How Not to Sabotage Your Job Interview: A Real-Life Example

CW Fong
2 min readOct 3, 2024

In a recent interview, one candidate stood out — but not for the right reasons. Early on, he made an unsolicited, provocative remark about a social issue, entirely unrelated to the role or our questions. While it felt out of place, the panel decided to move on, as his personal beliefs weren’t relevant to the job.

After the interview, he followed up with a polite thank-you email, expressing his enjoyment of the conversation. However, with many strong applicants, this candidate didn’t make the cut. That’s when things took a surprising turn. Upon being informed that he was not selected, his tone changed drastically. He claimed to be offended by the panel’s questions about AI’s impact on his profession.

Looking back, my gut feeling was right. While he had the technical skills, something didn’t sit right with me during the interview. His initial provocative statement now seems like an attempt to bait the panel into a potential discrimination complaint. When that didn’t work, he shifted to the AI question as a grievance.

If he had truly found the question offensive, he should have raised it right after the interview — not after being rejected. Worse, if he played along thinking he had a chance, only to later voice a complaint, this reveals a deeper issue of integrity.

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CW Fong

I blog therefore I am. Passionate about #Singapore, #Leadership, #PublicRelations, #SocialMedia, #Marketing, and #PersonalDevelopment. Above all, I do no evil