[FireGilbert]

By far my strangest interview experience was applying for an oilfield services company right out of university. This was a complicated process involving an initial interview, an overnight tour of their Southern Alberta facilities, then 2 more interviews.

The first interview was pretty standard although had a few irrelevant questions. I think this was just to see if the candidates weren't too crazy. Then I had the site tour. This involved hopping on a bus with like 15 other candidates, touring the facilities, then ending up Medicine Hat to spend the night. Dinner and drinks that night was especially awkward as it was tough to make friends with completing candidates and it felt like every conversation was being judged as part of the interview. I also wasn't sure how much I should be drinking as it seemed like we were expected to have a few and socialize but I didn't want to get too rowdy.

The next day we headed back to Calgary and took turns being interviewed in the back of the bus. The purpose of this 2nd interview was to get feedback on our site visits and determine which department head we would do our final interview with. This turned into the most awkward interview of my life. After a few questions about why I wanted the job the interviewer then got really serious and said we needed to talk about the elephant in the room. I was very confused. He then went on a long rant about how he didn't like hiring engineers from Calgary as supposedly they would all get sick of field work after 2 years and use that experience to find a better job back home. He then basically accused me of wanting to do the same thing and asked for assurances I wouldn't leave after 2 years. This completely knocked me off guard and I had no clue how to respond. Eventually I put something together like I couldn't predict the future but if I was working for a company that gave me training and opportunity I would have loyalty towards them. He accepted the answer but I was officially frazzled.

The final interview was back in Calgary with the head of the department I was trying to get into. This was also awkward because I got the impression the interviewer just couldn't be bothered. He only asked me one question before wrapping up the interview after 5 minutes. At the time I rationalised this as because I had already spent a day in tours and interviews so there wasn't much left to know, but in hindsight I wondered if I left a bad first impressed because I was in a poor state of mind from the previous interview. In any case I will never know exactly what went wrong as I didn't get the job and they didn't provide any feedback.