of the blue to ask how he could bring a delegation to the conference. To this day I don’t know how he got the planner’s contact information or why he didn’t reach out to the organizing committee, but that’s how we approached us. This kind of story isn’t *that* uncommon. So even for an event planning role, I need someone who are presentable before high-profile figures and can communicate with them professionally and diplomatically.

                  I of course do not know what company LW interviewed with, or what themes or regions that company’s conferences deal with — but she did say the organization is something of a household name, so it would not surprise me if the organizing committee deals with high-profile folks and is thinking along these lines.

                  It may be that one or more of the company’s conferences touches on the Middle East conflict in some way, for instance, or deals in an industry like cybersecurity or pharmaceuticals where Israeli companies are very active. Or perhaps the employer is someone like the Rand Corporation or the Brookings Institution, which host conferences on controversial topics probably every week.

                  Again, maybe I’m wrong, and the organization hosts low-stakes conferences for the American Association for Hardwood Furniture, the National Pie Restaurant Alliance, or something like that, and the interviewers are just being ridiculous. But it’s more logical to surmise that there is a rationale for these questions, and that they’re not coming from a random word generator.

                  The employer is not looking for a silver-bullet solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that the Martin Indyks of the world never came up with. They’re looking for a passing familiarity with the main points of the conflict (e.g., so that the employee doesn’t quit six months after being hired because “I’m totally on the side of Group X and you never told me I would have to work with folks from Group Y!”, or so that the employee doesn’t say something culturally vacuous, like “I didn’t know Israelis have to serve in the army, how gross!”)

                  If the applicant dislikes these questions, fair enough. Event planning is a big industry, and I’m a firm believer that not every company is a match for every job seeker. An interview is a chance for the applicant to evaluate the company, not only vice versa. It may be that lower-stakes event planning role, like wedding planning, or the aforementioned (fictional) minor trade associations, suits LW better.

                  It sounds like LW found an interesting job, and I’d bet dollars to donuts the company found some someone else for the role in due course. All’s well that ends well, and all that.

            2. Higher Ed Person*

              I mean, I’ve interviewed at 7 higher educational institutions for TT faculty positions, and I don’t think I’ve come close to speaking with 50 people. This varies highly by field.

              1. Incarnadine*

                If you’re counting seminar talks and teaching a lesson, it can hit 50+ very easily. Most of those people (undergrads, grad students, random faculty) don’t bother to actually give feedback, but they’re invited to do so.

                Two days of back-to-back consecutive meetings with all the faculty in the department, lunches with undergrads and grad students and you’re at 30 easily even without counting large presentations.

            3. Charlotte Lucas*

              And then there are the informal parts of that. I remember being a grad student and invited to go to lunch with other grad students and a candidate. I wasn’t an official part of the hiring process, but they wanted our impressions on candidates. (This was a desirable invitation, because it was also a free lunch at a fairly nice restaurant.)

            4. zuzu*

              It is. Everyone has to have a say and by god, there are people who will make sure they will say something even if they have nothing to add. I came from private law practice and have never had so many meetings in my life as I’ve had in academia. You don’t have meetings in litigation unless you really, really need to meet because you want your time to be billable.

              The smartest thing a couple of the schools I worked at did was hold faculty meetings at 4 p.m. on Wednesday afternoons; the dean of the first one got the idea from the second one, where she’d come from. Otherwise, you have old guys just talking to talk for hours. The first place I worked in academia made the mistake of having faculty meetings at noon on Fridays and serving lunch. And even though I was invited to attend as a librarian (you’re not always, nor do you always have a vote), I went to one where I presented, got stuck having to listen to two old guys wank over some minor issue for hours, then never went back.

              I did go to the Wednesday afternoon faculty meetings because I got a vote and they usually got stuff done by 6. Hiring was ridiculous, because it took them forever to understand that they had to pry themselves away from chasing after the same few diverse candidates with Harvard/Yale/Stanford credentials that all the other schools were chasing. Like, maybe broaden your academic diversity as well? Not just rely on the same well-worn hiring dance and the same fellowships and the same backgrounds and then lose out year after year when someone with a more attractive US News ranking or job market for a trailing spouse comes along? But good lord, you’d think that was sacrilege. Some of the shit these people said about highly qualified candidates just because they were diverse but didn’t go to Harvard. Even though some of them only got their jobs because they went to our school.

              Academia: where the fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

            5. An academic*

              In academia, you wouldn’t directly interview with over 50 people. But you’d have hour-long interviews with some people; breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two days with 3-4 people each time; give a chalk talk in front of 20 people; and give a formal presentation to maybe 40 people. There’s overlap in who attends what, but in the end, there could easily be more than 50 people who fill out the Google form evaluating you.

              To be fair, you are interviewing someone who will be your colleague *for the rest of your life.* In my department, you can’t really get rid of someone before tenure, it is extremely rare for someone to not get tenure, and you definitely can’t get rid someone after tenure. So, hiring is the only real chance to yes/no a colleague, and you have to make a careful choice.

          2. Happy meal with extra happy*

            Academia is such an outlier, though, that I don’t think you can/should compare its hiring practices to any other field.

            1. Rex Libris*

              Academia is an outlier in practically everything. A friend of mine was a professor before they just couldn’t take the politics, mismanagement and power struggles between the deans and the tenured faculty any more and noped out. They find the world of public non-profits a bastion of sanity, common sense and good business practice by comparison.

            2. Irina*

              Dutch academia datapoint: at my youngest daughter’s graduation, she went forward to sign the papers and her phone which was beside me on the chair went “blip”. “You have a text,” I said when she came back, and it was a job offer (in her exact field). Had the job for 5 years until she went on to an even better fit.

              1. allathian*

                I think the idea of getting job offers by text is rather cool. (Platform jobs like DoorDash, Uber, or Lyft etc. where you get your next assignment on the app obviously don’t count.)

          3. Elitist Semicolon*

            Especially at a state school, where there may be a mandate that the committee interview everyone who meets the basic quals. (Staff positions, not faculty positions.) Departments learn to be very specific about what they set as their basic qualifications in order to avoid having to do 40 first-round interviews.

          4. AnotherSarah*

            For sure–but at least in my experience, on committees and as a candidate, the questions are relevant and what you need to do at the on-campus interviews is standard, and also relevant.
            I was once asked a bonkers question but I knew it was coming, because that particular person was really hung up on the issue and asked it of everyone, and the search chair told me to look out for it and to know that it didn’t reflect on the job or the desires of the committee as a whole (and it wasn’t nearly as bonkers as the qs here).

    2. TechWorker*

      Was your objection that they ‘reserved the right to do it’ (quite normal, imo) or that they explicitly told you that they had? (Less normal, perhaps).

      I don’t think it’s super respectful of a candidates time either to ask you to spend a full day if it’s clear you’re not the right fit for the position 15min in. Like, I definitely wouldn’t cut short an interview if it’s only 45min or an hour, but a full day is a lot of time to invest on both sides if it’s clearly not going to work out.

      1. Silver Robin*

        I did not read it as an objection, but rather as arguing that if the employer side is definitely willing to do it, regardless of the amount of time set aside, the interviewee should feel just as empowered.

    3. A*

      At my company they only cut it short if you’re being abusive or there’s issues of honesty or integrity… like the time the guy showed up for what had been clearly and expressly communicated as a four hour interview process and asked us to speed it up because he hasn’t bothered to tell his current job when he’d be coming in late (missing the entire morning!) Mind you this was a very flexible hours industry and at most companies just vaguely mentioning an appointment would be enough that nobody cares what time you come in, so not bothering to tell your work was A Choice

      He spent the first interview trying to get the interviewer to go faster so he could get out sooner and after that we told him you know what, just head off to work, that’s enough for today!

  3. Anonym*

    OP, you sound clear headed and sensible, and like a great asset to any organization. If you end up deciding to give feedback to the HR person, please consider sharing an update. Congratulations on landing the job with a decent, reasonable organization!

    1. NotAnotherManager!*

      I agree with this. LW’s sense of normal is dead on, and I’m so glad that they decided to do an early gut check rather than warp their excellent sense of normalcy to what sounds like a terrible workplace. Really good judgment and also glad they landed a job somewhere else!

    2. Hats Are Great*

      OP, you should also consider reporting this to your college’s career services office, so they can warn future grads, or possibly interrogate the HR team there why they treated one of their alumni so terribly.

      1. AnReAr*

        Yep. I have a family member who is the head of the career services office at a college. She would ban this employer faster than they could blink if the HR team didn’t disavow those interviewers. Honestly might just ban them either way this was so egregious. A good career center will care very much about the outcomes of their graduates, not just current students. Even if not on a personal level it’s like the #1 way in our society to actually track the value someone gets from higher education, so higher education institutions that aren’t research focused are all about good job placement.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      100% agree with this!
      I wish I was hiring an event planner. You sound incredibly level headed and intelligent.
      Good luck!

  4. Antilles*

    how I would solve a crisis like the Israel-Palestine conflict,
    I don’t know, but if I had the magic answer to a decades-long conflict, I sure as hell wouldn’t be interviewing for (checks post) a logistics support position for event planning.

    1. Rex Libris*

      I would have totally, with a straight face, said “I’m afraid the White House has asked me not to divulge that.”

      4. Velawciraptor*

        Or “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize this was an interview for a diplomatic position. I’m certainly not qualified for such work. Do you by any chance have the link for the event planer interviews I was supposed to be in?”

        2. It's a start?*

          An Aussie musician/comedian had a ‘bit’ a decade or two ago touching on how negotiations typically start with finding something in common that both sides can agree on, and building from there.
          He then wrote a little song called Peace Anthem for Palestine which was:
          “We don’t eat pigs, and you don’t eat pigs; seems it’s been that way forever.
          So if you don’t eat pigs, and we don’t eat pigs; why not, not eat pigs together?”

          2. Timothy (TRiG)*

            Tim Minchin is a genius, but I don’t think he sings that song any more. It’s a bit too trivial, and he’s become more thoughtful (and perhaps more aware of the size of his platform, as he becomes more famous).

    3. tamarack etc.*

      “I understand event planning can be a contentious field, but I didn’t realize your events were at that level of conflict.” (No, don’t say that. But it’s so absurd it’s perfectly ok to pull out.)

      1. Silver Robin*

        Idk, I think it might actually be fair to say something like “Based on your questions, it sounds like there is quite a bit of conflict between stakeholders for these events. Can you speak more to how event planning normally goes here and what obstacles you envision I would face?”

    4. MigraineMonth*

      “Well, I would check how many chairs would comfortably fit into the event space for the peace conference, then I’d follow up with the caterers to make sure there were sufficient halal and kosher options…”

      Since we all know that the key to resolving hundred-year intractable international conflicts with regional and global ramifications comes down to the skills of the event planner.

      1. Silver Robin*

        Wildly incorrect but I now want to read a thriller from the point of view of an event planner who works for some highly sensitive diplomatic mission and the success of the treaty comes down to the canapes served at the reception…

        1. Carol the happy*

          Do the diplomats stab at each other with those little frilly toothpicks, or do they joust with drink umbrellas?

          I really need to know. (rolls eyes and sighs….)

        2. The Prettiest Curse*

          The special, Nobel Peace prize-winning canapés are on a secret catering menu that can only be accessed by correctly solving a series of bizarre hypothetical interview scenarios.

        3. My Brain is Exploding*

          How about the Andy Griffith episode where Andy winds up hosting an American-Russian summit meeting and they start to get along when they creep down to the kitchen at night to snack on some of Aunt Bee’s yummy leftovers? And pickles sealed the deal.

            1. Elizabeth West*

              LOL yes, this is a real episode.

              Off-topic, but the way Andy did his job on this show was cited in my Police Patrol class in college as a stellar example of community policing.

        4. Incarnadine*

          That’s the usual plot of books in the *Inkeeper* series by Illona Andrews (fantasy series where the protagonist hosts a series of tricky interspecies diplomatic meetings and summits).

          1. Strive to Excel*

            It helps when your mediator is able to put everyone in magically-induced time-out!

            Love that series.

        5. Happy Cat*

          Not a thriller, but the book Protocol, by former chief of protocol for Clinton and Obama, is a fascinating read, and practical beyond high-stakes politics. (Much of my previous job did actually involve events planning with diplomats. . .)

        6. Irish Teacher.*

          Actually, while it wasn’t a big deal or anything, I think there was a slight issue with the Good Friday Agreement. It was meant to be finalised the previous day so I think the fact that Catholics aren’t supposed to eat meat on Good Friday wasn’t really considered and…sausage rolls were brought in after midnight on the change to Good Friday. I think they might also have had to send out for meat free meals the next day or something, as the negotiations dragged on and on (I remember this well, as the agreement was about 6 weeks before my Leaving Cert. and I felt I should be studying but didn’t want to leave the TV and miss the announcement of whether peace had been agreed or not).

          So yeah, I think such a story could be made to work. It wasn’t a big deal there, but I can imagine situations in which bringing in sausage rolls on a day when some of one side can’t eat them could seem insensitive (not all nationalists are Catholics; I mean most are culturally Catholic but not all are practicing or even necessarily believers, but Martin McGuiness certainly followed the prohibition on meat as he mentioned it afterwards, just in a “oh dear, I nearly broke the rules because I didn’t realise for a moment it was after midnight” way, and I assume others did too).

          And yup, I would actually like to read such a novel. Even without the “everything comes down to this one thing,” just the whole “we need to ensure neither side has better accommodation, need to ensure both cultures dietary, etc rules are respected…because if either side feels the other is being favoured, it could cause havoc.”

      2. Phony Genius*

        Well I remember a recent photo of a meeting between the two sides (one of the failed cease-fire meetings). I noticed at the center of the table there was a well-placed array of bottles of water for all the participants. Somebody had to arrange for that. But I am sure that the person who had the job of planning that aspect of the meeting went through a much simpler interview process.

      3. Armchair analyst*

        I think it was the Yalta conference that had a big dust-up over who got to sit at the head of the table, and maybe the table ended up being square or a circle instead of a rectangle or an oval. Obviously that was not up to the events planner, but up to the negotiators!

      4. Christmas Carol*

        As I recall, back during the Vietman War, the issue of the shape of the conference table was quite the sticking point at the Paris Peace Talks. Henry Kissinger, please call the office.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        My interpretation: With that many people involved in that bonkers of an interview process, they would rather do anything else than work.

    6. Munich Insecurity Conference*

      They’re not looking for answer. There is no “right” answer to a question like that (assuming the company wasn’t a lobbying firm or something like that). They are looking to see whether LW could address controversial topics diplomatically.

      1. Plate of Wings*

        If I absolutely needed to get this from a candidate I would say something like “how would you redirect the conversation if a big donor attendee who was drinking started asking you about something charged, like about the Israel Palestine conflict or about your dating life or your medical history?”

        It gives the candidate the “out” so they can respond to any of the 3, but they don’t actually have to divulge a single thing about any of the 3 in their answer. And it still has the “benefit” of catching the candidate off guard if you feel like that’s the only way you can get honesty.

        But I don’t think it is. Even the way the question was asked according to LW, they don’t have a higher chance of getting the candidate’s true non-interviewing veneer, if that’s what they’re after. They would just alienate people who are actually diplomatic and have a sense of what’s appropriate, which means they’re less likely to hire someone who’s good with difficult people!

      2. Antilles*

        Why would that be relevant for a new graduate working in an event planning role as described by OP? OP isn’t being asked to serve as MC and handle an open mic Q&A where someone might ask for her thoughts about how to solve the crisis, she’s doing event logistics. Being able to off-the-cuff talk diplomatically about controversial topics simply isn’t a relevant skill set for the job as described (or for the vast majority of entry-level jobs period, tbh).
        A far more relevant check on “handling situations diplomatically” would be asking how OP would handle if other people got into a heated argument over the conflict, how would OP defuse the situation.

  5. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    Yikes. It’s like you were being set up to fail.

    On the bright side, you found the unicorn organization that actually cares about what you figured out in your 3am dorm-hallway philosophical discussions!

    1. Aggretsuko*

      These people sound insane and “set up to fail” is accurate. You’re trying to event plan, not solve peace in the Middle East!!!

      1. Kiwi*

        I mean, that would be a REALLY big event to plan! Poor OP, I can’t imagine facing something like this as a recent grad

    2. Hoary Vervain*

      And now I’m over here digging wistfully and kinda wishing I still believed I had all the answers…we were definitely convinced at three am in our dorms that if someone just listened to us it’d all work out…

    3. Wendy Darling*

      I went to a liberal arts college so I knew some 22 year old stoners with EXTENSIVE ideas about how to bring about peace in the Middle East and tbh having to talk to those guys for 45-60 minutes sounds like just punishment for asking that question in a job interview.

      1. DramaQ*

        I went to a liberal arts college so I knew some 22 year old stoners with EXTENSIVE ideas about how to bring about peace in the Middle East and tbh having to talk to those guys for 45-60 minutes sounds like just punishment for asking that question in a job interview.

        LMAO now I wish the LW had said “Hold on, according to my college experience that is a question for me to answer while I’m high .. .be right back” then disappear off camera for a few minutes.

    4. Cyndi*

      I don’t think anything I ever “figured out” in those conversations actually stuck in my head past, oh, whatever time I sobered up afterwards.

      1. Strive to Excel*

        Conclusion: people are much more affable when they’re high. All diplomatic negotiations must henceforth be conducted when all parties are impaired.

        2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

          The Persians actually did a variation on this.

          If an idea sounded good when sober, then everyone gets drunk and discusses it again. Only if it makes sense both times should you proceed.

  6. Olive*

    As a junior events planner myself, the hardest part of my position is having to solve global conflicts rooted in centuries of intersecting trauma. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it

    All jokes aside, WTF indeed, they will be lucky if anyone makes it through all that!

    1. But Of Course*

      I was shocked to learn, when I stepped into events planning on a temporary basis a few years ago, that interpersonal hate crimes were now part of my brief, but I remain proud of my work on the fighting in the Tigray region; I think there’s real hope for a lasting peace there as a result of the professional development conference I planned.

      1. Delta Delta*

        When I was a college intern helping to plan events at a land conservancy one of my bigger summer projects was to plan an evening walk to look for owls. I almost couldn’t pull it off because I also had to solve the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Luckily I got that done AND we saw 6 owls.

      2. Ginger Beer*

        ButOfCourse, I thank you for your good work. Also for planning any professional development conference that was worthwhile.

      3. Rob aka Mediancat*

        Me, I had to both plan a party for a group at work, AND I had to figure out how to best to handle a global pandemic. (Not that one.)

        — the party went off fine.

    2. a bright young reporter with a point of view*

      That question especially is so clearly fishing for the interviewee’s politics and not their logistical thinking. What could they have possibly said that would be remotely relevant to the job?

      2. Conferring scientist*

        I was one of the professional society volunteers on the convention committee for my scientific organization for many years. If the role would involve being asked to directly interface with conference attendees, I can imagine asking a candidate how they would handle attendees informing them about an incident of hate speech/harassment/etc., or a political protest disrupting an event. But “what would you do if pro-[Israel/Palestinian] protestors started disrupting the keynote session” is not “how would you solve the entire Israel-Palestine conflict”. Yikes.

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          This was a ridiculous question to ask and they definitely shouldn’t have asked it, for many reasons. However, as an events person you do sometimes get thrown into complicated, high-stress scenarios in the middle of a busy event. The ability to handle those scenarios diplomatically without totally freaking out is essential. So the people who devised those scenarios may have thought of them as a kind of stress test to see how the OP would react under pressure. However, they failed to consider that fake stress test scenarios are generally considered to be an ineffective interview tactic and – at best – make the people using them look like they lack empathy and communication skills in addition to being terrible interviewers.

      3. Box of Kittens*

        This for sure, and maybe it’s reaching, but it makes me wonder if the OP is a minority and the company culture is just uniquely bigoted? You’d think that would be unlikely since surely, surely 50+ people can’t be so bigoted they’d target OP in multiple different interviews, but depending on the company culture it could be possible. ???

    3. And thanks for the coffee*

      Yes, if you can propose a way to handle this ongoing issue (that has not been solved by many wise peacemakers) we’ll make you an offer to be a junior events planner. Instead of president?

      1. I guess my entire company was the real work wife the whole time.*

        Junior events planning is a grave responsibility.

    4. LoraC*

      Well I’d plan an event that brings everyone to the table and have them hash it out! First figure out which relevant parties would be on the invite list, any dietary restriction, the approximate number of days this hypothetical meeting would take place, any security escort concerns, etc.

      I’d be stubbornly trying to redirect all the questions back to event planning.

      1. Munich Insecurity Conference*

        First figure out which relevant parties would be on the invite list, any dietary restriction, the approximate number of days this hypothetical meeting would take place, any security escort concerns, etc.

        ….which may have been a perfectly adequate answer.

        1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

          But probably not, since it was a ridiculous question, *and* they had already shown that her previous perfectly adequate answers were unacceptable. Read the whole letter.

        2. LoraC*

          You don’t need to go to bat for poor interviewers. I worked at a contracting firm that actually employ several people in the current US administration and my interview questions all pertained how to deal with big egos and difficult personalities.

          Even they didn’t ask ridiculous questions like that.

        4. Mentally Spicy*

          It’s not adequate at all in that it doesn’t actually answer the question.

          I don’t understand why you are so stubbornly insistent on dying on this hill.

    5. some dude*

      As a hiring manager, I can’t tell you how hard it is to find candidates who are adept at solving conflicts rooted in centuries of intersecting trauma. How can I expect you to do a good job scheduling meetings or processing payments if you can’t solve one of the more intractable issues in human history?

      1. Carol the happy*

        “I can’t speak to the Middle East crises, because my diplomatic training involved the Venusians with their global warming, and their conflict with the Jovian Lunar contingent.

        The closest I’ve come to solving the Terran Middle East is to ensure that the Atlantean Contingency had water helmets that completely covered their gill flaps so they didn’t die before dessert at every breakout meal.

        Sheesh. OP, just be glad you dodged that ICBM. (Pun intended.)

  8. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

    Wow.

    Maybe they wanted a specific candidate but have rules around interviewing a certain number. So they sabotaged you with bonkers questions so they could get their way. Otherwise… I got nothing.

      2. MrDoubt*

        maybe they figured that if they threw the craziest questions at candidates they would at least get some funny stories out of it?

      3. Irish Teacher.*

        Yup, I remember one interview I had that was definitely this. They kept me a total of 3 minutes and clearly weren’t listening to anything I said. I believe the interview went something like:

        Interviewer: “So tell us about your experience teaching x subject.”
        Me: “Well, I have experience of teaching it to all years from 1st year to 6th year. The only group I wouldn’t have had much experience with would be LCA. I have taught both higher and ordinary level groups and…”
        Interviewer: “And have you ever taught it to any 5th or 6th year classes?”

        It was the opposite really of this situation, as they simply asked the most mundane questions: “what year groups have you taught?” “what are your discipline strategies?” etc. I don’t think they asked one thing that you wouldn’t get in 90% of all teaching interviews. They just took a handful of the most common questions and asked them, then didn’t bother listening to the answers.

    2. NotAnotherManager!*

      That’s a lot of staff time to waste on perfunctory interviews (and having them be uniformly awful). I think it’s just a dysfunctional organization, given how nearly all of the interviews were uniformly batshit.

  9. Dawn*

    I hate to just echo Alison, but… THEY ASKED YOU HOW TO SOLVE THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE CONFLICT??!!!

    Yes, you can run away at full speed at that point; no reasonable, rational human being thinks that’s a normal or acceptable question to ask in a job interview (unless maybe the specific job you’re interviewing for is diplomat in the Middle East!,) let alone an entire panel of human beings who apparently all had no problem with this question.

    What in the good lord’s name is going on at that organization….

      1. Dadjokesareforeveryone*

        Two words: Gas leak. It’s the only thing I can think of that would drive such large numbers of people to behave in such a baffling manner.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          Ever since I started watching Resident Alien, my go-to mental response is that they’re clearly space aliens who are stuck on earth. (Only rational explanation for a former coworker.)

    2. Shenandoah*

      There’s nothing funny about what’s going on there, but I burst out laughing at that line. Incredible, galaxy brained choices going on there.

      1. Dawn*

        I mean, honestly, what else can you do?

        I think I’d burst out laughing in the interview if I were asked that, because I genuinely wouldn’t know how else to react to such a patently absurd question.

        2. Michigander*

          That’s what I thought too. I’d probably burst into laughter and assume it was some kind of joke.

    3. Owlette*

      Even for a diplomat surely you don’t ask that because it’s not a one person problem to solve!

  10. MsM*

    In addition to offering HR feedback, I’d post a detailed Glassdoor review. (And not just because I want the organization outed. Although I totally do.)

  11. katertot*

    An overly-generous read is that the employees all thought this was a ridiculous way of hiring, so you were the unfortunate recipient of some coordinated malicious compliance. Seems like they weren’t really interested in hiring someone, but rather demonstrating how awful this process was designed. Doesn’t excuse the rudeness on their parts, but I bet it was pretty effective in chasing away any quality candidates. I also probably would have stuck it out for the whole day just to see how far it would go, but Alison’s advice for gracefully bowing out is good.

    1. A Poster Has No Name*

      I had a similar thought. The malicious compliance stories from last week made me wonder if this is a situation where this company, say, routinely has people from every department interview all candidates and they want to make a point of how ridiculous that is.

      Agreed that it wouldn’t explain the rudeness to the candidate, though. Presumably they know perfectly well that the candidate won’t know answers to technical questions, so no need to be a jerk about it.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      Malicious compliance is supposed to punish the one who created or is enforcing the ridiculous policy, not the people with the least power in the situation (in this case, the interviewee).

    3. RVA Cat*

      I’m thinking there’s an internal candidate and they’re deliberately hazing all the externals?

    4. HalJordan*

      Yeah, this reads to me like “why am I, a niche-product technical specialist, being asked to spend MY valuable time interviewing a junior events planner? I don’t know anything about events!” with a side helping of advice from the internet (circa 2006) about “what you can learn from how a candidate handles outside-the-box questions”

      Definitely let your HR contact know how inefficient and off-putting this process was, OP

  12. M*

    I know it must have felt awful and demoralising in the moment, and my deepest sympathies to the OP, because *yeesh*, but this is so bad it sounds like performance art. What on earth. I’d have tapped out when a potential colleague reprimanded me for not having irrelevant-to-my-hypothetical-role specialist knowledge, or at best held out for the second interview slot to see if it was just an unusually bad-at-interviewing team that I’d drawn for the first slot of the day.

    In this case, since it was Zoom-interviews with a range of people, a quick email to the reasonable HR person who set up the second round interview day to let them know it sounds like they’re looking for someone with a lot of specialist knowledge outside the event-planning space, so you’re tapping out. If you’re still on a call when you send it, same said out loud to the people you’re talking to.

    1. coffee*

      This is so bad I feel like we’ll be referring back to how bad it was for months and years to come.

  13. Lisa*

    Fifty people is ridiculous. I’ll say though, for our College Recruiting onsite interviews, before which point you’ve been through an initial on-campus interview for general fit, we do have people do at least six different interviews. Part of this is that we will be hiring for multiple positions for new-grads and it’s a chance for all the possible departments to get time with you. We divide up the topics and each interview is focused on a different one. Each would be with at most two people though!

    Hiring for non-College Recruiting positions, you’d have at most two or three interviews, one of which would be strictly technical.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Six seems like a lot for a new grad position. Why is it important every possible department meet with them?

      I say this as someone who had someone from a X department sit in on one of my interviews, and I still have no idea why. It definitely made me worry that I’d misunderstood the role I was interviewing for. (I hadn’t, and after being hired I’ve never seen anyone from that department ever again.)

      1. Lisa*

        Because when you’re a fresh grad without a lot of experience, there are a lot of places you might be a good fit, but it’s difficult to tell from a resume. We’re clear up front about that, and that it was also an opportunity for them to feel out the departments/roles on their side as well.

        This was done as an event where we brought in multiple interviewees in the same day, so the interviewers were each talking to a few people, and at the end of the day they would get together to discuss and also tell HR who they were interested in making an offer. I think it’s not that unusual as a system for new-grad hiring.

      2. Ama*

        I will say that, because it was for event planning, if the event planning team was expected to be centralized and work with all the other departments on their individual events it would make some sense for a *representative* from each department be in one of the interviews, but that would also assume they were going to ask questions specific to their events.

    1. epicdemiologist*

      I am also extremely tickled at the prospect of their hiring a junior event manager who spends all his time bloviating about how he’d solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how he’ll handle Coworker X’s inevitable eventual hate crimes against Coworker Y.

        1. ABC123*

          Recent or current?

          That’s about the only way this makes sense is if they turn around and tell you that your actually interviewing for a deep cover State Department position

      2. The Prettiest Curse*

        As an event planner, the thought of attending an event run by these people sends so many shivers down my spine that Alison should re-run this letter on Halloween. (The documentaries on Woodstock ’99 and the Fyre Festival are like horror films for me, because I can see every single mistake that the event planners are making.)

    4. HavenMiss*

      How much work is actually getting done at this company if 50 people have the time to take part interviews for a junior event planner? They don’t want to do real work either!

  15. Riley*

    As soon as you realize that an employee committed a hate crime against another employee *and wasn’t fired immediately,* you are good to nope on out of that entire process.

    1. Dawn*

      I think it was intended as a hypothetical – it just happened to be a very stupid and (probably) offensive hypothetical.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I’m going with “a hate crime that is still in the planning stages, and could be foiled by the junior event planning staff with sufficient use of spandex and capes.”

      2. But Of Course*

        Doesn’t read like one. I think the LW would have been less shocked if they hadn’t named names and then sent her into an interview with the person who did it.

      3. Phony Genius*

        If it was a hypothetical, how would you like to be named as the fake perp during the interview? Over and over for every candidate? It’s almost like it could be an SNL sketch:

        “Oh, why am I always the one who did the hate crime? Why can’t it ever be Edgar from Accounting? Have you ever heard his rants about the Welsh?”

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I am very confused on that point. Someone at the company – and in one of the interview sessions – committed the hate crime or had it happen to them? Re-reading the letter, I guess it happened to someone at the company who was not involved in the interviews and it was done by someone in the interviews. And yes, wtf on that??? What kind of company would say in candidate interviews not only that someone at the company committed a hate crime against someone else at the company, but that the perpetrator is still employed there AND you’re about to meet them in your next interview????

      Talk about being full of bees! That in itself is a giant red flag, never mind the rest of that nonsense.

      1. ABC123*

        My only guess is that it is a poor attempt to see how they will react under pressure or handle a last minute surprise crisis. And that it wasn’t actually committed?

  16. MassMatt*

    It started off with rude questions that did not seem geared toward the actual position, then my jaw dropped at how LW was asked how they would solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I never recovered.

    You need a Nobel peace prize to work there as a junior event planner?

    These people have no idea how to interview, and clearly it’s not isolated to one or a few people, it’s systemic. They probably fail at a lot of other pretty fundamental things also. Consider it a bullet dodged.

    1. Artemesia*

      I’m just sorry the OP didn’t have the capacity or nerve to break into laughter when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came up.

  17. Higher-ed Jessica*

    LW, you didn’t get into the specifics of your answer, but are you in fact able to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict? If you are, my organization would like to hire you, and also we have a roomful of straw.

    2. UKDancer*

      If you are able to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict and are based in the UK or able to work here, I would also like to recruit you as I have a number of issues where those skills would be useful.

        2. amoeba*

          As an alternative, David Hasselhoff already states he singlehandedly brought down the Berlin wall, so he might be a good option?

    5. MigraineMonth*

      I don’t know about LW, but I do have the skills to fix the Israel-Palestine situation and would love to work for your organization! First, though, I have a large number of exciting real-estate opportunities in bridge ownership you simply cannot pass up.

      1. AFac*

        I could also use your help with assisting a Nigerian Prince who wants to transfer money out of the country.

  18. AnonAnon*

    Wow! This is horrific on so many points.
    I’m glad you found another opportunity.

    I was in an interview for an internal role and bowed out after the first or second of 5 ONE HOUR long interviews. It was not for a super high-level role, either. I knew this was not going to be a good fit and I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.

    The first red flag was that none of the interviewers would interview me in person. This was before Covid and we were all on site. They did it via Teams and all cameras were off. No one, who would have been part of my future team, seemed to have time for the interviews. I felt like I was the quota-filling interviewee. My company at the time, required you to interview so many people even if you knew who you were going to hire.

    While I was in the interviews I started to get intel from co-workers who were either in this group or knew about it and I was not getting great feedback about working on this team and finding out the real reason they were hiring which was to help work the many extra hours of un-paid OT.

    With the help of my current manager, I crafted a message to the hiring manager who I would be meeting with last, and sent it via Teams (because everyone was too busy to actually talk to me) and said that I greatly appreciated the opportunity but at this time, this role didn’t seem like it was a good fit for me (or something like that). I certainly didn’t want to burn any bridges because this was an internal role.

  19. Falling Diphthong*

    OP, I think you need to mentally push the framing to a more ridiculous level. Assume that they asked those questions in deadly earnest.

    Someone at a board meeting asked “But how can we solve all these deep-rooted and festering problems in the world?” and someone else said “If we list a job for event planning, and then ask the candidates, one of them might know.” And so that’s what they did.

    1. Annie*

      Well, you never know until you ask. Someone might have the answer to World Peace but has never been asked to solve it, right?

      2. Phony Genius*

        It’s like the introduction to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In it, Douglas Adams describes how a girl figured out how the whole world could be happy without having to crucify anybody. Unfortunately, the world was destroyed while she was on her way to the phone to tell people about it.

  20. Daniel*

    I have to ask LW: when it came to the hate-crime question, was it a hypothetical crime or one that actually happened? This is total insanity either way, but the former would at least…I can’t finish this sentence. I can’t possibly suggest there’s any redeeming circumstance; there isn’t.

    2. Willem Dafriend*

      Yeah, my brain screeched to a halt at the “how would you address Specific Coworker A doing a hate crime against Specific Coworker B? Oh btw A will be interviewing you next.”

      I would have just as many questions if that was hypothetical. In both cases most of the questions would be “wtf”

    3. Hell in a Handbasket*

      That’s what I was wondering too. Was it more like, “Imagine a scenario in which Bob did X; how would you handle it?” (wtf?) OR more like “One of our current challenges is conflict on our staff because Bob did X to Mary. How will you deal with this situation?” (WTF????!!!!!)

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I was in a new employee orientation where the facilitator decided to make the sexual harassment training more “interactive” by using new employees’ real names as the harasser and victim in her first example.

        I interrupted and told her I wasn’t comfortable being the example harasser, especially in front of a bunch of new coworkers. The facilitator was completely taken aback; apparently she’d been singling people out as hypothetical harassers for every training and I was the first one to say no.

  21. airport gemstone*

    If a junior event planner could solve the Israel/Palestine conflict I think it would be solved by now.

  22. Endless TBR Pile*

    This is banana crackers.

    OP, I’d reach out to HR and let them know what happened in your interviews. Worst case, they email back and go “well… yeah, duh.” They may not respond at all, or tell you they’ll “look into it”. In any event, you dodged a bullet and almost definitely do not want to work there.

  23. Falling Diphthong*

    Not having knowledge that I think would take several degrees and 10 years in the field to acquire.

    OP, assuming you are correct in this judgment–and I assume that you are dead on, given the nature of the rest of the questions–this is exactly the sort of thing a normal employer would want you to understand. When to give an answer, and when to recognize that you need more information.

    They wouldn’t normally do it in the interview, but it would be an important part of your first months on the job: That you knew when to dive in, and when to ask a clarifying question, and of whom, and how to efficiently formulate the question so it was brief and clear but also had the relevant details.

    1. MissMuffett*

      The follow up questions tilted their hands though. It wasn’t, we’re trying to see if you’ll just answer with BS to give an answer. They go on with “of course you won’t be able to answer this question either”

  24. Library Girl*

    This org sounds like it really puts the bananas in the bananapants. They’re continuing to employ someone who perpetrated a hate crime against another employee? And asking about it in interviews???

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      I was assuming it was a hypothetical. “How would you react if Bob committed a hate crime against Mary?” and not something that actually happened, but…who knows? It’s bizarre either way.

  25. HB*

    If you could go back in time, my recommendation would be to completely change your 10 slide presentation to an event called “How to Properly Interview an Event Planner” including a breakout session on “Don’t Advertise your Toxic Workplace through Poorly Phrased Questions about Hate Crimes – On Secondhand, Do! Because You Might Do your Interviewee a Favor.” End with a Rickroll and bounce.

  26. Discombobulated and Tired*

    I’ve had my credentials and experience sneered at during an interview too, and all I could think was: You saw my resume. NO WHERE did I state I had all the experience and training you are now scorning me for lacking. Did you call me in just to blame me for wasting your time?? Again: YOU called ME. ugh it was decades ago and it still rankles.

    1. Tuesday Tacos*

      I actually said that in an interview once. They pointed out I had no experience with this, this and this – of which none were on the job ad. And I said no, I don’t but I am willing to learn. They admonished me for coming to the interview without that experience. I said nowhere did it say you were looking for that (actually it was for a whole different kind of work) and hey, you called me, after (I assume) reading my resume, and now you’re wasting my time. Have a nice day. Then I left.

      1. Discombobulated and Tired*

        Good for you! I regret not having the gumption to say that myself. This lady was so mean to me lol.

    2. EngineeringFun*

      I had something similar happen to me. I was asked overly technical questions and no personal questions. Lots of gotcha stuff and I was not doing well. It was over zoom and they kept saying how I needed to work weekends. I told HR after that it was not a good look for the company. I wanted out as well but stuck through it

    3. whatchamacallit*

      I had someone tell me in an interview for a restaurant server position “You don’t have any serving experience. I’m not sure why I called you in here. I guess I didn’t really read your resume.”

      I, t0o, was a little surprised I got an interview with the lack of experience but YOU EMAILED ME AND SCHEDULED THIS. Clearly they had no consideration for my time but I was shocked they didn’t seem to have any consideration for their own, since they also wasted their own time asking me to come in for an interview.

  27. juliebulie*

    “You definitely don’t know this, but”
    WTF? Then why are we wasting everybody’s time?
    It just sounds like they weren’t taking the interview seriously.

  28. beagle mama*

    This almost sounds like one of the big management consulting firms, where they ask absurd questions (like how many pigs are there in China) to see how you problem solve/think. But then the hate crime question and reenactment – all the nopes.

    Sorry you wasted your time OP. Add it to your funny/weird stores folder.

  29. Jester*

    Wow, I thought an all-day interview I had was bad! I only met with seven people and my worst questions were things like, “how do you deal with difficult people?” when I would have been an assistant to the person they were hinting at was difficult.

    1. Anax*

      Same here. This is a whole new level of bonkers.

      My worst was four hours on-site, after two phone interviews – I think I met with six people. It was all the sort of questions you answer for college classes, but which will *never* come up again – which didn’t fill me with confidence about their processes, nor did the dystopian level of “open office”. (Even the meeting room walls were glass. Yeesh.)

  30. DEEngineer*

    In my second career job as a young engineer, I interviewed at a company that did a phone screen, an in-person meeting with the hiring manager followed by a plant tour, and then a day that started with a brief presentation (10-20 minutes) about my experience and fit with the company (and a fun fact about ourselves) with all of the people I would meet with, followed by meetings with about 7 people and including lunch with the hiring manager and potential colleague. They told me later that 2 of us got to the final stage. I got the job and worked there for 12 years. It felt like a lot at the time but it was a small, tight-knit team (engineering, quality, purchasing, scheduling, operations, R&D) and the hiring process worked. We skipped the presentation after a few years (there was a particularly memorable one about a sales VP applicant who showed us a photo of himself in costume as Superman) but otherwise generally followed that process to hire other salaried professionals at the site. 50 people is insane! But in my field and area it has been pretty common to interview entry-level salaried professionals with ~6 individuals either in panel interviews (2-3 at a time) or 30 minutes each at the final stage.

    1. Kevin Sours*

      Yeah six or seven short one on one interviews doesn’t strike me as odd from a software dev perspective — even for a junior position — because there a just a lot of people you interface with and it’s good to let both sides get a sense of what that relationship is going to be like before hiring. The one’s that are the least useful for the hiring are either difficult to cut politically (I’m not sure the CTO is going to have much to add but in a lot of places they want to be involved) or primarily for the benefit of the candidate (I am in favor of having a peer interview specifically *without* the tech lead present so the candidate can ask awkward questions).

      But 50 people??!?!?!?

      1. I Have RBF*

        IMO, even 20 people is too much for a junior position. 10 people for an intermediate position is about the limit.

  32. Emperor Kuzco*

    Also acceptable is pretending your internet failed or Zoom got disconnected, and then following up with a ‘sorry this isn’t the right fit for me!’

  33. Alex*

    I mean OBVIOUSLY the Israel-Palestine conflict can be resolved with a well-planned conference reception. We just haven’t found exactly the right junior event planner to carry it out.

    1. Artemesia*

      If we have the right ice breaker, Israeli leadership and Palestinian leadership will learn they have many of the same goals and values and peace will reign. Of course the actual answer is the problem has not been solved because neither Israeli or Palestinian leadership have ever wanted to solve it. And certainly never at the same time.

    2. HailRobonia*

      Everything at the Middle East Peace Conference was going smoothly until an argument erupts over the “correct” spelling of hummus/homus/houmous.

      But then bring out American chocolate hummus and the entire region will unite in their combined horror of what we do to cuisine here in the US….

  34. pally*

    One telephone interview I had was completely banana crackers.

    The interviewer (a director) asked me one question: why was I interviewing for the job?

    I started in on my response. He immediately launched into a 12-15 minute rant on how vehemently he despised Millennials. I couldn’t do much more than utter a few “uh-huhs” and “I see’s”. No way to get things on track. He just went on and on, pointing out everything he believed was wrong with Millennials.

    Then he said good-bye and hung up. Rejection email followed promptly afterwards.

    I thought about reaching out to the HR contact to inform them about this experience. Maybe mention that, surely this director isn’t hiring based on generation (i.e. age) is he?

    I wondered if it was a normal thing to reach out to the HR contact about one’s interview experience. But I figured I’d just look like a whiner and just never applied to that company again.

    For the record, this was a huge multinational company where I would really like to work. Just not for that director.

    And, I am not a Millennial. Not by a long shot.

    1. HonorBox*

      I don’t think you’d look like a whiner, for two reasons. First, HR should know that the interviewer didn’t even allow you to answer a single question. That’s not helpful in recruiting and hiring. And second, because the interviewer is definitely bordering on something illegal (and maybe more than bordering) because he’s actively suggesting that he’s basing his decision on age. You’re not a Millennial, but what if you were? You were just told that this person has a thing against people of a certain age.

      1. Zephy*

        Age discrimination is only actionable in one direction (discriminating against individuals over 40), but since us Millennials are now entering our forties, maybe in another ~8-10 years we’ll actually be able to put the kibosh on that BS once and for all.

    2. H.Regalis*

      This makes me think of the call I got as a receptionist where the guy ranted about how a local healthcare system had turret-mounted lasers that would scan your poop and say you had cancer but only if you were conservative. That, but during a job interview instead of a random phone call.

        1. H.Regalis*

          It was definitely one of the weirder calls I ever got as a receptionist.

          Also, the turret-mounted lasers were supposed to be on the seventh floor of a four-story building. I guess they had a cloaking device?

    3. Jay (no, the other one)*

      I interviewed for med school at my father’s alma mater. He asked me two rhetorical questions about my grades and scores (“these aren’t very good, are they?”) and then said “what department is your father in?”

      Me: He’s a cardiologist, but he doesn’t work her.
      Him: Then why does your folder have a star?
      Me: maybe because he went to school here?
      Him: What class?
      Me: 1958
      Him: Why don’t I know him?
      Me:…
      Him: Where is he know?
      Me: County Hospital.
      Him: He must know Dr. Excellent! I used to work with Dr Excellent!
      (does ten minutes about Dr. Excellent and asks me one last question)
      Do you know if Dr. Excellent remarried?

      Went back to my dorm, called my mother, and told her I wasn’t going to get in. Regaled her with the whole sorry tale. She asked for the interviewer’s name and when I told her she said “OH MY GOD. Do you remember I told you that your father had chicken pox during medical school? And that some idiot resident told me he was going to die? THAT WAS THE IDIOT RESIDENT.”

  35. Can't Pass Again*

    On a silver lining POV, now that I’m a senior manager and interview candidates as a part of my job, I still think back to a terrible interview when I was in my mid-20’s and work really hard to not be an interviewer like that.

  37. Anne Shirley Blythe*

    This was the interview from hell, and I’m so sorry you endured this. This is one of the most bizarre interviews I’ve heard about, and I’ve been working for 30 years and reading Ask a Manager for 10.

  38. Ama*

    One of my first jobs out of grad school was an admin job for an academic whose actual research focus *was* the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict and even he didn’t didn’t ask me about it during the interview process!

    He is to this day one of the best bosses I ever had, and we did actually talk about his research a bit after I was hired, but he was a good boss because he recognized the job skills he was hiring me for were unrelated to my understanding of or interest in his research topic.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I don’t think this one counts since these people weren’t actually bosses, but there should definitely be a vote for Worst Interview of the Year too.

      1. Ama*

        I do think we may need a Worst Hiring Process award, we already have this one and the one with the 31 essay questions.

  40. Annony*

    Was this a trick question? Is the answer “I wouldn’t because that is clearly beyond the scope of my job and expertise”?

  41. Sam I Am*

    Wow…just wow. That’s so bananas. I heard about an all-day interview where the company invited all their final-round candidates on the same day and then stuck them in a conference room together to eat lunch, and I thought *that* was bad. This blows it out of the water! Hypothetical hate crimes by an employee? Huh?

    1. MigraineMonth*

      …I don’t see anything indicating they were hypothetical. I mean, I *hope* they were if they’re still employed at the company, but…

  42. MissMuffett*

    Would it be out of line to flat out ask, can you help me understand how that relates to this role of junior event planner?

    1. HonorBox*

      I think that’s a fair question, especially if the OP had already rightfully decided this role was not for them. At that point, you’re playing with house money so turning the tables could make them see how ridiculous the questions are.

    2. Anne Shirley Blythe*

      That is a perfect, clear-headed question and I would LOVE to hear their answer. But I suspect many of us would be in deer-in-the-headlights mode. While hearing circus music in our heads, to quote Leslie Knope.

    3. Caramel & Cheddar*

      That’s a 100% reasonable question to ask. The question itself is ridiculous and probably a good indication you don’t want to work there, so asking can’t possibly harm your chances for a job you can’t possibly want.

  43. Anne Shirley Blythe*

    I know it is human nature to want reasons and concoct them, and in this case it is most likely futile … but … if they were trying to judge your ability to deal with the unknown and operate under intense pressure, this was so not the way. It is so far from the way, it is on a different planet.

    And if they had already chosen someone for the position and were just going through the motions, why make the motions so hurtful and insane?

    I hope you will consider leaving a review of your experience on Glassdoor to save other lambs from the slaughter.

  44. HonorBox*

    To agree with others… this sounds like one of the (or several) levels of hell.

    I normally wouldn’t suggest sending feedback on a crummy interview process, I think this is an instance where “normal” isn’t even part of the conversation. Tell HR. And tell them the following:

    *The number of interviews was far too many for a junior role. Heck, even for a more senior role, that many interviews is a lot.
    *The fact that the questions were about things that wouldn’t be part of your job and stuff that of course you wouldn’t have technical knowledge about.
    *That you were asked two specific questions that have nothing to do with the work and (likely) nothing to do with the organization. I’m especially appalled at the hate crime one. That’s HR and management level conversation. AND you had to talk to the perpetrator of the hate crime subsequently. It seems like there’s some potential for legal peril for the organization.
    *And while cameras were off for people to whom you were presenting, the direct manager should have had theirs on to start and finish. Putting you in a position to have to wrap things up is not good interviewing and shows poor manners.

    If they’re going to find someone for this kind of role, they really need to think long and hard about how they are interviewing because anyone with any sense and skill is going to be chased away.

    1. Anne Shirley Blythe*

      Yes–the legality thing. While my head was spinning, I somehow managed to think “but aren’t they treading dangerous legal waters with the hate-crime claim?”

      I almost wonder if this was some bizarre psychological game–make up a hate crime scenario, then have the interviewee speak to the perpetrator…?

      1. ABC123*

        That’s what I was thinking. Or that they were going to have to interview him about the hate crime? Maybe interrogation skills are required as a junior events planner?

  45. Sunny*

    Asking how you’d resolve the Middle East sounds like a roundabout way of checking your politics, OP. Same with the hate crime question. Are you expressing enough sympathy for the right side, etc.?

    I can’t think of any other sane reason to ask such questions, which are so ludicrously out of scope for a junior event planning role.

    1. London Calling*

      “Sorry, my plan for the Middle East is with the Nobel Peace Prize committee and I’m under an NDA until they consider it.”

    2. Kay Tee*

      I’m thinking this is it, especially since it sounds like this is a large NGO/advocacy org. It’s a very particular strain of dysfunction where work product, interpersonal conflict, and global issues are seen as not just linked but one and the same.

      1. ABC123*

        But knowing how to work *around* sensitive issues and groups of people who hold diametrically opposed views is different than knowing how to *solve* the underlying issue.

  46. Bike Walk Barb*

    I think I only would have been able to muster “That’s a very weird question for this job.”

    I’m imagining answering the weirdest questions with questions of your own that would be legitimate things to ask in a *normal* interview, purely to highlight how utterly bizarre this must have been.

    “How would you resolve the Israeli/Palestine conflict?”
    “That’s an area in which I hope to improve my skills. What sort of training and professional development do you offer on this?”

    Enactment of a hate crime
    “I’d want to be able to take time off if something like that happened to me or if I witnessed it and no one in management responded to illegal behavior appropriately. What’s your PTO policy and do you provide mental health coverage in your benefits package?”

  47. Sneaky Squirrel*

    I would be extremely concerned for how their events generally turn out if they believe that they’re comparable to the level of conflict of Israel/Palestine.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      It’s been downhill ever since the last event planner included hotdogs on the sandwich tray.

  48. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

    Make sure there are both kosher and halal food choices, so your organization isn’t drawn into the conflict?

    This is just… any one of those would be evidence of poor hiring, but “here are some questions we know you can’t answer” followed by the bonkers questions about Israel and Palestine and about a specific hate crime….?!

    Is everyone at that company so desperate to avoid their real jobs that they would rather be part of this interview?

  49. London Calling*

    *I think I only would have been able to muster “That’s a very weird question for this job.”*

    NGL, mine would have been “I’m sorry, what?” followed by “I think one of us is in entirely the wrong interview.”

  50. Zona the Great*

    I’d have just walked out in between sessions telling no one. I do this at parties so I’m very good at it.

  51. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

    I have no advice to add that hasn’t already been said, just want to shoutout everyone in this comment section for being the funniest people alive.

  52. Silver Robin*

    I have read the phrase “how you would solve the Israel-Palestine conflict” so many times that it has merged with “how do you solve a problem like Maria”, which feels like the correct level of absurdity to match whatever the @#$% this interview process was.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        I’m now imagining the interviewee bursting into song with “how would I solve a problem like international conflict? How would I catch a cloud and tie it down?”

        Honestly, I’m not sure it would make the whole situation much more bizarre than it already was.

        1. MPerera*

          How would you solve this Middle Eastern conflict?
          How would you cure the common cold for good?
          How would you deal with hate crimes in our workplace?
          How would you make sure kids in school had food?

          Many a life you know you’d like to save here
          Many a global crisis you can end
          So show us what you can do
          And answer these questions too
          Interviews like this soon will be a trend!
          Oh, how would you halt all climate change by lunchtime?
          Or at least do it by the next weekend!

  54. I Have RBF*

    … for example, how I would solve a crisis like the Israel-Palestine conflict, or tackle a hate crime that had happened to a specific employee, enacted by an employee in the next group to interview me, who they named.

    WTF?? Those aren’t interview questions, they are a farce.

    Israel-Palestine conflict: “When the best diplomats in the world can’t solve it, I doubt I would have anything meaningful to contribute.”

    Hate crime: “Call HR and the police.”

    “I don’t think this position is a fit for me. I’m bowing out. Good luck on finding your unicorn!”

    Seriously, not getting that position is a “bullet dodged” situation. Those folks were bananacrackers.

    1. Anon for this 1*

      Glad I’m not the only one who would have answered them that way! But how horrific if that was the answer they were looking for…

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        “With the way the climate crisis is playing out, that seems like a problem that is going to solve itself.”

        Too dark? I’ve had that kind of week.

        1. Lucifer*

          The OP to these chuckle ducks:

          “Well in Superman 4, Superman just told everyone to stop fighting and melt down their weapons and that worked for a bit— until it didn’t. Have you idiots at Company X suggested that to either embassy? You should definitely call both ambassadors and tell them to rent the movie for pointers. You can brainstorm where Cannon Entertainment’s script fumbled the landing on securing world peace on a long term scale despite the direct intervention of the Man of Steele. I’m sure this’ll be a gangbuster solution for everyone involved.”

          I hate to make light of such a serious, devastating conflict but FFS, this is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard this week. And that’s saying a lot considering this week.

  56. lyk*

    “Oh, I’m sorry, I think there’s been a mistake. I was sent this link to interview for the entry-level event planning assistant. These are obviously questions for a different position entirely. I’ll sign off and contact the admin to get the correct link. Good luck finding your foreign affairs director though.”

  57. Just a suggestion*

    It seems so obvious that the interviewers were determined not to hire this candidate before the first interview even got going. The easiest explanation is that they had already decided on someone else but were forced to interview additional candidates. But I do also wonder if there wasn’t some sort of illegal discrimination in play. Like was the candidate of Palestinian descent? Or have a Jewish name? And maybe they thought they could provoke the candidate, somehow? Which might fit with the hate-crime question as well as the “Solve the MIddle East” questionsOr maybe more basic like they didn’t like the candidates skin color or gender identity, and so chose to ask off-the-wall questions that not only doomed them to failure but put them in a humiliating position.

    1. MeepMeep123*

      I’m Jewish and that’s where my mind went. If someone asked me this question, I’d be absolutely sure there was antisemitic intent behind it and I would feel very much put on the spot in a very pointed way. This was not innocent.

  58. H.Regalis*

    Who are these interviewers?! Why would anyone ask this crap? Fingers crossed for you that this is the worst interview you ever have, LW.

  59. Lizard Lady*

    I’m getting the distinct impression that this company is full of teams who hate each other. Asking how you would handle a hate crime perpetrated by your next interviewer sounds like they wanted someone who would hate the next team as much as they did, and if you didn’t, at last poison the well for the next group. Maybe that’s why they asked the Israel/Palestine question: their entire organization is full to the brim with antipathy and sometimes outright warfare.

  60. Yup*

    My friend with a very, very senior position (VP at multiple big companies) was recently gotcha-ed at an interview for a new company. The person she was going to replace, who was moving to another department, asked her questions that were impossible for her to answer (think: How would you, potential VP of the bakery division, grow the wheat used in our flour?). She was totally flummoxed and it threw her right off. It was cruel and deliberate.

    I feel like interviews are too often turning into opportunities to ah-HA! potential employees rather than gauge a good fit. Do people really want to hire the biggest bullsh*tters?

    1. Munich Insecurity Conference*

      She was totally flummoxed and it threw her right off. It was cruel and deliberate.

      There is nothing “cruel” about gauging how a candidate reacts when given a question outside of her comfort zone.

      1. StudentA*

        If it’s obvious that the interviewer was trying to humiliate the interviewee, it’s definitely cruel.

    2. ABC123*

      Maybe it’s just a bad example but wouldn’t you expect a very senior VP to know something about how the product is made? Obviously not as much as the farmer but something?

      A VP of Bakery who thinks that wheat and corn are interchangeable terms or that they are produced in a lab, for example probably wouldn’t be good at their job

  62. ubotie*

    Me reading the letter: ….This is for an event planning position??? A junior event planner position???

    Was the employee who was the victim of the hate crime one of the interviewers? Either way, did they know in advance that their trauma would be included as an interview exercise or that their perpetrator would be one of the interviewers? I mean, WTF. to all of it.

    Is this that Smile Time charity place that does the cleft palate surgery?

  63. Raida*

    I know that if I, now, were to have that very first interview with the technical questions I’d say
    “Let’s just stop here for a moment. I am applying for [position xyz] based with [team a] with responsibilities covering event planning. How would *that position* interact with *your team*, which is clearly of a technical nature?”
    And if they baulked at the temerity(!) I’d say “What position are you doing an interview for? It sounds like either 1) You are interviewing for a different role, which I haven’t applied for and won’t have the qualifications for and we should figure that out or 2) The advertised position has some glaring omissions in the required skills and I need to know that to withdraw.”

    If they can’t take being asked to work together to look for solutions, then I’ll say “Well if you’re just refusing to figure out the disconnect here, I think this interview needs to be over. Do you feel there’s any value in continuing?”
    and go to the HR person, tell them what happened, ask them specifically *Why* am i being interviewed by a technical team? *Who* are all the other teams? And are the *rest* of these interviews going to be about the actual role?

    1. HonorBox*

      I think that, 20+ years into my career, I would likely say something like this mid-stream. I might “soften” a bit by suggesting that it would be a great use of everyone else’s time not to interview me if I didn’t fit the qualifications they were looking for.

      And if you have contact info for the HR person who set up the schedule, it would be a great kindness to yourself and everyone else involved to say something early on in the day because they owe it to you and to the folks who have been asked to give up time to conduct the interviews to talk to someone who might actually have the skillset for and interest in the role.

  65. Seashell*

    Maybe they were doing all this to look for someone who has the nerve to say, “What does this have to do with event planning?” Still ridiculous, but in a different way.

  66. WFH4VR*

    “How would you solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” “I would encourage Russia and North Korea to invade the territory, so they could unite against a common enemy.”
    Bonkers. Absolutely bonkers.

  67. August A.*

    How would this work if the organization had paid for you to travel there? I once went on a 2-day interview for a tenure-track faculty job that I would have loved to leave early. (Two-day interviews are a standard thing in academia: if you’re a finalist, they fly you there, put you up in a hotel, and then you do like 15 interviews with different people over the course of your visit.) Nothing as bad as in this letter happened to me, but I was 100% positive by about the second interview that this job/department would be a terrible fit for me. Unfortunately I felt like I couldn’t say so because they had planned a whole agenda for me — I had to give a formal job talk the next day! — and I was thousands of miles from home. Could I have just told them it wasn’t a good fit and somehow left? Like either changed my ticket to an earlier date or just continued to stay in the hotel until the scheduled flight? I guess at the time I figured it was my fault for not having figured out during the earlier Zoom interviews that this would be a bad fit. But it still would have been nice to cut the interview short somehow.

    2. Formeracademic*

      I was in academia. I would have finished the interview as professionally as possible. Don’t give them an excuse not to reimburse

      1. Formeracademic*

        Also, the talk is for the students / faculty so even if it isn’t a fit, at least people learned something. (it’s like the school paying for a guest lecturer to come give a talk)

  68. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

    Having picked my jaw up off the floor, I thought of something else: Either the company is so blase about hate crimes that they’ll keep the perpetrator on staff and give them a role in hiring, or it’s a hypothetical and they’re awfully casual about slandering one of their coworkers. Either way, the answer to this should probably include “don’t you have an HR department? how about Legal?”

    1. ABC123*

      Either that or they have a very loose definition of a hate CRIME. (I.e. an accidental microagression or mistakenly referring to a person by the wrong pronoun once isn’t a hate CRIME)

  69. StudentA*

    I am loving the comment section today. I haven’t laughed this much reading a comment section in a while!

  70. Lucifer*

    “How to solve a conflict like Israel and Palestine?”

    I’m impressed with the OP for not just putting up a photo of the Side-Eyeing Chloe meme in response to that question. (who is like 21 years old now so have fun feeling old). Honestly I’d still send that meme to them. Or even better, a link to purchase the NFT (yes it’s a NFT too) because this sounds like the kind of idiot company to be ALL in on NFTs even 4 years after that trend has died.

    I mean, wow.

  72. kanomi*

    An argument can be made that this organization should be publicly named so that whoever is funding or managing it gets an insight into just how egregiously incompetent their H.R. hiring practices are.

    Otherwise this sounds like psychopathic gaslighting.

  73. Kat*

    You could try what my friend did: mid- interview, she just paused, looked around the room, and blurred out ” Oh dear god, I hope I don’t get this job ” I mean, it worked for her. She didn’t get the job.

  74. HonorBox*

    I’ve thought about this far too much in the last several hours, so forgive me if this seems like a stretch… and what I’m about to say should not override the suggestion I made upthread to contact HR because this is really bonkers.

    But perhaps this entire charade is a way to determine how someone operates when odd things are thrown their way, strange requests are made, and things come out of left field. An event planner needs to be on their toes and know how to effectively deal with strange requests, deliveries that don’t show up, people who don’t listen to details and don’t read the plan.

    Now there are far better ways to gauge someone’s ability to think on their feet than throwing a flaming bag of crap at their feet with questions that they have no real way of answering. How do you solve the Middle East conflict isn’t a good question to figure out how someone will deal with the A/V company not bringing all of the equipment you’ve ordered, or six people who forgot to check the box stating they need vegan meals.

    Companies, it is far better to ask hypothetical questions that might actually tie into the job someone is interviewing for than to put them in a position in which you’re making them incredibly uncomfortable and unsure about whether they might actually enjoy working with you.

  75. Art of the Spiel*

    It’s not just the freaky interview process. It’s also the weirdos you’d have to work with if you got the job, because anyone they’d hire through THAT process is guaranteed to have zero prospects anywhere else. Nobody in their right mind is going to want a job where “strange pressure interview” is the criteria — and you sure as heck don’t want to work with anyone who participates willingly.

  76. NotFAANG*

    FWIW, recruiters could cut a day-long interview short if they found the candidates were a no-go for sure.

    A recruiter in town once told me how they had a candidate who was hostile and mean to everyone including other staff in the building who were not involved in the interview. The interview process involved multiple 1-hour interviews throughout the day. The interview panel from an earlier interview told the recruiter how the candidate was being a jerk. Midway through an interview, the recruiter entered the meeting room and asked the candidate to leave ASAP.

    What a dumb way of losing a job offer.

  77. Ellie Rose*

    I’ve done this in a much less intense situation so I wanted to share how it goes when the communication is healthy about a bad mismatch in expectations for the role.

    I’m not sure what mix-up happened, but after paying for me and some other students to come out for interviews, I was interviewed for a position that wanted some specific experience that, as shown on my resume, I did not have. they were doing a fairly decent interview process, and the pretty early on one of the interviewers asked politely why, if I didn’t have the relevant experience, was I interviewing for this position.

    I explained that the invite had not specified the details of the position, and said that frankly I didn’t know why they had asked to interview me if this was required background.

    she said something like “I see…” then after thinking for a moment said there were some other openings that might be a better fit, if I was interested in interviewing for those instead.

    I said yes, she left and about 10 minutes later I had a different interviewer for a position I was well qualified for (but not super interested in, after asking more information).

    this saved everyone time (though….not as much if someone had properly read my resume or sent over clearer information on the positions) and left us with an overall positive mutual impression — they noted that I seemed like a good fit, so if I decided I was interested after all, they’d encourage me to get back in touch.

    if it’s a good company, they will take a graceful bowing out well.

    if its a bad company, the sooner you get out the better.

  78. Emily*

    I’m enjoying playing with the third example, which really puts the absurdity of the interviews in relief:

    “It sounds like this job is really focused on Geo-political conflict. I’m actively trying to move away from Geo-political conflict and focus on event planning, so this doesn’t sound like it would be the right match. I don’t want to take up more of your time so why don’t we wrap up here and you can focus on other candidates.”

  79. Irish Teacher.*

    Honestly, I get the impression the interviewers might have been trying to make you uncomfortable as some sort of tactic. I mean, suggesting “what would you do if Fred committed a hate crime? Now, go in to be interviewed by Fred when you still have the idea of him commiting hate crimes in your head.”

  80. Mkl*

    Glassdoor baby! You don’t even have to be scathing – just factually list the role you interviewed for and the questions asked. Then leave a one star review and let readers connect the dots themselves.

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