In August 1949, the Geneva Convention (which, like most offsite conventions, consisted of attendees breaking up into competing groups to solve problems involving being inexplicably stranded on an uncharted island with only six hours to respond to a crucial sales client’s needs, people engaging in forced jocularity at a cash bar and at least one married senior director using the meeting to screw "the new chick with the tasty melons" from Accounts Payable) strictly prohibited "outrages against personal dignity." And yet over 50 years later we still live in a world rife with humiliating and degrading treatment. A world in which one can be well past 30 and still have to endure the incessant questioning of one’s increasing demented parents while slumped in the back seat of their SUV during the three-hour drive to one’s aunt’s on Thanksgiving, all the while praying to dear God that it’s true what the experts say about the likelihood of such a car suddenly rolling over, preferably into a volcano. A world in which you can be summarily dressed down and dismissed by of all people a sales clerk simply because you had the so-called "audacity" to ask if Jimmy Choo’s carries irregular or scuffed shoes at a deep discount, "Y’know, like bakeries do with day-old bagels." A world in which the words "Bill O’Reilly" are not immediately followed by the phrase "was swallowed whole by a crack in the earth."

But more importantly (or at least more applicable to the subject matter of this website), a world in which thousands of people each day must endure the debasing, spiritually disheartening, mentally debilitating process known as the job interview. Unfortunately, until instant holographic job scanners are practical and plentiful (a process that may take years to implement now that the current administration has cut necessary research funding so they can use the money to carefully add Ronald Reagan’s signature to the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and every copy of the New Testament), we will all have to make the best of those 20 minutes spent sitting across from our hopeful employer (more time if the interview is going quite well, much less should you decide to open with "Now I don’t have anything against blacks, Jews or cripples, but…").

So how do you ensure you make the best of a situation no one particularly likes and few survive intact (we’re not saying people have been known to die from an interview, we’re just noting that few wish they were still alive after one)? It’s all in the details, those telling signs that the truly successful immediately pick up on and the forty-year-olds still sporting employee name tags, hairnets and at least one grease fire scar miss time and time again. In other words, next time you get the call from HR, don’t just listen to what the person sitting opposite of you is saying with their mouth. Listen to what they’re communicating with their gestures, always remembering the four types of classic business interviewers.

• Responsive Interviewer: Leans forward with feet under chair, hands on table and eyes on you with an intensity that would unnerve an FBI profiler. Thoroughly engaged in everything you have to say and ready to agree with almost anything you may utter, even if it’s "And I fully believe that in a pinch, India ink makes a fine substitute for blood." Laughs uproariously when you make a joke, smiles broadly when you mention an accomplishment and hugs themselves when you pay them a compliment. And when it’s all over shows you to the elevator, walks you down to your car and patiently waits outside your bedroom window for the next time you two can speak.
  
  
• Reflective Interviewer: Tilts head, strokes chin, sucks glasses, nods continuously and blinks at a rate that has been known to induce seizures. Listens intensely, evaluates quietly and pays you more attention than your own mother. Leaves you with a sense they understood exactly where you were coming from…and so could see through you better than Superman through one-ply toilet paper.
  
  
• Reticent Interviewer: Stares not so much at you as past you, waiting for a coworker to walk by their door so they can wave frantically for attention while silently mouthing the words "help me." Eventually starts wandering aimlessly around the office while you speak, throwing their arms up in defeat, buttoning their jacket and walking out their door, locking both the office and you inside.
  
  
• Raging Interviewer: Taps feet, keeps head down and doodles with a vigor that causes pens to burst. Leans over you with arms crossed when asking a question and turns away in disgust when you answer. Shows no mercy when you start to cry and even less when you start to choke. Signifies end of interview by forcibly kicking your chair, watching you roll out of the office and down a nearby flight of stairs.