How to Get a Job in Bad Times

NUMBERS GAME. Getting a job is a full time job til you get a job. Get it? You can't just go to one temp agency; you have to go to them all. Yes, you have to take that stupid typing test EVERY time, so wipe that indignation off your face. You're either too scared or too uninspired to start your own business, so there's no use for pride now!

ONLINE. Same thing; numbers game. Edit your Monster/Hotjobs/etc. resume EVERY day; that keeps it at the top of search lists. Just click in, change a period, save, click out. Send mass emails and mass cover letters out on Craigslist, (and learn to use BCC, please!)

DON'T WASTE TIME. Lying about how you've wanted to work at this company all your life, super witty cover letters, and all that crap about calling employers to find out why they didn't hire you is BS. They know their job suxx just as much as you do. (Why the heck do you think the position is open?) And if someone asks you to do too much prep work in the hiring process, unless it's freakin Goldman Sachs, take a pass. I can't tell you how many marketing plans I wrote for small businesses that they just took without hiring me.

INTERVIEW. When they ask "Can you do it?" you say "Yes." When they ask "Have you done it?" you say "Yes." When they ask "Why do you want it?" you say "You." Never betray any negative emotion about a former employer or an employment gap. "I left to go back to school." (School of Hard Knocks is a school.) And for God's sake, don't be dumb enough to be honest on those personality tests. Why do you think it's a Scantron? Yes, you absolutely would kill someone who stole a company pencil.

REFERENCES. Can't use past employers; they all hate you. So that leaves friends. I mean, co-workers. For those of you with a moral dilemma here, get the job and don't be lazy or steal anything and God will forgive you for lying. Maybe.