A woman realised a huge mistake had been made with her CV after attending an interview for a job – and the error means she’ll likely miss out on the opportunity
Bad job interviews are common, but the fault doesn’t always lie with the candidate.
Anyone who’s been through a long job hunt has likely faced an interview that didn’t go according to plan. Maybe the questions caught you off guard, or your experience didn’t quite line up with the job specifications, but in the hope of dazzling the employer, you gave it your best shot.
But what happens when the blunder isn’t yours? This was precisely the dilemma a woman named Jess Han encountered during a job hunt. She attended a video call interview, only to discover that her interviewer had made a colossal error by inviting her based on another candidate’s CV – a mishap caused by them both having exactly the same name.
Jess took to TikTok to share the cringe-inducing moment from her interview. In the footage she posted, Jess can be seen addressing the faux pas head-on, saying: “I don’t know how to bring this up, but I think you may have a different resume.”
Although Jess was wearing earphones, so viewers couldn’t hear the hiring manager’s responses, she indicated that the work history on the CV wasn’t reflective of “her background” and mentioned that her name is “quite popular”.
Jess later shared a follow-up video, delving deeper into exactly what happened during her interview. She confessed that she “realised pretty early on” that there was a mix-up with her CV, yet she tried to navigate the situation, hoping it wouldn’t cost her the opportunity.
Jess recounted: “I tried to play along with it in the beginning, but when they brought up a master’s degree and all their work experience, I was like, ‘Okay, this is not me’. I just awkwardly brought it up, as you can see in the video, and I proceeded to screen share my resume, which looked nowhere near as impressive.”
Despite the confusion, the woman revealed that the hiring manager handled the mishap with grace, clarifying that the HR department had arranged the interview, not the manager herself, leaving her unaware of the error until Jess pointed it out.
Jess further mentioned that the company she applied to is currently under a “hiring freeze” due to the end of their financial year. However, she received a glimmer of hope as the hiring manager promised to touch base with her in April to explore any potential roles that align with Jess’s actual qualifications.
In the comments section, people were left in sheer disbelief over the company’s blunder. Many expressed empathy, understanding how such a mix-up could occur when Jess and another candidate shared an identical name.
However, some argued that better measures should be in place to avoid these kinds of situations. One commenter empathised: “I’m sorry, that’s a difficult position to be in and embarrassing for the hiring manager as well. But I can see how it would easily happen when more than one person has the same name applying for a job.”
Meanwhile, another shared their own perplexing experience: “Girl, I once went into a full-blown meeting with an executive at a place I used to work, and they thought I was someone else.”
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