Posted By Josephine Erina - I think it's not necessarily fair to blame an agency for your bad interview experiences (though of course they should have read your CV properly), but did it not occur to you to read the job spec before you agreed to go to interview? What sort of person attends an interview without finding out what the job is about?

Posted By Brett Day My pet hates: 1. Agencies who lie to both employer and employee. 2. No feedback or come back, they just ignore you and hope you go away, had this with one company up in Norfolk who at the interview said "If you have any questions or want feedback contact me" and then gave me thier direct number. They didn't contact the agency and when I phoned them they ignored my polite message and gave the agency a rollicking - If you don't want people to contact you don't give out contact details. 3. Gives salary & package but fail to mention verbally or in writing any 'conditions' until after you join. Joined one company that offered a company car and had stated at interview that I had problems with unroadworthy cars with current employer was told "We won't mess you about with cars." Didn't tell me that I'd have to be there six months to get a car, but still expected me to travel around the M25 area. was there only as long as it took me to get another role. 4. Sheer general rudeness of prospective and actual employers. Yet they expect potential employees to be positive about employers that are a complete shower. 5. As for the God knows how many interviews what a waste of time, I've often found that the first is how wonderfull we are, the second is the 'technical' assessment then the third is HR sticking it's oar in. Quite frankly we will find out just how good a company is when we join, so could do the technical first and then the HR second - that scrubs of 1 interview straight away or better still have one interview with HR and someone to assess my cometance. 6. Ask to see my work (which I don't mind) but then harp on about confidentiality? And ask to see it in an electronic format (one prospective employer asked specifically that it not be copy protected, rather than copy protected or in hardcopy), when I refused and asked if they intended copying my documentation I never heard from them. I've found that the best companies I've worked for have only had one interview and have done as little as possible to waste my time, the companies that I've got out of PDQ have gone down the 'how many interviews can we get this person to go through before he/she gets hacked off?' route. Talking to friends in other industries, for many of whom a single, long interview is often the norm. On an up note I was warned about my current employer is in a rubbish part of the market (It was couched more strongly than that), the pay wasn't good and I could do much better elsewhere. Having said that I dropped 5k, but I no longer have to commute into London, I'm set up to work from home, company car was there on the day they expetced me to start travelling and is a lot less hassle. Would rather be reasonably paid and happy, than fantastically paid and hacked off.

Posted By Dave West What angers me is that when i applied for the position i have now my company wanted three references, if after three months of your probation they have not recieved them you are not taken on. YET! i have been told that my company do not and will not give references no matter how good an employee you are! As for intreviews my boss said that he knows within the first 30 seconds if the person is right for the job and all the rest of the time is spent backing up and confirming his first opinion

Posted By phil worse still, some of them are SPONSORED by the Health and Safety organisations.......