Just when I thought there are no stupid questions, someone proved me wrong.

My friend was having lunch with someone yesterday. The waitress came over to take their order, and my friend ordered a Chinese Chicken Salad, with the dressing on the side. Her friend ordered a Turkey Club sandwich, with no cheese or mayo.

This is where the waitress should think, “These people are trying to make healthy food choices.”

Instead, she asked, “Would you like to start with our 4 layer, deep dish Macaroni and Cheese?”

After writing yesterday’s post, I remembered a teacher who said that the only stupid question is one you already know the answer to. If we modify that to say “one you should already know the answer to,” then this was a stupid question.

I’m sure the waitress was supposed to ask it because the 4 layer deep dish Macaroni and Cheese is a new appetizer the restaurant is featuring, and they want people to be aware of it. Fine, but tweak the question when you know it doesn’t make sense for the customer. “Would you like to start with an appetizer?” would have been much more reasonable.

If you sell cars, and someone wants to buy a Ford Taurus with anti-lock brakes and a baby car seat, it’s reasonable to ask, “Do you want side-impact airbags?” It’s not reasonable to ask, “Do you want neon underbody lighting and a direct port nitrous system?”

Asking inappropriate questions just shows that you’re not paying attention.

In week 3 of my Myers-Briggs trials, I’ll be focusing on feeling. Thinking and feeling refer to the way we prefer to make decisions.

• Thinkers make decisions in an objective, detached way. They determine the right thing to do through logical reasoning.
• Feelers make decisions in a subjective, attached way. They determine the right thing to do by putting themselves in other people’s shoes, seeking to maintain harmony.

A good way to think of the difference is to consider justice versus mercy. Thinkers think justice is more important, while feelers think mercy is more important.

I expect that this trial will be a lot easier now than it would have been a few years ago. I used to not have much patience with people who did things wrong. But now I’m more forgiving of people who say “nucular” and “supposably” and “I could care less.” It still bugs me, but I’m much better at biting my tongue. Since criticizing rarely produces a desirable outcome, I try to pick my battles more carefully.

Beyond just being nice, I plan to make a point of thinking about how other people feel. Not just people I’m talking to, but everyone within range. A good role model for this would be the empath Deanna Troi from Star Trek. I only saw a few episodes, but I remember thinking it would be really creepy to be around her because of the mind reading thing. I guess non-telepathic empathy is fine though.

I can also re-read the section on oneness from Steve Pavlina’s book Personal Development for Smart People. This is all about feeling a connection with everyone and everything. It came across as a foreign concept to me, so I could definitely benefit from reading it again.

We’ll see how good a job I do at being nice. Go feelers!

###

Because of your click-throughs, I received free admission to Michael Martine’s blog traffic seminar. Thanks!

It really wasn’t that I did such a great job, just that I was the only one of the seminar attendees who tried. I’ve won a fair number of contests only because there was no competition.

I’ve just finished week 2 of my Myers-Briggs trials. This week focused on sensing.

I was really surprised to see how hard this was. I didn’t think it would be nearly as tough as the extraversion trial, but it proved to be much harder. Fortunately though, I said I would judge myself on effort, not results.

Some psychologists consider the sensing/intuitive dichotomy to be the most important of the four. I can see how that could be true. I’m not particularly one-sided here according to my MBTI results, but I found it impossible to turn off my intuition (and remember that intuition here has nothing to do with mystical insight, which I don’t have at all).

Since I wasn’t able to stop using intuition, I tried to simply use more sensing. I tried to notice details by deliberately shouting out what I saw, heard, etc (some people must have thought I was crazy). While this felt kind of weird, it had the pleasant side effect of letting me realize that I had always walked right past this great smoothie place and never noticed it. Yogi Berra was right: “You can observe a lot just by watchin.”

I happened to have a dentist appointment, and of course it was easy to focus on what I was seeing, hearing, and feeling. It was just a cleaning, but if I had gotten the drill, it would have helped the experiment.

I thought the best part of sensing would be the whole “live for the moment” thing, so I tried to make every little thing seem special. When I ate an apple, I thought, “This apple is really sweet and crunchy. I can feel the vitamins and fiber coming into my body. I won’t always be able to eat apples, so for now, this apple is all that matters.” Yes, this got tiring very quickly, because it just didn’t come naturally.

One way to look at it is that sensors are grounded in reality while intuitives have their head in the clouds. But that’s where I want my head. Reality bores me.

Another interesting experiment, but I’m glad it’s over.

In week 2 of my Myers-Briggs trials, I’ll be focusing on sensing. Sensing and intuition refer to the way we prefer to take in information.

• Sensors rely on what their five senses tell them. They’re detail-oriented and well grounded in reality and practicality.
• Intuitives pay less attention to the raw data coming from their five senses, and more attention to their interpretation of it. They look at the big picture, patterns, connections, and future possibilities. (While the word intuition is often used to refer to psychic flashes, that’s not what we’re talking about here.)

I thought this would be an easy trial, because I’m not too far on the intuitive side. I don’t consider myself to be impractical or adverse to detail at all.

For years, I did my taxes with pen and paper, not even using a calculator because I liked adding and subtracting by hand. I also did my taxes twice each time: once by rounding amounts off to the nearest dollar (which the IRS encouraged) and once without rounding (which the IRS allowed), to see if it made a difference. That’s about as far to the sensing side as you can get. (I eventually started using a calculator, and then TurboTax as my situation got more complicated.)

I’ve done one day of my sensing trial, and I’m finding it very hard to turn off my intuition. What you see when you look at a sunset is supposed to tell you whether you prefer sensing or intuition. Today I saw a sunset, and I tried to see it like a sensor by thinking about what color the sun was, what time it was, how the days are getting shorter, etc. But whenever I see a sunset, I always hear Will Smith’s watch beeping in I Am Legend, telling him to hide because the monsters are coming out soon. I hear that every single time.

I was working on the sensing vs. intuition section of The Personality Puzzle when I read Brip Blap’s post big picture, little picture. He said:

“One of the most apt criticisms you could make of the writing I do on brip blap would be that I’m awfully big picture. I like to think in terms of grand goals (‘achieve perfect work/life integration, have a perfect lifestyle, achieve financial independence’) without attention to the detail to support that (‘fix your credit score, maximize your tax credits’, etc.).”

When I read that, I realized that his focus on the big picture is exactly why I like his blog. I’m interested in finance, but I had a hard time finding finance blogs I like because so many of them like to overload you with details, most of which I’ve already known for years. Of course, many people like that kind of stuff, and sensors are in fact the majority.

Since I’m on this topic, let me give you a quick list of the best finance blogs for people who prefer intuition over sensing:

(In alphabetical order)

1. brip blap – personal finance, wealthbuilding and the journey to financial freedom. Not purely about finance, but it’s all good. Steve has written about many interesting things, such as how he lost 100 pounds (meaning weight loss, not a drop in his British stocks).

2. erica.biz – Erica Douglass shows you how to make millions! She’s a number cruncher, but she also has huge aspirations for herself and the world. Selling her web hosting business for $1.1 million was just a start.

3. Sentient Money – Financial intelligence for an ever changing world. Chad is very heavy on details, but he’s really good at seeing what the data means. He’s also an INTP like me, so you know he must be cool.

Jon Morrow’s magnificent blog OnMoneymaking.com would have been on this list, until he sold it.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. I’m going to approach this trial by thinking about what new things I should do, not what things I should stop doing. So for example, I’m not going to change the posts I write, because that wouldn’t be good for anyone. I’ll just be adding some sensing on top of my normal activities.

I don’t mean to come off as all anti-sensing, because there are definitely some great sensing role models, such as Tim Ferriss (a pretty clear ISTP in my opinion) and Darren Rowse (probably an ISFJ). I’m just having a hard time keeping the upside of sensing in mind. However, there are plenty of overly intuitive freaks who have absolutely no connection to reality. Still, I find imagination so much more interesting than facts.

I’m not exactly sure what to do in this trial, but today I made a point of describing what my senses were telling me. Just talking to myself and saying “Those leaves are red” or “This apple is crunchy.” Yeah, that’s pretty obvious, but it’s just to get into the habit. By being more grounded in the physical world, I hope to develop more of a “live for the moment” attitude and not think so much about the future.

Today I read two ebooks about SEO, which I’m sure tends to be much more interesting to sensors because of how much it relies on keyword data. One of these ebooks was Fast Track for Blog Success by Kathy Hendershot-Hurd. It was available for free for a short while, and I got it just in time, but unfortunately not in time to tell you about it while it was still free. It’s now $24.95, and it explores the keyword usage of two blogs, showing why one was sold for a much higher price because of its SEO.

The other ebook was the second incarnation of Naomi Dunford’s Ninja SEO School. I had previously read the first version, but not the new one. To be fair, this was no help at all in my sensing trial because Naomi is a super intuitive. However, that’s what makes her ebook so refreshingly entertaining as well as informative.

As before with my extraversion trial, my goal is not to switch completely to sensing, but just to make an honest effort to use far more sensing than usual. Obviously it has its benefits, so I just want to try to experience them. Go sensors!

I’ve just finished week 1 of my Myers-Briggs trials. This week focused on extraversion.

The timing of this experiment helped me tremendously. Since I’m on a mini-retirement, I have a lot more free time. That made it much easier to spend more time with other people, because I still had plenty of time to myself. If I was still working, it would have been ten times harder.

Even so, it’s a good thing I decided to judge myself by effort instead of results. Despite my efforts to talk more than any reasonable person should, I still had someone ask me, “Why are you so quiet?” Oh well, I tried. My main difficulty is that I find it so hard to talk when I have nothing to say. I just can’t get random words to come out of my mouth.

While I confirmed that I like introversion a whole lot better (as I expected), there’s one particular aspect of extraversion that I think is worthy of consideration by introverts. Introverts tend to be slow to speak, and then later be mad at themselves for not saying anything. Extraverts tend to be quick to speak, and then later be mad at themselves for saying something they shouldn’t have. Of course, both extremes are bad, but maybe it’s worth trying to err a bit on the other side for a change.

I found it funny that some people didn’t want to let me be an extravert. One night I was having dinner in a bar, and the bartender wouldn’t stay and talk to me, even though he wasn’t busy. I was thinking, “Come back here! I need to make small talk to get extraversion credit!” But I didn’t force it.

Some people say that eating in front of other people makes them nervous. I don’t feel that myself, but I do prefer not to talk much when eating, because it’s just too much going on. Besides, you’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full, right?

I also don’t like loud places. I just don’t get how people can be energized from being around noise. I managed to avoid the peak times at the bars, but one place was still pretty loud. It didn’t kill me, but it’s sure not my preference. I don’t like smoky places either, but fortunately I didn’t find any.

Twitter is a great socialization tool for introverts. Even though it’s online, I think tweeting can be considered extraverted because it’s all about shallow conversations with lots of people. The reason it’s great for introverts is because you only have to follow who you want to follow, you only have to reply when you want to, and you can turn it off whenever you want. In the last week, I spent much more time on Twitter, and tweeted a lot more by relaxing my standards of what was tweet-worthy. I didn’t find this hard at all, but it came with a huge downside of taking up lots of time because of the constant interruptions.

I spent a lot of time on the phone, which was kind of hard to do. I like face-to-face conversations a lot more than phone conversations. I’m not sure why, but they feel completely different. Spending time with someone means something, but a phone call always seems like an interruption to me. Sometimes it’s a necessary interruption, but then I feel like I have to say what I have to say, and then get back to what I was doing. Even when I like the call, I always think that seeing them in person would be a much better use of my time.

One extraverted ritual that I decided not to partake in is the phone face-off. I was talking to someone when another call came through, and I pushed the “ignore” button. I told the person I was talking to that for some reason, my new cell phone keeps beeping even after you push “ignore.” When they heard I had another call, they said it was fine if I wanted to take it. But it never occured to me for a second to do a phone face-off. I think you should just talk to who you’re talking to, and let the other person leave a message. There could be exceptions, but I didn’t even know who the other person was.

Well, extraversion isn’t for me, but your results may differ. I’m glad I did this experiment, but I’m looking forward to returning to normal.

Here’s a screenshot of Gmail’s spam filter protecting me from yet another highly targeted, benefit-driven email that tugs at my heartstrings. Yes, that was sarcasm. For God’s sake, it’s in Russian.

15 years ago, people were thrilled to get an email advertising a credit card offer. It was such a pleasure to have anything at all in their inbox. Today, things are very different. It’s a lot harder to get people to read your email because we get so much of it.

What’s so perplexing about spammers is that they haven’t updated their email copywriting. They’re really not trying at all.

While I hate spammers and want to see them all fined and thrown in jail, their work does provide some rather obvious lessons for people who want to write emails that aren’t seen as spam.

Let’s look at some of the spam I’ve received, and see how it could be improved.

Wrong language

In the picture above, the problem is that the email is in Russian (or something like that). Since I can’t read Russian, it wasn’t effective. Isn’t that obvious? Even if they don’t know what country I live in, English is a much better guess.

Typos

One email has this subject:

“1000 singleladies from Russia are online now, have ineterst?”

The first thing I notice is the obvious typos and bad grammar. Anyone who would write a subject like this is either extremely sloppy or just not smart. I instantly think “spam” when I see something like this.

Suspicious offers

One email reads:

“I am a pretty woman, and I wish to become a pen pal (by email or Skype) of a handsome and clever guy, interested in further real dates!

I have registered my profile at: http://s-best-toprussgirl.biz?idAff=5″

This seems really suspicious. If you don’t know who this person is, you have to assume it’s a mass mailing. And it doesn’t seem likely that someone would try to find dates with a mass mailing, especially when they don’t even mention their location. Also notice that the URL contains an affiliate ID, which doesn’t make sense unless they’re trying to sell something.

Non-compelling copy

One email simply says:

“New products everyday at our chemists.”

That’s not enough to get someone interested. No one is looking for random new drugs. What drugs do they actually have? Be specific.

No content, only unsubscribe info

One email contains no content at all, just information on how to unsubscribe:

“Unsubscribe | Manage Subscriptions | Privacy Policy

To stop ALL email from ABCNews Newsletters, click here to remove yourself from our lists.

This email was sent by: ABCNews, 7 WEST 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.”

With no content, what is the point of the email? They’re actually doing something right in that they’re giving you a clear call to action. They want you to click the unsubscribe link so they can confirm that your email address is valid, and then sell it to more spammers. I’m sure that ABCNews would not send emails with no content, so it reeks of spam.

Nonsensical content

One email says:

“You are doing too much of sport, support your organism.”

Emails that don’t make sense are a clear sign of spam.

Emails from a name you recognize, but it’s not really them

I got one email from “Cummuta Debt to Wealth.” They’re taking advantage of all the Jon Cummuta debt-elimination ads I hear on the radio. You get this email and think, “Oh, I know him.” But you need to ask, “How does he know me?” If he doesn’t, it must be spam.

Comment spam

When you look at blog comment spam, it gets even worse than the emails.

Comment spammers have a strong incentive to leave decent comments. A blog’s spam filter will catch pretty much all the spam, so it won’t be seen by anyone other than the blog owner, as they check their spam queue for anything that was caught by mistake. But if a comment is just good enough to be approved, it becomes visible to lots of people. Despite this incentive, comment spammers do a much worse job than email spammers.

Here is a typical piece of comment spam:

“cx10neun25ii2pjyt
jnfcaabh rjirbzx

http://ebeslxo.com

rgvgtmjp lluld

http://kwgianogj.com

fypekbj nueyidrnf

http://bckfosvbz.com

taqggjn nxcmo
http://swrobez.com”

What about this comment is going to prompt the blog owner to approve it? Does it add value to the discussion?

Here’s another one:

“J1UT33 wmoalzbwbmai, [url=http://khpnygfptcqxu.com/]khpnygfpcqxu[/url], [link=http://xymooxdncmbly.com/]xymooxncmbly[/link], http://zcxbvevjjvwzt.com/”

Again, why is the blog owner supposed to want to approve this? No one is going to let something like this through.

The next one is better:

“These same was depicted spironolactone story about norvasc heating. Covenant was onspicuous case atrovent stood motionless keflex was pondering pepcid rrangement. That devilish guard during temovate these images fioricet the lock keppra anemic.

Nikolaevna dropped the poker ortho any learning tussionex reared.

Peering more flying just cardura bed went plavix sorceries and aldara visitors. Your interlocut evidently from fluoxetine and merely sumatriptan fellow. What happened him such steroids soon discovered adderall the. Cole cried lost the naproxen objected the evoxac bookworm. Roman authority fearing barman depakote some pot amoxicillin lairs. March possessed everybody gasped sibutramine erlioz before loratadine ith whom bactroban beholder. Knowing that theatre with didrex though according accupril had fed allegra terrace. Things remain cut out phenergan complained confidenti naltrexone countries. Morris resumed ollonovich from suprax paper began motrin officers. Oliver paced foist the roxicet drove off coumadin with grief doxazosin unequally. Sowship himself appeared from hydrochlorothiazide the braggart accupril soldier with esomeprazole caused. Bower built her acquaintan nasacort storming the renova the decor buspirone typescript.”

This one at least contains real words, but they’re in a random order. No one would approve this comment.

Scrapers

Scrapers are people who steal other people’s content and post it on their own blog. It’s a lot easier for them to put up content when they don’t actually have to write it. The problem is that it violates copyright law.

Some scrapers will take just a short excerpt of a post, claiming that it falls under the definition of “fair use.” That’s what happened in this trackback I received:

“Why The Financial Crisis Will Be Harmless, Until It Kills Us All : $700 Billion Bailout Plan | the700billionbailoutplan.org/why-the-financial-crisis-will-be-harmless-until-it-kills-us-all | IP: 67.225.196.41

[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]

KelOmar | kelomar@noxhnou.com | google.com | IP: 82.208.48.225″

They posted an excerpt of my post and linked to it. They linked to it both because they think that makes it OK to steal, and because they wanted their trackback to appear on my blog. It might be hard to get them to take the post down, but it’s easy enough to delete the trackback so they don’t get traffic from my blog.

Made up news

One person left this comment:

“OMG. Did you hear? Russia attacks USA…
More info here: hotusanewxy.blogspot.com”

After I ran down to my bomb shelter, I discovered that the news was not true. You might get some curiosity clicks this way, but people don’t like being lied to.

URL points to a page with no content

On my Automatic Blog Post Rehasher post, someone left this comment:

“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.”

OK, that’s clever. They could have said a bit more, but that comment is good enough. But it went straight to my spam queue, most likely because other people reported them for spamming. When I checked their URL, I saw that it went to a page with no content. If it had gone to a decent page, the comment would have been OK.

The same person left this comment on my Todoodlist post:

“Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.”

A halfway decent comment, but I couldn’t approve it because of their URL.

Comment on an unrelated post

Someone left this comment:

“Many times you’ve been thinking that you don’t like any of T-Mobile phones.Or probably you travel abroad a lot? And met difficulties trying to use your phone overseas?

From now and forever you can use your phone in all networks an with all operators. Just buy an unlocked cell phone and enjoy the freedom of communication and use the newest cell phones”

This comment is too much of a sales pitch, but the real problem is that it was left on a post that had nothing to do with cell phones (it was about bloggers having their ducks in a row). If it had been left on a relevant post, it would have had a much better chance (though I still would have deleted it).

One-liners

Someone left a comment saying:

“Its Good to read what you have to say.”

Sorry, that’s not enough of a comment. You’ll have to promote your Australian hypnosis business on another blog.

Very short comments can be OK, but they should be a little more specific, and preferably from someone you know not to be a spammer.

Vague compliments

The Australian hypnosis commenter also left this comment about the tea-loving caterpillars:

“This post has helped break my creativity with a project i\’m working on, thanks.”

Close, but no cigar. It was just a bit too obvious that they hadn’t read the post, plus I remembered them from the previous spam comment.

An important anti-spam tip

If you get an email that might be spam, don’t click the links. But if you must click them, at least check them first. One common spam technique is to include a link that doesn’t point to where it appears to, like this:

http://www.google.com

You see that link and think it’s OK to click it, but it could take you to another site that does bad stuff to your computer. What you want to do is hover your mouse pointer over the link. In most browsers, the actual URL will appear in the lower left corner of the browser window. If the real URL doesn’t match the URL displayed, don’t click the link.

Who writes spam anyway?

I just don’t get spammers. Don’t they know how easy it would be to make their spam look legitimate? They’re really going out of their way to do a bad job. I guess that’s a good thing, because it makes it easier for spam filters to catch them. But it seems like there would be a huge opportunity for decent spam copywriters…

In week 1 of my Myers-Briggs trials, I’ll be focusing on extraversion.

The key difference between introverts and extraverts is where they get their energy: from themselves, or from others. If you imagine that each person is powered by a battery, an introvert charges their battery when they’re alone, and drains it when they’re with others. For extraverts, it’s the other way around.

As king of the introverts, this trial would normally be very difficult for me because I often use up my whole battery at work. After I get home, it’s a struggle to seek out more socialization. It’s nothing against anyone personally, but that’s just how introverts work; they need their alone time.

This was a shame because I used up my whole battery on people that I didn’t necessarily want to use it for, and then people I did want to use it for were greeted with my dead battery. Fortunately, I’m on a mini-retirement now, which will make this much easier.

I have a wedding to go to this weekend, so that will provide plenty of opportunities for extraversion. Other than that, I plan to spend much more time with people in person and on the phone. I’ll also practice vocalizing my thoughts before I have time to finish them, doing my thinking out loud. And Twitter will provide a good outlet for small talk.

I can’t go completely extraverted because I still need to read stuff, etc. But the point is to make a significant effort to act far more extraverted than usual. I’ve already done one day of this, but I’ll save my thoughts for the end of the week. Go extraverts!

I mentioned before that I would start off my mini-retirement with a really wacky personal growth experiment. I originally got the idea from a series of ThunderCats episodes I saw in 1985, and I saw that it would tie in perfectly with my new ebook, The Personality Puzzle.

Does anyone remember the ThunderCats trials? Lion-O was the hereditary Lord of the ThunderCats, but he couldn’t be officially anointed until he passed his trials to prove his worth. He had to defeat each of the ThunderCats in their specialty, showing that he was stronger than Panthro, faster than Cheetara, more cunning than WilyKat and WilyKit, and had more mind power than Tygra.

I’ve decided to do something similar by subjecting myself to a series of trials involving the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. For the next four weeks, I’ll be acting out my non-preferences, deliberately acting against my personality just to see what it’s like.

That means that I’ll be straying from my natural type of INTP to act like an ESFJ. That is,

• extraversion instead of introversion
• sensing instead of intuition
• feeling instead of thinking
• judging instead of perceiving

I’ll be acting out each of my non-preferences one at a time. Four weeks, four trials.

While this is in no way recommended, I wanted to see if I could survive a taste of the other side. We’re supposed to embrace our preferences instead of trying to change them, but I thought it would be interesting to see things from a different perspective. If I can make an honest effort each week to act out the appropriate type, I’ll consider myself to have passed the trials.

Although extraversion would come first if I did them in order, I was planning to save it for last, since I know it’s going to be the hardest. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to start with an easy one to get warmed up? But then I remembered that the ThunderCats made Lion-O start off against the mighty Panthro, the logic being “If you can’t get past him, there’s no point in going on.” Good point. Extraversion it is, then.

I’ll write a post at the beginning of each week to explain what I’m going to do, and then another post at the end of the week to recap it. I’ll link to these posts below.

Week 1: Extraversion (recap)
Week 2: Sensing (recap)
Week 3: Feeling (recap)
Week 4: Judging (recap)
The end: Overall recap

Are you an introvert or an extravert? Either way, would you like to get along better with people of the other type? Check out my guest post on PickTheBrain, Introverts And Extraverts: Can’t We Just Get Along?

Unlike The Introverts Strike Back, this new post is pretty evenly balanced between both types, pointing out ways we can all cater to the natural preferences of other people to promote better communication and relationships.

If you like it and you’re a Digg user, please give it a digg. The Digg link is here. (Update: it’s at 132 diggs after 10 hours! Please give it a digg if you can!)

PickTheBrain is one of the fastest growing self improvement sites on the web, up to 13,510 subscribers before its second birthday. Being a wonderfully diverse site, it covers anything that people can use to live more prosperous, satisfying lives.

Photo by -bast-

The year was 1998, and we were at the peak of the tech boom. I was about to graduate from Virginia Tech with a master’s degree in computer science, and I had a 4.0 GPA. It was a good time to look for a job.

One company was flying in a few Virginia Tech students for interviews. We flew in to Raleigh-Durham, NC the day before, spent the night in a hotel, and a car was sent for us in the morning. We showed up at the office, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

They showed us around the building and pointed out all the groundbreaking work they were doing. Then they put on a fantastic presentation, and I was completely sold. During my interviews, I easily answered all the questions they threw at me, and I had a great feeling about everything. At the end, I smiled, shook the guy’s hand, and waited outside with the rest of the candidates. Pretty soon I would be told that I had taken one giant leap towards the American Dream.

Except that I didn’t get the job.

“What do you mean I didn’t get the job?” I shouted, with little concern for how I sounded. The lady just said “Unfortunately, the interviewers didn’t think you were a good match for the positions they had available.” Today, I know that that’s a euphemism for “You suck.” Back then, I thought they really meant that somehow my skills didn’t fit anything they had available.

I couldn’t stop trying to figure out what had gone wrong. I replayed my interviews over and over in my head, and I didn’t really see what I could have done better. I guess I could have answered some of the questions faster, instead of taking some time to remember the syntax of certain Unix commands, but I didn’t think that was it.

I decided that I had to email them and find out. So I wrote up a polite but direct email, saying I really wanted to work there, I was confused about why I didn’t get an offer, and I was wondering if they could tell me why.

The answer really surprised me. It was right then that I learned the most important question to answer in a job interview is one that doesn’t get asked. And that question is “Do you want the job?”

The lady said that the interviewers liked me, and they were impressed with my technical knowledge, but they thought I was just job shopping, and didn’t seem to have any real interest in the company at all. They said I didn’t ask many questions, or even say that I wanted the job.

Wait a minute, time out here–I have to tell them that I want the job? Why the hell would I fly in and interview for a job I didn’t want? And no real interest in the company? I had spent days reading their website and they were one of my top two choices. I didn’t ask many questions because I already knew what I needed to know. Why didn’t they ask me why I wanted to work there, if there was any doubt?

I thought that an interview was like a test: they ask questions, you answer them correctly, and you get the job. But actually, you pass the test by asking questions, not answering them. You ask questions to show interest in the company and convince them that you want the job.

I didn’t get my dream job, but I had a second chance. Right before I had hopped on the plane for the first interview, I had gotten a message from another person in that company, inviting me in for an interview in a different division. So when I returned, I set up that interview and got on another plane, this time to New Jersey. Time to test out my new interviewing skills.

I knew the company’s drill by now, so I was a little impatient with seeing the tour and the presentation again. I wanted to get to the interview. While I thought I’d do better in the interview this time, there was something going against me. At the first interview, I was competing against other Virginia Tech students. This time, I was competing against people from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon. Would asking a few questions be enough to stand out against them?

It was. I got the job. In fact, I had multiple people fighting over me, and I got an offer for about 50% more money than my next best offer.

What made this moment even better is that I recognized one of the people there from the first interview. She was the one I had emailed to find out why I didn’t get the job before. She came up to me, smiled, and said “I’ll pass this news on to your friends from the other office.” (Incidentally, I’ve sometimes wondered how my life would have turned out if I had gotten the job in North Carolina instead of New Jersey.)

So my tricks worked, but I didn’t know why. All I did was ask questions that weren’t really important, or which I already knew the answer to. My natural inclination is to ask questions to obtain information, not to impress people. But apparently, asking questions is an effective way to show that you want a job.

Here are some of my favorite interview questions to ask:

• How long have you worked here?
• What is your favorite thing about working here?
• If you had to pick something as your least favorite thing about working here, what would that be?
• What kind of person are you looking for?
• Can you talk about what would make someone a good match, or not a good match?
• Can you describe a typical day here?

I’ve heard several times that at the end of the interview, you should explicitly state that you want the job. If you can find a natural way to say that, fine, but I like to ask “Is there any reason you wouldn’t hire me?” This makes it clear that you want the job, and it has the added benefit of possibly giving you a chance to address any perceived weaknesses.

There are other questions that will implant the idea of you working there, such as “Can I meet some of the people I’d be working with?” or “Where are the good places to have lunch around here?”

You should send an email after the fact as a thank you, and you can use this to clarify that you really want to work there. I sent one thank you email where I said that I was wearing the temporary tattoo they had given me. Later, they said they hired me specifically because of that. (Their second reason for hiring me: because they were in Virginia and I was in New Jersey, they wanted to know if I could be available for an interview in the next couple of weeks. I said I could be there in 4 hours.)

In a logical world, these dumb tricks wouldn’t work. But most people aren’t logical. So if someone is going to give more weight to your temporary tattoo than to your ability to get the job done, slapping on a tattoo is an easy way to game the system.

I made the mistake of thinking that you aced an interview by answering the questions they asked. I had no idea that you also have to answer the hidden question of “Do you want the job?” Once I learned that, interviewing became much easier.

Have you ever made a mistake? Catherine Lawson will link to you if you fess up by July 22nd (see that link for details).

This post appeared in The 7th Edition Of The Carnival Of Careers, hosted by Erik Folgate.