I am currently interviewing for a Vice President in an up and coming technology company. We recently flew in a promising candidate in order to discuss the position further. When asked to describe the best job he had ever had, he said, “I was a hot dog vendor in the red-light district, and I got to hang out with the ladies of evening.” Then he laughed.
This candidate checked off all of our other boxes: he had held the position before in another growing tech firm, he had the leadership skills that we wanted, and he was eager to get started, but this comment stopped us in our tracks.
As we discussed the candidate after the interview, one member of the interview team said that the candidate was “just joking” and we shouldn’t hold that comment against him.
But what if he wasn’t joking? There is a really big potential risk to take on when a candidate alludes to sex in an interview.
The bottom line is this: referring to and/or alluding to sex in a professional interview is completely inappropriate, no matter what the company, the product, the experience or the position. Whether this candidate meant to or not, you as the employer can’t under any circumstances take on that risk. It puts all of your other employees in a terrible position should this candidate not limit his inappropriateness to the interview process.
In other words, we can’t assume that he was joking. Next!