And then there are the practical effects: money is stupidly tight right now, which makes little things like moving out and planning a wedding that much more complicated for me and my fiancée. We’re lucky enough to have some caring, loving people on our side, though, so things definitely aren’t as strenuous as they could be.
But still — it’s not smooth going. I’ve easily filled out at least 45 applications, made a hundred phone calls and been to a dozen interviews over the last two months, and I’ve yet to get a bite. Maybe I’m unmarketable. Maybe I’ve always had a booger hanging out of my nose, and no one’s told me. Either way, I’m dealing with rejection in much the same way that the Augusta Chronicle writes editorials: by repurposing and re-contextualizing unrelated facts in order to fulfill my own convoluted agenda.
To that end, I’ve compiled a short list of the most common misleading, entrapping, confusing things you’ll see on every job application or hear in any interview. For easy reference, I’ve included its film equivalent, and how to deal with each situation. Fortunately, being unemployed goes hand-in-hand with being a movie nerd and a dispenser of horrible advice.
The “It’s a Trap!” Question
Prime Example: “Tell us five things you are not.”
See, on the surface this is should be an easy one. Everyone’s answer could conceivably be “A giant squid, Kaiser Soze, gold penis-having, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and chalk.” But if you just name five things that obviously don’t apply to you, they’re going to dock you points for unoriginality or laziness, even though it took me over eight seconds to come up with that list. I guess, though, you can take comfort in the fact that any job that disqualifies you on the basis of not being Kaiser Soze isn’t worth having in the first place.
And there’s a second way this screws you over. You’ve got to sit there hemming and hawing about what five original-sounding things you are absolutely not. By the time you get to “derp,” your interviewer will have mentally checked out.
The Film Equivalent: “Screamers” (1995).
In this insane, Philip K. Dick-based story, “screamers” are self-replicating mechanical assassins driven by an A.I. over-mind. The most basic type is akin to murderous, adamantium terriers, but other versions can also take the form of children, lizards and even a grown woman (that one of the characters has sex with, unsexily). The point is this: every interviewer you will ever meet has seen this movie and has decided that it is real, that you are a screamer and that they’ll be damned if they’re going to hire a filthy cyborg just so it can decapitate Leslie in Implementation.
What You Can Do About It
If your interviewer harbors an empirical distrust of you (and he/she will), then not much. Best case scenario, do what I did: think of five completely general things that describe you, and say the opposites. It probably would’ve worked for me if I hadn’t emitted a high-pitched squeal from my rupturing motherboard.
The Nostradamus Question
Prime Example: “Where do you see yourself in five/10/20 years?”
Every organization’s HR department apparently has a Batman villain-like affinity for multiples of five, because those are the only numbers I’ve ever encountered in that question. It assumes you have the gift of precognition, or at least the ability to strike a balance in your answer between sounding too cocky (“Eating cocaine Easter eggs off of Beyonce’s butt”) and sounding like you have absolutely no ambition (“Mattress salesman”). Potential employers find confidence attractive, but if you’re an a**hole, you absolutely cannot risk telling the truth, because of this…
Film Equivalent: Francis Ford Coppola’s career
This requires some context. In case you haven’t seen the first two Godfather films or “Apocalypse Now” (in which case, What the hell is wrong with you?), Coppola is kind of a genius. If you had told me 15 years ago that someone could shoot a Dracula film with Keanu Reeves and make that s**t work, I’d have invoked the wrath of the Elder Gods and banished you back to the Nether-Realm. After making Apocalypse, though, Coppola’s head swelled to, well, the size it is now. The result was “One From the Heart,” an ill-conceived Technicolor jazz musical that made back less than 20 percent of its budget. Detroit sperm bank donors see better returns on their investments.
Because of that, Coppola had to take directing jobs that he normally wouldn’t have, in order to pay off his debts. “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish” are actually decent films, but the real low point was “Jack,” in which Robin Williams plays a 12-year-old trapped in the body of a 45-year-old partially shaved ape (i.e. “himself”). In a modern context, this would be like Rick Santorum being forced to slip a condom onto a banana in Elton John’s hot tub.
To wit: after his early success, there was no way that Coppola could have seen his future coming.
What You Can Do About It
Be general, and don’t get cute. Phrases like “realizing advancement in the company,” coupled with “furthering the mission statement of blah blah blah” usually go over pretty well. The fact of the matter is that you can’t predict your own future any more than Gary Busey can predict which meatloaf he humps next, so it’s best not to over-think this one.
The “Thumb Up Your Ass” Period
Prime Example: “We’ll keep your resume on file, and you should hear from us in about two weeks.”
No, no and hell no. This will never happen. If an employer tells you this, you’ve got about a brain cell’s chance in Charlie Sheen of actually hearing back from them. Some version of this is the last thing you’ll hear from most of your relationships in college. See also: “We’ll be in touch,” and “No, I totally came.”
Film Equivalent: “Bellflower” (2011)
“Bellflower,” shot for about $17,000, combines the apocalypse, infidelity and the misguided zeitgeist of early manhood. Two friends in California spend about 90 minutes building their own flamethrower and Mad Max car, all while drinking PBR, not having jobs (and yet money, somehow) and bedding skanks. By the end, one of them has had a full beard tattooed to his face, the other has killed a guy with a baseball bat, and you’ve had a cigarette put out on your soul. And then: mushroom cloud. You spend the entire film waiting, hoping for something positive — or at least imbued with finality — to happen, before at last, perhaps predictably, it doesn’t.
What You Can Do About It
Literally put your thumb up your ass. It’s the same way I distracted myself when Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars last month.
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Nerding Out, Because I’ll Always Have Time
I’m 28 years old, a little bit beyond the just-out-of-college demographic. I am, however, firmly embedded in the just-out-of-grad-school demographic — though, in the interest of full disclosure, that age range potentially spans 50 years — so I’m feeling the job market crunch as much as some of you are.
At the risk of sounding like a counterintuitive lunatic, being unemployed is almost more difficult than having a job, though in markedly different ways. For one thing, I stress out so easily at this point that I start having heart palpitations when I watch “Cupcake Wars.” I can’t even sit through an episode of “Game of Thrones” anymore without an oxygen mask and vial of adrenaline.
And then there are the practical effects: money is stupidly tight right now, which makes little things like moving out and planning a wedding that much more complicated for me and my fiancée. We’re lucky enough to have some caring, loving people on our side, though, so things definitely aren’t as strenuous as they could be.
But still — it’s not smooth going. I’ve easily filled out at least 45 applications, made a hundred phone calls and been to a dozen interviews over the last two months, and I’ve yet to get a bite. Maybe I’m unmarketable. Maybe I’ve always had a booger hanging out of my nose, and no one’s told me. Either way, I’m dealing with rejection in much the same way that the Augusta Chronicle writes editorials: by repurposing and re-contextualizing unrelated facts in order to fulfill my own convoluted agenda.
To that end, I’ve compiled a short list of the most common misleading, entrapping, confusing things you’ll see on every job application or hear in any interview. For easy reference, I’ve included its film equivalent, and how to deal with each situation. Fortunately, being unemployed goes hand-in-hand with being a movie nerd and a dispenser of horrible advice.
The “It’s a Trap!” Question
Prime Example: “Tell us five things you are not.”
See, on the surface this is should be an easy one. Everyone’s answer could conceivably be “A giant squid, Kaiser Soze, gold penis-having, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and chalk.” But if you just name five things that obviously don’t apply to you, they’re going to dock you points for unoriginality or laziness, even though it took me over eight seconds to come up with that list. I guess, though, you can take comfort in the fact that any job that disqualifies you on the basis of not being Kaiser Soze isn’t worth having in the first place.
And there’s a second way this screws you over. You’ve got to sit there hemming and hawing about what five original-sounding things you are absolutely not. By the time you get to “derp,” your interviewer will have mentally checked out.
The Film Equivalent: “Screamers” (1995).
In this insane, Philip K. Dick-based story, “screamers” are self-replicating mechanical assassins driven by an A.I. over-mind. The most basic type is akin to murderous, adamantium terriers, but other versions can also take the form of children, lizards and even a grown woman (that one of the characters has sex with, unsexily). The point is this: every interviewer you will ever meet has seen this movie and has decided that it is real, that you are a screamer and that they’ll be damned if they’re going to hire a filthy cyborg just so it can decapitate Leslie in Implementation.
What You Can Do About It
If your interviewer harbors an empirical distrust of you (and he/she will), then not much. Best case scenario, do what I did: think of five completely general things that describe you, and say the opposites. It probably would’ve worked for me if I hadn’t emitted a high-pitched squeal from my rupturing motherboard.
The Nostradamus Question
Prime Example: “Where do you see yourself in five/10/20 years?”
Every organization’s HR department apparently has a Batman villain-like affinity for multiples of five, because those are the only numbers I’ve ever encountered in that question. It assumes you have the gift of precognition, or at least the ability to strike a balance in your answer between sounding too cocky (“Eating cocaine Easter eggs off of Beyonce’s butt”) and sounding like you have absolutely no ambition (“Mattress salesman”). Potential employers find confidence attractive, but if you’re an a**hole, you absolutely cannot risk telling the truth, because of this…
Film Equivalent: Francis Ford Coppola’s career
This requires some context. In case you haven’t seen the first two Godfather films or “Apocalypse Now” (in which case, What the hell is wrong with you?), Coppola is kind of a genius. If you had told me 15 years ago that someone could shoot a Dracula film with Keanu Reeves and make that s**t work, I’d have invoked the wrath of the Elder Gods and banished you back to the Nether-Realm. After making Apocalypse, though, Coppola’s head swelled to, well, the size it is now. The result was “One From the Heart,” an ill-conceived Technicolor jazz musical that made back less than 20 percent of its budget. Detroit sperm bank donors see better returns on their investments.
Because of that, Coppola had to take directing jobs that he normally wouldn’t have, in order to pay off his debts. “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish” are actually decent films, but the real low point was “Jack,” in which Robin Williams plays a 12-year-old trapped in the body of a 45-year-old partially shaved ape (i.e. “himself”). In a modern context, this would be like Rick Santorum being forced to slip a condom onto a banana in Elton John’s hot tub.
To wit: after his early success, there was no way that Coppola could have seen his future coming.
What You Can Do About It
Be general, and don’t get cute. Phrases like “realizing advancement in the company,” coupled with “furthering the mission statement of blah blah blah” usually go over pretty well. The fact of the matter is that you can’t predict your own future any more than Gary Busey can predict which meatloaf he humps next, so it’s best not to over-think this one.
The “Thumb Up Your Ass” Period
Prime Example: “We’ll keep your resume on file, and you should hear from us in about two weeks.”
No, no and hell no. This will never happen. If an employer tells you this, you’ve got about a brain cell’s chance in Charlie Sheen of actually hearing back from them. Some version of this is the last thing you’ll hear from most of your relationships in college. See also: “We’ll be in touch,” and “No, I totally came.”
Film Equivalent: “Bellflower” (2011)
“Bellflower,” shot for about $17,000, combines the apocalypse, infidelity and the misguided zeitgeist of early manhood. Two friends in California spend about 90 minutes building their own flamethrower and Mad Max car, all while drinking PBR, not having jobs (and yet money, somehow) and bedding skanks. By the end, one of them has had a full beard tattooed to his face, the other has killed a guy with a baseball bat, and you’ve had a cigarette put out on your soul. And then: mushroom cloud. You spend the entire film waiting, hoping for something positive — or at least imbued with finality — to happen, before at last, perhaps predictably, it doesn’t.
What You Can Do About It
Literally put your thumb up your ass. It’s the same way I distracted myself when Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars last month.
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And then there are the practical effects: money is stupidly tight right now, which makes little things like moving out and planning a wedding that much more complicated for me and my fiancée. We’re lucky enough to have some caring, loving people on our side, though, so things definitely aren’t as strenuous as they could be.
But still — it’s not smooth going. I’ve easily filled out at least 45 applications, made a hundred phone calls and been to a dozen interviews over the last two months, and I’ve yet to get a bite. Maybe I’m unmarketable. Maybe I’ve always had a booger hanging out of my nose, and no one’s told me. Either way, I’m dealing with rejection in much the same way that the Augusta Chronicle writes editorials: by repurposing and re-contextualizing unrelated facts in order to fulfill my own convoluted agenda.
To that end, I’ve compiled a short list of the most common misleading, entrapping, confusing things you’ll see on every job application or hear in any interview. For easy reference, I’ve included its film equivalent, and how to deal with each situation. Fortunately, being unemployed goes hand-in-hand with being a movie nerd and a dispenser of horrible advice.
The “It’s a Trap!” Question
Prime Example: “Tell us five things you are not.”
See, on the surface this is should be an easy one. Everyone’s answer could conceivably be “A giant squid, Kaiser Soze, gold penis-having, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and chalk.” But if you just name five things that obviously don’t apply to you, they’re going to dock you points for unoriginality or laziness, even though it took me over eight seconds to come up with that list. I guess, though, you can take comfort in the fact that any job that disqualifies you on the basis of not being Kaiser Soze isn’t worth having in the first place.
And there’s a second way this screws you over. You’ve got to sit there hemming and hawing about what five original-sounding things you are absolutely not. By the time you get to “derp,” your interviewer will have mentally checked out.
The Film Equivalent: “Screamers” (1995).
In this insane, Philip K. Dick-based story, “screamers” are self-replicating mechanical assassins driven by an A.I. over-mind. The most basic type is akin to murderous, adamantium terriers, but other versions can also take the form of children, lizards and even a grown woman (that one of the characters has sex with, unsexily). The point is this: every interviewer you will ever meet has seen this movie and has decided that it is real, that you are a screamer and that they’ll be damned if they’re going to hire a filthy cyborg just so it can decapitate Leslie in Implementation.
What You Can Do About It
If your interviewer harbors an empirical distrust of you (and he/she will), then not much. Best case scenario, do what I did: think of five completely general things that describe you, and say the opposites. It probably would’ve worked for me if I hadn’t emitted a high-pitched squeal from my rupturing motherboard.
The Nostradamus Question
Prime Example: “Where do you see yourself in five/10/20 years?”
Every organization’s HR department apparently has a Batman villain-like affinity for multiples of five, because those are the only numbers I’ve ever encountered in that question. It assumes you have the gift of precognition, or at least the ability to strike a balance in your answer between sounding too cocky (“Eating cocaine Easter eggs off of Beyonce’s butt”) and sounding like you have absolutely no ambition (“Mattress salesman”). Potential employers find confidence attractive, but if you’re an a**hole, you absolutely cannot risk telling the truth, because of this…
Film Equivalent: Francis Ford Coppola’s career
This requires some context. In case you haven’t seen the first two Godfather films or “Apocalypse Now” (in which case, What the hell is wrong with you?), Coppola is kind of a genius. If you had told me 15 years ago that someone could shoot a Dracula film with Keanu Reeves and make that s**t work, I’d have invoked the wrath of the Elder Gods and banished you back to the Nether-Realm. After making Apocalypse, though, Coppola’s head swelled to, well, the size it is now. The result was “One From the Heart,” an ill-conceived Technicolor jazz musical that made back less than 20 percent of its budget. Detroit sperm bank donors see better returns on their investments.
Because of that, Coppola had to take directing jobs that he normally wouldn’t have, in order to pay off his debts. “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish” are actually decent films, but the real low point was “Jack,” in which Robin Williams plays a 12-year-old trapped in the body of a 45-year-old partially shaved ape (i.e. “himself”). In a modern context, this would be like Rick Santorum being forced to slip a condom onto a banana in Elton John’s hot tub.
To wit: after his early success, there was no way that Coppola could have seen his future coming.
What You Can Do About It
Be general, and don’t get cute. Phrases like “realizing advancement in the company,” coupled with “furthering the mission statement of blah blah blah” usually go over pretty well. The fact of the matter is that you can’t predict your own future any more than Gary Busey can predict which meatloaf he humps next, so it’s best not to over-think this one.
The “Thumb Up Your Ass” Period
Prime Example: “We’ll keep your resume on file, and you should hear from us in about two weeks.”
No, no and hell no. This will never happen. If an employer tells you this, you’ve got about a brain cell’s chance in Charlie Sheen of actually hearing back from them. Some version of this is the last thing you’ll hear from most of your relationships in college. See also: “We’ll be in touch,” and “No, I totally came.”
Film Equivalent: “Bellflower” (2011)
“Bellflower,” shot for about $17,000, combines the apocalypse, infidelity and the misguided zeitgeist of early manhood. Two friends in California spend about 90 minutes building their own flamethrower and Mad Max car, all while drinking PBR, not having jobs (and yet money, somehow) and bedding skanks. By the end, one of them has had a full beard tattooed to his face, the other has killed a guy with a baseball bat, and you’ve had a cigarette put out on your soul. And then: mushroom cloud. You spend the entire film waiting, hoping for something positive — or at least imbued with finality — to happen, before at last, perhaps predictably, it doesn’t.
What You Can Do About It
Literally put your thumb up your ass. It’s the same way I distracted myself when Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars last month.
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