Tips to a Great Interview

I see that Yahoo has decided to offer some hints and tips to getting a new job, inspired by the fate of their latest CEO getting canned for incompetence. As someone who has been hired and fired from lots and lots of jobs, I thought that maybe I’d add in my two cents to help you, the prospective job seeker, work your way through the interview process.

Picture the Recruiter in her underwear
Let’s be honest: the primary function of the Recruitment person is to be good-looking. That’s why they’re all soulless emotional vampires: they made a deal with the devil to be hot and they have to suck the life force from others for their dark master or become withered, toothless crones who end up working in Benefits, where they torture those who already work for the company. Since the Recruiter plays absolutely no other role in the hiring process than to shuttle you from one office to another, you may as well indulge in some fantasizing about her.

Do not, under any circumstances, picture anybody else in their underwear
This can be hazardous to your health. It’s likely that, as a group, corporate employees will be “Average” in their attractiveness. So if you take the perky-breasted Recruiter and the 20-year-old part-time stripper working as “Reception” out of the equation, the rest of them are significantly below-average.

Never threaten a lawsuit in an interview
Nothing turns an employer off more than if you threaten to sue during the interview. You should only threaten to sue during salary negotiations. If the employer has said something terribly out-of-bounds, like “we don’t hire queers here, sissy-boy,” then instead of threatening legal action try to throw them off-guard with the response “But I was so hoping you and I could get some hard work done on those long, cold nights.” Maybe he’ll hire you out of curiosity. Please note that this approach can backfire when you find yourself alone with your boss at 7 PM and he drops his pants.

Innocent flashing = Good, Brazen harlot = Bad
This simple equation is to help you women out there dress. Listen, you’re not Sharon Stone showing off the golden arches in “Basic Instinct.” If you were, you’d not be looking for a crummy job here. Once you’ve gotten past the incomprehensibly hostile Recruiter, you don’t need to go pole-dancing with the guys who do the actual hiring. Just wear a regular blouse and a normal skirt (ass cheeks are for toilets, not for interviews), then innocently show your goodies at every opportunity: leaning over the desk to point out something on your resume, bending over to retrieve a fallen object, etcetera. These guys spend all day working with ugly men in an office environment; let them fantasize that you’re the breath of fresh air that will lift them from their daily hell. You can always dress like a nun or a whore (as your preference indicates) after you get the job.

Don’t eat or drink anything from the interviewer’s desk
I had this friend once who knew this guy who accepted a toffee from the interviewer’s desk, then woke up in a bathtub full of ice without a kidney.

Answer the obvious questions with the obvious answers
If the interviewer asks “do you like to steal?” the correct answer is “No.” Not “define stealing” or “only if it’s something to help the company.” Unless you’re interviewing for a job in upper management, you’re against stealing. Another common obvious question is “Do you do drugs?” The correct answer is not “Doesn’t everybody?” or “Are you offering?” The correct answer is “I do not do drugs, and I never have.” It doesn’t matter if you just smoked a crack rock in the bathroom to get ready; during the interview, you’re Nancy Reagan’s poster child.

Assume the interviewer is an unenlightened moron
I’m sure that your views on politics, religion, and society are consistent, literate, and well-thought-out. No enlightened, intelligent person would disagree with you. Unfortunately, your interviewer may be a knuckle-dragging troll. So leave out such statements as “murderous abortionist Democrats” or “jackbooted Republican thugs” unless you’re interviewing for a job with the other party.

Blame your lunch request on hypoglycemia
It’s a fact: nobody, including most doctors, knows what the hell hypoglycemia is. So when you go first and order a blood-red steak, followed by everybody else getting the garden salad, just shrug and say “My doctor says to eat a lot of red meat because of my family history of hypoglycemia.” You ordered a salad when everybody else got the T-bone? “My doctor says to watch out for red meat because I’m predisposed to hypoglycemia.” Vomited on the table after the oysters? “I forgot that shellfish can set off my hypoglycemia.” See how great that works?

Send in a Trojan Horse
Get a friend to interview before you and do everything wrong. He can go staggering in wearing his Che Guevara T-shirt with a needle hanging out of his arm, hit on the Recruiter, vomit in the waiting area, and hurl racist slurs at everybody. Then, when you come in, you’re the ideal candidate no matter how unqualified or moronic you may be in real life. Sounds hard? All you need is a friend who is also looking for a job and is foolish enough to be the Trojan Horse first. After that it’s all downhill from there!

Happy job hunting!