1. Employers ARE hiring, despite the common misconception that everyone’s in Bermuda.
2. There’s less competition, since a lot of job seekers think everyone’s in Bermuda.
3. It’ll keep your momentum going, and make it less likely you’ll hop into a bathtub full of water and plug in your electric toothbrush.
4. All those holiday parties are great opportunities to network. And scarf down free food.
5. You’ll soon get sick of staring at the TV and watching Jimmy Stewart have a meltdown.
Here is an excerpt from What Color is Your Straitjacket? A Pocket Guide to Getting and Keeping a Job Without Going Wacko, soon to be available as an e-book. The artist is my talented friend Glenn Davis.
You’ve done your research about the company. You know how long 
they’ve been in business, their history, what their current goals are (beyond not going belly-up), and how you can help them achieve their corporate fantasies. You’re prepared to tell them how you’re their fairy godmother.
You’ve also prepared your answers to questions typically asked in interviews, and thought of (short) stories that show your accomplishments. You have your questions for them all ready. So how do you field those questions thrown at you by those exhaustingly perky H.R. pod people? How do you respond to queries such as,
Hint: the specific answer to this question is largely irrelevant, as long as you don’t come back with “three-toed sloth, because I’d love to just lie around all day,” “anteater, because I could do amazing things with that tongue,” or “elephant, because they must have huge schlongs.”
Hint: if you say, “Neither, I prefer whiskey,” you could either be perceived as “thinking outside the box” or “lush.” It’s a toss-up.
Hint: “Harpo, because he didn’t have to talk to anyone,” probably wouldn’t be a good answer.
Hint: I’d refrain from giving an obvious answer such as, “Brad Pitt in his prime.”
Hint: Even if you waddled into the interviewing room looking like you’re about to pop like a 175-pound balloon, the employer can’t legally even hint that your advanced gestational state even entered his consciousness. And of course, even if it weren’t illegal it’s a pretty rude question, especially if you’re not actually preggers but just really bloated that day.
I’ve had many unusual jobs in the course of my career.
I was once an unofficial elf (sans pointy ears) at the Enchanted Village in City Hall Plaza during the holidays. The job consisted mostly of being a security guard in a Santa hat, though I occasionally was stationed at the exit, where I sold ornaments and was forced to listen to an endlessly repeating recording that suggested a rather disturbing relationship between Santa and his reindeer. “Oh, Dancer. Oh, Prancer. Oh, hohohohohohohohooho!”
One of my more interesting jobs was a singing messenger for Eastern Onion Telegrams in Miami. In this role, I wore one of several rather exploitative outfits (hey, it was the early ‘80s), including a kind of modified Playboy Bunny complete with fishnets, high heels and bunny tail, a French Maid costume (yeah, you can use your imagination on that one) and, of course, Wonder Woman. The job wasn’t without its perks, not the least of which was getting paid to work with a hot male stripper named Alfredo.
One night, I was on my way to a gig for a man’s 80th surprise birthday party when I realized that I was totally lost. Since this was before cell phones, I had to drive back to the Holiday Inn on Route One and walk through the bar dressed as Wonder Woman to use the phone for directions. As I was waiting in the parking lot for the 80-year-old’s sonto find me so I could follow him, the security guard approached me. Instead of asking me why I was dressed as Wonder Woman, though, he just chatted me up for a bit and invited me to use the pool. I politely declined.
When I finally arrived at Birthday Boy’s condo, he panicked at the sight of me, apparently assuming I was a hooker. Since Viagra hadn’t been invented yet, I suppose he had a reason for anxiety. I had to reassure him that my only intention was to sing to him, and proceeded to do my little birthday number, complete with stuffed monkey and a tambourine, and set his mind and his loins at ease.
Probably not, unless of course, you’re a circus clown. But you can often find creative ways to combine your talents. Or you may leave one of your passions as a part-time endeavor, while pursuing something else as your “day job.” Love ice cream? There are actually jobs as ice-cream testers. Of course, if the ice cream has in fact been poisoned by a sociopathic factory worker, you’re out of luck. And you will probably become morbidly obese and keel over from a heart attack in a few years. But hey, go to town.
If you can’t think of any careers offhand that connect with your passions, make a list of them. After you have the Passion List, then write down all the skills used in partaking of your passions. When that’s done, find a few job search sites and plug those skills into the “keywords” search function, and see what comes up. A lot of stuff will likely be vomited up that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything you’re interested in, but just ignore that and focus on careers that sound exciting. Look at the Occupational Outlook Handbook and other resources such as the aforementioned informational interviewing to do a reality check on those careers, and off you go!
You can also check out some online career interest assessments, such as: free-career-test.com, the Personal-Style Indicator at crgleader.com, the Myers-Briggs and the Strong Interest Inventory at discoveryourpersonality.com, the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey at profiler.com, or careerpath.com, to name a few. Some of these assessments are free, some are not. Some include consultations with certified career counselors, which is always a good idea, especially if you’re floundering around like a spastic fish.
The assessments are mostly about interests, but some also include self-identified skills (yeah, we talked about this earlier) and work values. Work values refers to the most important stuff you have to have in your work to, you know, make you feel whole and all that crap. Like, do you know you need to be creative in a job? Do you know you need structure, so that you don’t panic and wander off into another dimension, never to be heard from again? Do you know that you couldn’t do a job that would require you to write materials that referred to “kill fields?” Do you know that you would feel in constant need of a shower if you were part of advertising products that claimed to make elderly men sexually attractive to twenty-year-old models? You get the idea.
To some extent, you want to be yourself in an interview (unless you’re 
totally bonkers. If you are, good luck). And even though it’s not particularly effective to just give answers you think the interviewer wants, and there isn’t usually one right answer to a question you’re asked, there are some answers that are just plain wrong. Here are some:
Here is an excerpt from What Color is Your Straitjacket? A Pocket Guide to Getting and Keeping a Job Without Going Wacko, soon to be available as an e-book.
Resumes — The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous
Your resume needs to demonstrate your skills and how they can assist an organization in achieving their wet dreams. Here is a sample:
BEELZEBUB SATANOSKY
145 Fire Avenue, Underworld Village, TX
666-666-6666 reallyreallybad@aol.com
SKILLS
· Branding
· Speaking in tongues
· Recruiting politicians
· Creating and using torture devices
· Stoking fires
· Turning into a black pillar of smoke and killing people
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
· Initiated red and black as a fashion statement
· Generated fear in otherwise rational humans
· Developed torture management system, resulting in 95% torture rate
· Successfully bargained with former U.S. leaders to f*ck up the country
PROFESSIONAL HISTORY
President, Washington, D.C. 2000-2008
· Almost singlehandedly flushed an entire nation down the toilet
· Pretended to look for bad-ass weapons
· Vacationed
· Developed strategy for invading all countries starting with “I”
· Successfully maintained focus on golf game during national crises
· Delegated intellectually challenging tasks
· Mangled the English language, causing linguists throughout the world
to cringe in horror
· Waited for retroactive popularity to kick in
Senator, Washington, D.C. 1947-1957
· Created lists of thinking people and arrested them
· Encouraged grownups to tattle on each other to get out of trouble
· Caused massive unemployment among aforementioned thinking people
· Threw liberals in jail
EDUCATION
B.S. in Pitchfork Probing, University of Torture
Job search can be scary. Especially when your last unemployment 
extension is running out, you just used your last bit of savings to buy underwear because you don’t want to be picking your jockey shorts up off the floor when the elastic breaks in the middle of a job interview, and your Plan B has been blown to hell.
But no matter what your situation, it doesn’t work to operate from a place of fear, and let it make your decisions. The only time fear-based decision-making is a good idea is if a psycho starts shooting in the food court in the mall, and you make the decision to dive under the table instead of continuing to sit there and eat your mushroom omelette. Otherwise, letting fear rule your job search isn’t going to help you. Here are a few ways to avoid it:
The elevator pitch, sometimes known as the 30-second infomercial, is one 
of the most important tools in your job search along with your resume, self-esteem and breath mints.
The elevator pitch is your (short) spiel about yourself professionally; how you market yourself verbally. That doesn’t mean you just spit it out to anyone and everyone you meet, including people in an actual elevator. The guy on the stretcher next to you in the emergency room, where you’ve landed after tripping over your dog’s foot and banging your nose on the coffee table, may not want to hear it. You do, however, want to say it when it’s appropriate, like when you’re asked the question in an interview, “Tell me about yourself.” Or in the formal portion of a networking event when you’re asked to stand up and introduce yourself for a minute or less. Or when you’re chatting with someone and you give them the first sentence or two of your “pitch” and they ask for more details. You want it to sound conversational, and you want to tailor it to your audience – if you’re a techie and you’re talking to other techies, you can use techie terms, whereas non-techies won’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
So what do you say in the elevator speech? Well, here’s the pitch (hey, felt like I was a Red Sox commentator for a minute there. Anyway). The pitch is essentially made up of four parts:
Make sure to put it all in a positive light; don’t just say, “I’m unemployed.” Even in your description of what you have to offer, it’s better to say, “…so your yard smells great….” than, “…so your yard doesn’t smell like shit.”
While it’s important to ask questions in a job interview to make it a mutual exchange, get more info, and show interest, there are some questions that aren’t a good idea to ask. Here are a few:
You (hopefully) know a lot of what to do when you and your last job have parted ways. Network, volunteer, join groups, do a targeted search, blah blah blah. Here are some things NOT to do when you’re not working:
Laurie Holman: Comedy Writer, Copywriter, Chocolate Connoisseur 