How to Take a Job Interview To succeed in campus job interviews, you have to know where that recruiter is coming from. The simple answer is that he is coming from corporate headquarters. That may sound obvious, but it is a significant point that too many students do not consider. The recruiter is not a free spirit as he flies from Berkeley to New Haven, from Chapel Hill to Boulder. He's on an invisible leash to the office, and if he is worth his salary, he is mentally in corporate headquarters all the time he's on the road. If you can fix that in your mind--that when you walk into that bare-walled cubicle in the placement center you are walking into a branch office of Sears, Bendix or General Motors--you can avoid a lot of little mistakes and maybe some big ones. If, for example, you assume that because the interview is on campus the recruiter expects you to look and act like a student, you're in for a shock. A student is somebody who drinks beer, wears blue jeans and throws a Frisbee. No recruiter has jobs for student Frisbee whizzes. A cool spring day in late March, Sam Davis, a good recruiter who has been on the college circuit for years, is on my campus talking to candidates. He comes out to the waiting area to meet the student who signed up for an 11 o'clock interview. I'm standing in the doorway of my office taking in the scene. Sam calls the candidate: 'Sidney Student.' There sits Sidney. He's at a 45 degree angle, his feet are in the aisle, and he's almost lying down. He's wearing well-polished brown shoes, a tasteful pair of brown pants, a light brown shirt, and a good looking tie. Unfortunately, he tops off this well-coordinated outfit with his Joe's Tavern Class A Softball Championship jacket, which has a big woven emblem over the heart. If that isn't bad enough, in his left hand is a cigarette and in his right hand is a half-eaten apple. When Sam calls his name, the kid is caught off guard. He ditched the cigarette in an ashtray, struggles to his feet, and transfers the apple from the right to the left hand. Apple juice is everywhere, so Sid wipes his hand on the seat of his pants and shakes hands with Sam. Sam, who by now is close to having a stroke, gives me that what-do-I-have-here look and has the young man follow him into the interview room. The situation deteriorates even further--into pure Laurel and Hardy. The kid is stuck with the half-eaten apple, doesn't know what to do with it, and obviously is suffering some discomfort. He carries the apple into the interview room with him and places it in the ashtray on the desk--right on top of Sam's freshly lit cigarette. The interview lasts five minutes... Let us move in for a closer look at how the campus recruiter operates. Let's say you have a 10 o'clock appointment with the recruiter from the XYZ Corporation. The recruiter gets rid of the candidate in front of you at about 5 minutes to 10, jots down a few notes about what he is going to do with him or her, then picks up your resume or data sheet (which you have submitted in advance)... Although the recruiter is still in the interview room and you are still in the lobby, your interview is under way. You're on. The recruiter will look over your sheet pretty carefully before he goes out to call you. He develops a mental picture of you. He thinks, 'I'm going to enjoy talking with this kid,' or 'This one's going to be a turkey.' The recruiter has already begun to make a decision about you. His first impression of you, from reading the sheet, could come from your grade point. It could come from misspelled words. It could come from poor erasures or from the fact that necessary information is missing. By the time the recruiter has finished reading your sheet, you've already hit the