Take a laundry marker and write something (it doesn’t really matter what) on the face of your interviewer.
One way around this is by joining a professional society in your field. They usually have free forwarding addresses, so on your resume you can have something like “yourname@acm.org” or “yourname@ieee.org” but it actually gets forwarded to “yourname@frodolives.com” or whatever. But this solution will not work if you can’t or won’t spend the $75 or $100 annual dues.
Not know the proper spelling of the software you’re supposed to support. :smack:
We just interviewed a woman to replace me in the role I am vacating. She was one of the most unprofessional people I have ever interviewed. Here are some of her answers:
“My technical skills? I may not know all the systems you use, but I’m a very quick learner. In fact, give me a few months and I’ll probably be teaching you guys a thing or two about your system.”
“Personal interests? I really like to shop. In fact, the father of my daughter and I are going to get married in a few months. But I’ve been going to Williams & Sonoma every week and registering for things there. I think I have 50 things on my registry, none of which I can afford on my own. And I don’t even cook! I mean, I would have gotten married YEARS ago if I would have known how much fun registering is!”
“I have a associate’s degree in accounting. I plan on getting my master’s degree eventually but having this kid really sidelined my education.”
Needless to say, SHE didn’t get the job.
Geez, this has already been addressed a dozen times, but let me add the following.
There is nothing wrong with this approach if you are extremely skilled in an area of expertise that is in very high demand. If people are beating down your door to try to hire you, believe you me, it doesn’t matter if your email is fuckyou@serialkiller.com, they’ll be flooding your inbox.
However, if you are in the position of the remaining 99.99% of us, then what will happen is your resume will be in a pile with thousands of other resumes. The poor schlub who has to wade through all the crap has to have some way to filter out the obvious losers. And having an unprofessional-sounding email addy is almost certainly going to trigger that automatic filter.
Never be rude to the secretary or cleaning crew. Or the person “minding” you before the interviewer is available.
My boss would send me to the front desk to lead the interviewees to his office. He wanted to know how they would react to my handicap and see how they would treat me. I’ve had people be openly hostile, rude, ask me for pain meds(!) or if the boss was cute or gay or married.
But best of all, when learning that she would be working with me, the raised eyebrows, slight sneer and flip of the hair. “Oh. Really.” Oh yeah beeyotch. :dubious: When can I start training you??? (Only a couple of women did this. One guy just looked at me and blinked. Didn’t say another word to me.)
“So, if I understand you correctly, having sexual relations with the cleaning lady on my desk after hours… that sort of thing is frowned upon?”
I used to be general manager of a local restaurant. One day, about a year ago, a guy came in and asked to speak the manager. I told him he was already doing so. He gave me a quizzical look (which I was willing to forgive; one does not often encounter 19-year-old GMs), but shook it off and asked me for an application. I gave him one, and he sat and filled it out, then handed it back to me. I looked over it – a couple years’ experience in restaurants, sophomore at the community college, seems nice enough, and we are short-handed at the moment – and I decided to give him the interview on the spot.
So, I introduced myself, shook his hand, and said, “If you have time, I can go ahead and interview you for the position”.
His response? “No, that’s okay; when can I come back and talk to somebody important?”
I calmly took his application, thanked him for his time, and handed him a slip of paper with the owners’ number on it. I told him he could contact them with any questions he might have, as they were my direct and sole superiors. He didn’t say anything else, but the look on his face as he walked out the door left little doubt that he’d gotten the message. The application was sorted into the round file shortly thereafter.
What about a three way with the cleaning lady and the hunky janitor?
If you’re a good boss, I’ll position the security cameras so you can watch.
When I owned my business, and was in search of a technician for computer repair, I got the following wonders:
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“Can I smoke a bowl at lunch?”
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“Will you give me more money if I drive my own car?” (Instead of the company van. This from said pot-smoker above.)
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On a resume: Proficient with SM Word, SM Excel, and all types of SM things.
Thanks, but I get my spankings at home. -
Sometimes I just can’t get up in the morning. Can I come to work at noon? Might have been okay, except that he was interviewing for the early shift tech support position.
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I’m an expert in Windows 95, 98, and the soon to be released Windows 2000.
On the off chance he was on the development team, I talked to this guy. Turns out he’d read a bunch of stuff on the internet, which he felt made him an expert.
This was fun. I saved a bunch of the funniest resumes. Maybe I’ll go digging through them and post a few more gems.
From the most recent interview committee I was on, hiring for a desktop support/network trbouleshooting postion:
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When asked what his strengths were in networking technologies the interviewee just stared at the questioner. No words. Just stared. After about a minute, he said “Next Question.”
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The following exchange:
“I’m not all that good with Windows, but I’m great at Linux.”
“Well, this is a Windows environment, and most of our users have pretty basic skills.”
“Yeah? Then why did you hire them?”
“Well, most of the users are actually students at the school. We don’t really hire them, if anything they hired us.”
“Crazy, man. You ought to kick the dumb ones out.”
- “Please describe your experience configuring and troubleshooting DHCP”
“DHCP? Is that? Oh, I know! It’s that setting thing in network neghborhood. I can set that man. I’d say my skills are good. Yeah. Really good.”
Get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the interview. Best to go take care of your personal business before the interview. Even worse would be not getting up to go and desperately needing to go, and worse yet, if you waited until it was too late. :eek:
At the end of the interview, asking your potential employer, “Have you ever heard of Amway?” Either that, or hand him a copy of Watchtower, a Jack Chick tract, etc.
I don’t see why this should be such a big deal. It’s a bit of a risk, because your potential employer might be very conservative, have no sense of humor, or have a pathological dislike of Star Trek fans. Which means you probably wouldn’t have been happy working there anyway. I used a humorous email address on a resume once, and the interviewer laughed about it and thought it was very cool. And I was hired on the spot.
I have a bland, easy-to-spell email address for business. Once in the interview, I usually mention in the “personal interests” section that I’m a Trekker and attend annual conventions. This makes me seem quirky but non-offensive, and I suspect, has the added bonus of implying that I am competent enough to leave my house on occasion, but not so much of a life that I can’t devote myself to my job because my social escapades would get in the way.
Which is true. 
I’ve never had a problem getting a job, and this thread is starting to shed some light on why… Yeesh.
It’s not about whether they’re conservative or laid back.
At my job, for example, it’s 95% laid back. You can joke, wear slobby clothes, etc. On your first day of work, you can come in looking like a bum.
But, the MOST important parts of the jobs require one to speak professionally, dress professionally, write professionally, and just come across professionally.
A job interview is your time to show that you are able to do this. If you don’t wear a suit, don’t shave, don’t have a haircut, or indicate that your email address is TribbleLover@Tholian.Web then they just might think you’re not mature enough to handle the professional responsibilities.
On the other hand, you’re free to apply to every job in the world with that email address. Someone out there will probably hire you FASTER because of it. But, there’s no question that you’re narrowing your job search.
I have recently hired a new member of my team. Here are some tips based on my experiences in the past few years here:
Don’t have your Mom call you in sick for the interview. If you are sick, call yourself in.
Don’t ask if you can work from home some of the time. In today’s economy, I had to fight to get a new hire. I want someone who is dedicated and excited. One cadidate told me that his home life was more important to him than his job and he would like to work from home half the week. Note that I don’t want a slave. If you regularly work more than 40 hours for me, I’m managing wrong. But I DO want your 40. You may work well from home, but I’m not going to risk my career on that bet. I fought hard to get a chance to hire you, show me you want to work for me.
Never be late, but don’t be too early. As a manager, I have several things going each day. I may have a meeting scheduled at 1:30 and if you are scheduled at 2:00 and show up at 1:00, then you have shown that you can’t follow instructions.
If I give you some hints on what you’ll hear in the interview, take it as an insider tip and use it. If I tell you that one of the members of the hiring committee is on the XXXX standards committee, do some research, find out about XXXX and mention it to him. It won’t hurt and sure could help. (Out of 20 interviews, only one did this research.)
If it is a professional job, wear professional attire. Jeans at an interview is out.
This one is open to debate. Some might think that is shows initiative, others might think it is pushy. If you have received a schedule, it was meant as a courtesy, not written in stone. In a big business sometimes things change. If you were supposed to see me and then “Bob”, but instead I take you to “Bill” don’t take this time to tell me that I’m wrong and show me the schedule. I probably wrote the schedule. Unfortunately, sometimes “Bob” will have an emergency and “Bill” is free.
Show me as best that you can that you are excited about what I do. If you view work as a necessary evil, that comes through. Our top candidate was the top because he was genuinely interested. There were two others who where technically better, but it was pretty clear that they just wanted a job to hold them until retirement.
That’s it. I hope it helps, but if not, well, it is free.
Having said this, though, I object to the idea that people should be judged by their email addresses, especially if they have limited resources and can’t afford to follow the suggestion above. If that’s really going to stand in the way of you getting a particular job, then maybe you don’t really want that job anyway. It’s your personal, recreational email, after all. You shouldn’t have to have something like “your.name@OnlyEverThinksAboutBusinessAndWearsDockersAndATieEvenOnSaturdayMorning.com”
That indicates to me that the schedule-writer is incompetent and sloppy and the person who responds “Do what I tell you, not what you’re expected to do based on the materials/description!” is disorganized and has poor managerial skills. I may be projecting my current work experience.
You are lucky to have the luxury of no surprises in a day. Anyone of my people, including my boss, can be called unexpectedly to help troubleshoot a problem. If so, we move the schedule around to accommodate. Your response makes me think, “This person is too rigid and will not deal well with surprises.” It would send the message that you lack the ability to handle any but the most well-defined tasks and would need constant monitoring in case things fall outside of your comfort zone. (I am ** definitely ** projecting my work experience, a person who can’t adjust wouldn’t last long in our group, we have too much going on.)
Show up with purple pigeon poop in your hair. I thought I’d gotten it all out. 
If you are a secondary school teacher applying for the position of Elementary School Principal within the same school , it might be an idea to walk across the campus one day before your interview and request a copy of the curriculum before displaying your ignorance of what is taught. Alternatively, you could take a look at the software program, piloted by the ES, which you claim to be an expert in, and just have a look at the curriculum on there. Replying to questions asked by the interviewing panel of ES teachers with the words: “You’re the experts… I’d rely on the teachers for that… The teachers would have to help me out with that…” doesn’t make anyone want you to be their boss.