From: kunnath@leland.stanford.edu (Ajay Kunnath)
Subject: Stories for the Job-seeker - in response
Organization: DSG, Stanford University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 17:29:13 GMT

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I would like to thank Iain McVey, Sharon Ann Hamon, Mick Lemmerman,
Agnes Wozniak, Mike Cubat, David Stanley, Mark Johnson, Sam Saal,
Corrina Perrone for mailing out these wonderful stories in response
to my posting on "Help brighten a Job seeker". 

If you have stories about people who go for job interviews, and screw up
big-time; I would be more than happy to hear from you. The following is
a first collection and I look forward to seeing it grow.

Stories are undoubtedly hard to come by, because at the moment they 
are NOT funny. In retrospect, and in happier times, they do bring on
a smile.

So, all ye dis-heartened job seekers!! Cheer up! and read on...

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My old university, and a great number of others in Canada, have what is
called a cooperative education program, or coop.  The idea is that
students get matched up with potential employers and do a 4 or 8 month coop
work term with them.

The idea being that the companies get pretty qualified temp help, and
get to check out the upper level students, and the students get real job
experience.

Anyway, the process is that the companies send in job descriptions, and
you sign up for the ones you are interested in.  You then have
interviews with each of the employers that are interested in, and then
you each rank each other.  The department matches you up, and off you
go.

Now all this preliminary stuff is to show you that you can get a great
many interviews.  I once had 6 interviews for one semester, and I know
of others having double that.

If you are upper level (3rd or 4th year), you are in pretty high demand
and can almost pick and choose jobs, so often you get some really boring
interviews.

A friend of mine used to like to harass interviewers who were very
boring, especially if he was not interested in the job.  When the
interviewer got around to the inevitable, "can I answer any of your
questions", my friend would proceed to ask some really difficult ethical
questions, of the If-you-found-a-hundred-dollar-bill-in-the-road-would-you
-keep-it kind.

You can imagine the surprised interviewer who must answer whether or not
he would knock on doors to try and find the owner of the cat he had just
run over, and so on.

Too many job offers for that guy, eh?

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This isn't all that funny, but a friend of mine told me she was interviewing
and when asked where she saw herself in three years, she panicked and 
blurted, "I want to work in a great big office building!"

Oh well.
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Here's a couple of stories I can vouch for (because I was present
at both)......

I was being interviewed by a large electronics company. Well, the
interview went on longer than we expected, so we had to continue
it over lunch in the works canteen. Trying to be interesting, open
and demonstrative, I'm afraid I made too much use of hand and arm 
movements. I hadn't noticed that my knife had slipped under my
fried egg - when I brought my arm down, it caught the knife and
hurled the egg (sunny side up) onto my chest. It stayed there for
a moment before slipping down into my lap. The interviewers looked
at me in silence for a few awful seconds, and then both burst into
hysterical laughter. (Despite the embarrassment, I think this
incident actually broke the ice and helped me get the job).

A few years later, working for a software house, I was in a position to
interview someone else. At a pause in the discussions, the interviewee
looked around the room. "You know?" he said, "it must be great 
being a cleaner in a place like this." "Why's that?" I asked.
"Well, just think of all the software you could steal when the 
office is empty!".
"NEXT!"
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I had a friend who, when asked why his GPA was so low, could only
respond:"Hey! I had a social life..."

Another was led into a room and asked to solve partial differential
equations on a blackboard.  He just threw down the chalk and said:
"Sorry!  i don't think I want to work for you anymore.."  

Neither got the job!
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   I work as a recruiter (headhunter). One time I sent a candidate
 in for a position as a software engineer.
   I called up the manager the next day to ask him what he thought
 of the candidate. I was stunned to hear that the guy had brought
 his mother to the interview, and left her in he waiting area
 while he had his interview.
   He didn't get the job.
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A man went for an interview with a large corporation.  When he went in
he was asked to take a seat.  He was standing in front of the chairs and
he very confidently placed his hands on the arms of two separate chairs
and without looking behind him sat on the floor between them.
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I once went on a job interview, and anxious to make a good impression, I
sat in the waiting room for about 15 min. reviewing my personal data,
experience, education, etc. so that I could call up instant answers to any
question I was asked.

Eventually, I was called into the office.  The interviewer glanced at my
resume, and asked me, "What is your name?"

I wasn't expecting that question.

Reams of personal and professional data streamed through my mind, blocking
my long-term memory, as I stuttered, "Uh...Uh..."  The panic did nothing to
alleviate the situation.

Eventually, he looked back at my resume, and read "Mark?"  That triggered
me, and I responded excitedly "Mark Johnson!  That's it!"

No, I didn't get the job.
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When interviewing for med schools, the candidate was asked where he saw
himself 15 years from that day.  The candidate looked at his watch and
said "well, today is Wednesday, so I'll be out on the golf course."

He didn't get in.
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My brother-in-law is a regional sales manager for a big
air-freight company and one of his clients is Pepsi.  You
know the big rival that Coke and Pepsi have to the tune of
millions in advertising, etc...  Well, he spends several days
down at headquarters wining and dining these people and is very 
proud of himself, it looks like he's going to keep the account.
They have given him a Pepsi baseball cap, pen, sweatshirt, sweater,
loads of Pepsi memorabilia.  On the final evening he takes them
out to this fancy dinner and remembering to stay sharp, he wants
to avoid the alcohol, so he says to the waitress,

"just bring me a coke...."

OOPS.

lucky for him, he did get to keep the account.
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-- 
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Ajay Kunnath	  	 	| Internet : kunnath@quake.stanford.edu
Stanford University     	|   Office : (415) 725-8858
CA 94305                  	|      Fax : (415) 725-2333
Newsgroups: rec.humor,soc.culture.polish,alt.censorship