What not to do on a job interview - week 1

A couple of my past jobs have been in retail store management. My responsibilities were to interview and hire new employees. So, I have had my fair share of experience doing job interviews.

With the current job market, many people will be searching for new jobs. To help out, I thought I would take one day each of the next 5 weeks and give you my "Top 5 things not to do on a job interview". These are things that have actually happened during one of the job interviews I have conducted. If you are interviewing for a new job, please do not do these things.

1) Take your baby to the job interview - I had a lady show up for her interview with a stroller and her baby inside. My first thought was, "Do you realize that if we hire you, you can't bring your baby to work with you?" I know that finding someone to watch your child can be hard to do sometimes, but that can't possibly give your potential boss a good feeling about your being able to come to work without a baby. During the interview, her baby started to cry. It was so awkward. I tried to act as if there wasn't a crying baby next to me and just proceed, but it was nearly impossible to do. Needless to say, she didn't get the job.