Companies are being urged to up the standards at the interview, as a third of job applicants came away from their interview having formed a poor impression of the business they were hoping to join, according to a survey by Ipsos Mori for T-Mobile.

The survey found that applicants judged a potential employer on their impressions of the working environment and the people who worked there. In some cases applicants were asked racist and sexist questions, questions that had nothing to do with the job and found the interviewer to have bad personal hygiene. Some even complained that the interviewer was drunk.

Mark Martin, HR director at T-Mobile, says: “Candidates are beginning to place a company’s culture and values at the top of their agenda, so businesses need to think about how these are expressed in an interview situation – or their reputation and brand could be on the line.”