Top Ten Things Not to Say at an APA Interview

By Torin Alter

  1. That’s Mr. (Ms.) NN to you.
  2. Oh, that’s just something I put in my CV for padding.
  3. Does everyone at your school dress like that?
  4. Would I be able to avoid administrative duties, if I plan to leave the job after a year?
  5. Could we continue this later? American Gladiators is starting.
  6. Aren’t you the one who wrote that article Putnam trashed?
  7. Well, I’d like to finish my dissertation this year, but I just recently got into cajun cooking, and I want to explore that for a while.
  8. I really need to know whether you’re going to offer me the job by tomorrow.
  9. I always figure that the really good students can learn just as much from true/false tests as from papers, so that’s my practice.
  10. Mind if I take off my shoes? My feet itch.

    From “Letters to the Editor,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 69,2 (Nov. 1995), p. 131.