33 ‘They Seemed Perfect Until I Googled Them’ Stories from Hiring Managers

‘He lied about getting a James Beard Award’
33 ‘They Seemed Perfect Until I Googled Them’ Stories from Hiring Managers

Your digital footprint could be the one thing standing in the way of you becoming gainfully employed. Case in point: A hiring manager on Reddit remembers the woman they interviewed who was all but set to tutor middle schoolers. After nailing every part of the interview process and gushing about how passionate she was to “be a role model for young girls,” she seemed perfect for the position. Unfortunately, a quick Google search revealed that she was also passionate about ripping fat lines of cocaine and posting the evidence to Facebook.

While, sure, no judgement, that’s definitely information she should’ve kept between herself, her god and her dealer. 

Other Redditors have revealed the times their candidates were undone by a bit of internet sleuthing — including quite a few who killed more than just the interview.

kawavulcan97 7y ago At my last job we were all but ready to hire a guy for a position in county government. They facebooked him and the first thing that came up was a cartoon depiction of Obama dead in a casket with the caption this will be the best day in American history. Не did not get the job. 19 ...
kayliemarie 7y ago . Extended an offer to a man for a production job. Не seemed fine, interviewed normally, scheduled the drug test and he didn't show. Not unusual. Wrote the guy off. Watched the news that night and there was his mugshot. Allegedly killed his wife and was detained. Did not hire. 19 ...
1000korpses 7y ago I interviewed this girl, who was friendly but didn't have much experience. So with no references, I looked her up on Facebook. Her profile was public, and her last status was talking about how the fat bitch at Long John silvers better hire her. I took a screenshot and never called her back. Then she came in the store a few days later asking if I'd made a decision. I just showed her the screenshot. She tried saying it was directed towards the jsا across town, but I was very well acquainted with the staff there and
7y ago The applicant's resume listed a bachelors, masters, and doctorate degree. When googling the candidate, I found another version of his resume. This version listed a bachelors degree, masters degree ABD, and PHd ABD. During his interview, I asked him point blank if he had successfully defended a masters and doctorate level dissertation: Something I ordinarily would not ask. Sure enough, he never even attempted a Master's dissertation and was unable to complete his doctoral dissertation. Did not hire. 43 ...
7y ago I had an older guy apply for a position with our company in person, he wanted to drop off his resume in person. A little old-school, but not a big deal. His resume seemed decent, he had a pretty good attitude and seemed to get along well enough with the team (we have a small office). Не was pretty high in the running until I googled him (which I tend to do for every potential employee). I found his twitter page first. It was full of gross sexist remarks, one to @SarahSilverman saying I'd like to find
network_engineer 7y ago e Not hiring manager - but I always Google the new hires. I find the new QA managers name when granting access to our network... Google it... a few weeks prior he was arrested for stabbing someone in a bar fight. I don't know if he fell through the cracks or what, but he still works for us. Не makes great guacamole. 27 ...
OathOfFeanor 7y ago At a Mormon-run company, one of the executives (all of whom were Mormon) gave us a resume for his 18 year-old son for a low-level paper-pusher position. The guy's daughter had already been working at the company for a while. She was a great employee. The son seemed like a shoe-in even without the nepotism. We found his MySpace page and it was all about cocaine and marijuana and alcohol, with tons of pictures of him using all three. But to be honest the final decision was made by a hippie woman who was still a Deadhead,
THE PACTVAL Show CryogenicLimbo 7y ago в We interviewed someone for a front desk position, but found that they were on parole after serving time for embezzlement or something and shouldn't be applying to a position to handle money. Yikes. 64 ...
Laceysucks E 7y ago Literally found a whole tumblr she had made for her asshole. + 50 ...
MrsAnthropy 7y ago We were getting ready to do Skype interviews with a set of out-of-town applicants for a full-time faculty (not tenure-line, though) position. In an effort to manage the schedules efficiently, I was trying to find each person's time zone. One guy didn't put his location on his CV and I knew he wasn't teaching at a university right then, so he'd left off his current employer. I googled him and the first thing that came up was his Facebook, which had several live, public videos of him chugging whiskey at a party with what appeared to be
Snake-Doctor 7y ago Girl told me she had a DUI from years ago. No biggie, we all make mistakes. Turns out she assaulted the arresting officer, so that little DUI turned out to include an assault, and resisting arrest. 97 ...
MOONLOVE 7y ago Edited 7y ago This happened to me this week/today!! Interviewed a girl who was amazing. Witty, outgoing, friendly... she had the job before she walked out of the office. Literally today I sat down to call her to see if she could start Monday, and another manager in the office came running in and handed me a piece of paper from our local news... home girl had been arrested literally the night after our interview for trafficking and distribution. Needless to say, I hired someone else. I don't like them nearly as well though. 123 ...
SPACE sanquhar 7y ago COFFEE I was head of HR for an answering service company at one point in my life. Staff turnover was atrocious and most of the resumes that came through were from people that had zero job history or were chronic job hoppers. Imagine my surprise when Renee's resume crossed my desk. With the exception of a ten year gap on her resume, she appeared to be an ideal candidate. And then I found the articles from a newspaper about two hours away. That ten year gap? Serving time for kidnapping and murder...with an axe. A fucking
KFlynn87 7y ago Edited 7y ago I was working at small retail sports chain as an assistant manager. The District manager hired another assistant manager for our store. About a month into him working there I asked him if he could cover one of my shifts. His response was I would but my probation officer doesn't want me working alone with girls under the age of 17. Ummm what? Up till this point neither my manager, DM, or myself knew that he had a probation officer. I knew that he was formerly in the military and where he was from
inexile1234 7y ago Ideal resume, great in person interview, perfect skills for what we were looking for. I deciding to google him, I found his blog, it did not have his name on it but it has his home town, current town, his university, date of graduation and degree on his blog details. His home town and university are very small, there was no mistake this was the same guy. His neo-nazi white supremacist blog. Yeah... no... did not hire. 231 ...
7y ago I was hiring for a city engineering position for a small municipality. Received an application packet from what seemed like perfect candidate. Не had held a similar position with a larger city, well written resume, and he interviewed quite well. Не seemed just a little cagey about answering the why did you leave your last position question. On a hunch, I did a pretty deep Google search and found out that not only had he been fired from one previous local government job, he was the subject of so many hostile work environment and union grievance claims
Biggs180 7y ago Edited 7y ago Obligatory not a hiring manager, but a few years ago I worked at a small machine shop, and I had put in my 2 weeks notice. President of the company is looking to find a replacement for me, and about a week before i depart i hear her laughing hysterically. she calls me over and shows me the facebook page of someone she was going to call for an interview. his profile picture is his head wedged between a strippers legs and vodka being poured into his mouth. 108 ...
Cashforcrickets 7y ago We hired an ex-policeman as a technician in our trade field. Не seemed willing and able, and he passed stringent background and driving backgrounds. Не said he was wanting to be out of law enforcement because of the scrutiny officers were under and needed a career change. This dude looked like a cop! Anyway, he worked for a couple months and did OK at his role... until we got a call saying he'd blacked out behind the wheel, crossed several lanes and medians and wrecked his company truck into a tree and finally a house. We went
mcclark71 . 7y ago Не was so well spoken, had big dreams, was tech savvy. I was about to hire him on the spot. A google search pulled up a mug shot for identity theft. We didn't hire him. 137 ...
7y ago Guy seemed overqualified, but never worked anywhere for more than a few months. Part of his appeal was that he's a 'people person' with fantastic customer service skills. His facebook reveals that he is a fedora-wearing atheist poet/hero who 'hates dealing with all your stupid fucking questions. + 291 ...
7y ago Edited 7y ago Seemed like a nice young man. Very polite, hard working & quiet. Didn't find out until other employees complained that he had dodged a murder rap by reason of insanity & was recently deemed fit to re-join society. Apparently the case was a pretty high profile one as well. His contract was not renewed.
poppa_pod 7y ago I tried googling a software developer I was interviewing but he had such a generic name I couldn't track him down. When he mentioned that a recent career break was to stand in a local government election we found a semi-public Facebook feed full of racist and antisemitic posts. These included photoshopped pictures of Angela Merkel in a Nazi uniform and posts encouraging people not to eat at foreign muck Indian takeaways. There were several local news articles highlighting his horrible racist social media activity. Не was also quoted as saying when I get elected and I'm
NCisawesome 7y ago Edited 7y ago Had a guy come in to apply for a dump truck job, seemed ok, very well spoken, clean cut, not the type you usually see applying for a job driving a dump truck. Не told me he had a phd in Psychology, had his own DWI / addiction counseling business but his wife divorced him and he lost everything. So I googled him, he wasn't lying, but the story goes much deeper... turns out his wife was cheating on him, when he found out where the boyfriend lived he snorted almost enough coke to give himself
Miya81 . 7y ago I wasn't the hiring manager but my teammate was - a candidate came through that he and some other members interviewed and seemed pretty okay for the job until they checked her out. Turns out she was suing the company (yes, the one she applied for a job for) so my teammate ended up not hiring her. + 6.3K ...
quimby15 7y ago - We were narrowing the group down to 2-3 candidates. We then Google/FB/LinkedIN them and get to one that was in the top 2. Their FB was completely open to the public to view everything. Lots of racist, sexist comments. Risque photos of them with some slight nudity. Was too bad, their resume was quite good. Just not something we would consider appropriate. + 2.7K ...
rsqejfwflqkj 7y ago Happened earlier this week. Near perfect resume. Guy has quite relevant experience up until about 4 years ago, and has been trying to get his own startup off the ground since then. It's not working out (no big deal, most don't) so he's looking for another job. Of course, I go and Google his startup. It's complete and utter bullshit. He's been trying to get people to invest in the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine (not that, but similarly fanciful concept of another type). No wonder he couldn't get any investment or traction of any other
floydfan 7y ago I'm not a hiring manager, but they did fuck up and hired the guy. I worked for a newspaper and they hired a new director for my department. About a year after I left the company, the newspaper's reporters were writing a story about this guy because he was trying to open a coffee shop. The reporters found out that he had murdered his girlfriend and dumped her body in Lake Michigan, then went to prison for it. The company never did a background check on him. Не got fired. 1.2K ...
ilre1484 7y ago . Edited 7y ago good resume, former military. we were going to call him in for an interview but googled him first. turns out he was arrested for arms trafficking, the report said he had stolen 2 or 3 small arms as well as a Stinger missile system from the base he was stationed at. the people he set up to sell the stuff to were under cover officers.
poopship462 7y ago I was a restaurant manager and the owner hired this guy as a chef without doing basic research (which he did a few times). Anyways, the guy said he had won several awards and worked with celebrities, etc. The guy was a total dick to everyone on staff. I decided to google him. First hit is a mugshot from a drug arrest. Then more articles, one about where he lied about getting a James Beard award from a previous restaurant he worked at. A comment about him owing 25,000 or something to his former boss. The only
cassiopeia1280 7y ago I wasn't the hiring manager but I was talking to him about a couple interviews he had coming up. Не said he looked up one guy and found that he'd been arrested previously for various identity theft/credit card fraud crimes. This position involved taking payments from customers, among other things, so obviously this guy would not be hired, but that had to be an awkward interview. + 4.9K ...
inspeck 7y ago I was interviewing a much older guy for a similar position of mine. Everything seemed okay, and he was our best candidate. Before moving forward, I did a quick google search to only find out that he was fired from his previous job because of stealing $5000 worth of computer equipment. My director hired him anyway. + 7.4K ...
shankliest 7y ago Hiring private tutors to work with middle School students. Had a great conversation with a girl, she stressed how much she wants to be a role model for young girls, basically exactly what we were looking for. Then I googled her and the first picture on her Facebook is her doing a line. + 12K ...
malachi410 7y ago Interviewed a new grad (from UC Berkeley) a few years ago for an entry-level analyst position at Fortune 300 company. She had a good resume, interviewed well, and made our short list of candidates for second round. I Googled her after the interview and found her blog. The last entry was about her interview with another large company where she basically trashed the interviewer and discussed in detail how much she hated corporations, capitalism, and having to find a job to support herself. We moved her resume to the reject pile. 19 ...

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