ASSA job interview survival tips

If you are unlucky enough to be looking for a job at the 2009 ASSA meetings in San Francisco (I won't be there so don't look for the guy wearing eyeglasses and an ill-fitting suit talking to himself on the sidewalk) during what is sure to be the crappiest market since the early 1990s, you definitely need to review my list of 20 ASSA job interview survival tips (originally posted January 2, 2008):

1. Don't reek pot.
2. Don't say "[Your school] is not at the bottom of my list."
3. Don't mention the football or basketball team.
4. Don't mention that your fraternity/sorority has a strong presence on campus.
5. When the greeter at the door on the last day empathizes that the job market is really a grind don't mention that there is no way you could have handled the past three days without getting high.
6. If a questionner asks why you don't pursue [insert difficult extension to your theoretical model] in your dissertation, don't offer that it would be much harder and you need to wrap things up within the next year (the correct answer is I'm going to pursue that extension after my defense due to time constraints).
7. Don't reek Bourbon Whiskey.
8. This advice is likely too late, but anyway, don't post your negative thoughts about the places you are applying to on the internet.
9. This advice is likely too late, but anyway, if you are a serious bodybuilder, time your steroids cycle so that you're not stacking before the interviews. No one takes a bulked up, raging, hairless, infertile PhD candidate very seriously.
10. Don't offer your opinion on your fav for the, ahem, at the risk of self-promotion, Nobel Prize in economics, ahem.
11. Don't confuse "the boss" (Springsteen) with the department chair.
12. Don't read the interviewer's papers, unless they are on your graduate seminar's reading list (e.g., How am I supposed to respond to "Wow, your latest paper in the southern journal of environmental and resource economics and policy/management rocked! How, in god's name, did you do that?" I get that question ALL the time and, self-importantly, it is SO embarrassing.)
13. Don't glance at your watch, worrying about being on time to the next, better, interview.
14. Don't mention blogs, blogging or Freakonomics. Or Mankiw's blog.
15. Don't mention the insightful quirkiness of the E&UE blog.
16. Don't mention your interest in Heterodox theories, unless this is your dissertation. And if so, no offense, good luck!
17. Don't quote Mystery Men (e.g., "I just wanted to say that I had a really great time tonight, and you were really nice to me, and I would love to, uh, take you out some time. But if I don't call you I just want you to know that it's because I'm dead."), Seinfeld (e.g., "Look, Vanessa, of course the market fluctuates. Everybody knows that. I just got fluctuated out of four thousand dollars! ") or Fight Club (e.g., "You don't talk about fight club").
18. Don't sound like you practiced your answers.
19. Don't talk about graduate teaching with schools that don't have graduate students.
20. Don't reek pot.

1. Don't reek pot.
2. Don't say "[Your school] is not at the bottom of my list."
3. Don't mention the football or basketball team.
4. Don't mention that your fraternity/sorority has a strong presence on campus.
5. When the greeter at the door on the last day empathizes that the job market is really a grind don't mention that there is no way you could have handled the past three days without getting high.
6. If a questionner asks why you don't pursue [insert difficult extension to your theoretical model] in your dissertation, don't offer that it would be much harder and you need to wrap things up within the next year (the correct answer is I'm going to pursue that extension after my defense due to time constraints).
7. Don't reek Bourbon Whiskey.
8. This advice is likely too late, but anyway, don't post your negative thoughts about the places you are applying to on the internet.
9. This advice is likely too late, but anyway, if you are a serious bodybuilder, time your steroids cycle so that you're not stacking before the interviews. No one takes a bulked up, raging, hairless, infertile PhD candidate very seriously.
10. Don't offer your opinion on your fav for the, ahem, at the risk of self-promotion, Nobel Prize in economics, ahem.
11. Don't confuse "the boss" (Springsteen) with the department chair.
12. Don't read the interviewer's papers, unless they are on your graduate seminar's reading list (e.g., How am I supposed to respond to "Wow, your latest paper in the southern journal of environmental and resource economics and policy/management rocked! How, in god's name, did you do that?" I get that question ALL the time and, self-importantly, it is SO embarrassing.)
13. Don't glance at your watch, worrying about being on time to the next, better, interview.
14. Don't mention blogs, blogging or Freakonomics. Or Mankiw's blog.
15. Don't mention the insightful quirkiness of the E&UE blog.
16. Don't mention your interest in Heterodox theories, unless this is your dissertation. And if so, no offense, good luck!
17. Don't quote Mystery Men (e.g., "I just wanted to say that I had a really great time tonight, and you were really nice to me, and I would love to, uh, take you out some time. But if I don't call you I just want you to know that it's because I'm dead."), Seinfeld (e.g., "Look, Vanessa, of course the market fluctuates. Everybody knows that. I just got fluctuated out of four thousand dollars! ") or Fight Club (e.g., "You don't talk about fight club").
18. Don't sound like you practiced your answers.
19. Don't talk about graduate teaching with schools that don't have graduate students.
20. Don't reek pot.

Comments

[Tim Haab]

#21: Don't get drunk on Bourbon Street the night before the interview for your dream job then accidently run into your interviewer and proceed to make a drunken ass of yourself.

Not that that could happen. But just keep it in mind.

Trust me.

[Rationalitate]

1. Don't reek OF pot, not don't reek pot.
2. That site you linked to about weed is full of disinformation...who can say with a straight face these days that marijuana causes cancer??

[David Zetland]

Don't reek of pot, wear a tie, etc. -- nice way to start your jobs -- lots of lies...\

21. Don't friend interviewers on Facebook!

[odograph]

I think all smoke risks cancer Rational, with risk increasing with exposure. I wonder how the heck they can sell "Liquid Smoke" in the markets as a food additive, but it's probably grandfathered in. (Ah, investigations continue.)

I love barbecue, but all things in moderation.

[Rationalitate]

@odograph: It's hard to argue with empirical evidence.

[odograph]

I expect (It's been a long time since I was in college) that the median pot smoker is well below the median (esp. lifelong) tobacco smoker in exposure.

Moderation in all things.

(There was a time when I was eating barbecue daily, which I worry might have been a bit much.)