How to Ace a Job Interview That You're Overqualified For and Really Don't Want

Yeah, who'd have thought this guy would one day find himself out of work.  Seriously.  He's obviously the beacon of self-respect and containment, someone who a Fortune 500 company would be glad to have selling its wares and representing its interests.  Christ.  This was in April of 2007.  I was in the midst of being unemployed for over a year, living in what truly is an outstanding place to look for work...the State of Michigan.*

*The State of Michigan is not truly an outstanding place to look for work.  Here is what I like to call "sarcasm".  However, I refuse to alert people when I'm being sarcastic with a " :) " or " ;) ".  These are the tools of the lazy or the naive.  The fact that now I have to write one of these things after every sarcastic sentence I send someone for fear of them misunderstanding and it blowing up into an email war as senseless as the ongoing war between Africans and Blacks.  I mean, come on.  We both look the same, kind of.  I mean, dem brothas is black as night.  That's why major marathons are run during the day.  I mean, I'm black, but shit.  Compared to an African I'm freaking Chevy Chase.  I guess another difference is blacks enjoy eating meals consisting of a little more fat than rice and dead flies.  But we are the same in that we go bald the same way, and all end up at some point looking like Clyde Drexler.   Yeah.  No clue why Africans would have a problem with us.

So anyway, my unemployment history is probably longer than my employment history.  Some tell me my skills are "not transferrable" to the jobs I've been applying.  Yeah.  I'm sure being on TV has completely wiped my mind clean of how to use Microsoft Word and file papers.  The Wife's explanation makes more sense.  She tells me I'm overqualified for these jobs.  Now THAT'S a theory I can cling to.  It's based on me being smart, them being dumb, and most importantly, nothing being my fault.  Yeah, that'll work.  So...when she told me a place was hiring for part-time overnight seasonal help, I applied.  But I didn't do it the way I normally apply, updating my resume for the particular job, tailoring a cover letter, being professional, etc.  That hasn't worked for three of the last five years.  So seeing as this was an overnight stock position which if I went in there with who I REALLY am, I would have as much success as I did when I applied for the janitor and paperboy jobs, I decided to ditch "Intelligent, college graduated, well-groomed" appearance for a more "Meh. Here's what you get" look.  If nothing else, I was NOT going to be overqualified for this thing.  So here's what I came up with.  Yesterday right before my interview, I took photos to better illustrate how the game plan was going to go down.

RULE #1: ATTIRE

As you can see here, I've abandoned the standard "shirt and tie" look I normally go with to interviews, and gone with the more relaxed look of jeans and a black shirt.  I purposely didn't iron the shirt, and the jeans had a couple of mustard stains on them from years ago.  You may ask, "Why did you wear the watch if you wanted to look downtrodden?"  Well, that was a gamble.  I thought maybe they'd look at the watch, and with any luck, think I had stolen it.  History as a felon would certainly help out here as well.  

RULE #2: HYGIENE

No shave.  Leave it alone.  Let the beard grow and if possible, let the hair grow to an unseemly length as well.  I chose to go with the aforementioned Clyde Drexler balding look.  Also, the great thing was the night before I had tied one on pretty good, and was severely dehydrated, which led to some pretty outstanding dried out "crack lips".  And all I can say is thank God for chicken grease splatter because I had a nice little zit on the other side of my face that really set the whole thing off. 

RULE #3: DON'T FORGET YOUR RESUME.

No, the sheet of paper doesn't look completely white because it's blown out by the flash or the lighting is too bright.  There's nothing on that resume.  Nothing.  I didn't bring a resume at all to the interview.  And when I applied, I dumbed down that resume so much that one would think I'd been confined to a halfway house for the majority of my life, because there was NOTHING on that shit.  I mentioned being an employee for a non-profit...nothing about writing grants or anything, and also mentioned doing sales.  That was it.  Nothing about any TV experience.  Took out the Awards section.  Took out the Special Skills section.  That thing was about half a page long.  They called me the next day.

RULE #4: DON'T BE TOO SMART AT THE INTERVIEW.

My mother put it best when she said "Don't be too smart now!"  I laughed at that.  However I wasn't laughing when she followed it up with, "And look, if you do really well, you could get a promotion!"  She was being sarcastic (that's my last time telling you.  Next time you're on your own).  But she had a point.  I made sure not to show too much wit, give the "felon's stare" you see above, and make sure that if nothing else I threw in "ain't", "fo sho", and "licka stow".  How I would sneak all those words in would be a challenge, but in the end, I made it work.

RULE #5: GO FOR PITY.

My good friend had a wedding recently in which I was one of the Groomsmen.  Anywho, he wanted us to all wear Chuck Taylor's instead of regular "tuxedo shoes".  Well, seeing as I am in my current state of financial woes, I went to Payless.  Yep.  The shoes you're looking at above aren't actual Chucks, but are something called "Airwalks".  I spent the whole wedding worried SOMEONE would notice I was a poverty-stricken broke ass wearing Payless shoes to the most important day of someone's life, but thank God no one did.  That is, until a day later, when I was at my friend's house and he looked down and said, "What??  You wore 'Airwalks' to the wedding??" I was about as ashamed as I was when my Uncle asked to see my room when I was 7, and an hour later I was wearing different underwear and had on a clown nose.  But the point is made.  If the interviewer could notice I had Payless shoes on as well, hiring me could count under some EEOC or HTPN law.  HTPN?  You've never heard of that? Really?  Hire the Poor Negro?  Wow...yeah, I get most of my jobs that way.

So we'll see if this strategy pays off.  If it does maybe the next book is one of how to master the anti-interview.  Stay tuned.