The Pappy Parker Players performed in the Hinman Commons on Monday as part of a Career Development Center event to help students perform better in interviews.
The improv troupe participated in an interactive interviewing game as each pulled an interviewing flaw from a box and acted it out. It was up to the handful in attendance to guess what the flaw was.
Zach Park, a Pappy Parker Player and a senior majoring in philosophy, demonstrated having no teamwork as he acted the part of a self-obsessed fool with “some letters of recommendation from some senators” applying for a job at Google.
“Why would you hire 20 people to know a bunch of different things when you can just pay me to know everything?” Park said. “It will be good for the payroll and I would be good for the job.”
Kris Casey, another Parker Player and a sophomore majoring in human development, displayed the weakness of poor posture by picking his nose, open mouth yawning, and rolling on the floor when asked “describe a rule you had to agree to but didn’t want to.”
The Pappys ended the game with a group interview for a position at Worldwide Cleaners. Each candidate expressed another bad trait as they were asked why they wanted the job at the fake family business.
“Thanks, guys, that was absolutely horrible,” said Park, the mock interviewer. “I think I’m just going to hire a bunch of Mexicans instead.”
Wendy Neuberger, the Liberal Arts to Careers Externship coordinator at the CDC, wanted to show interviews requires practice and preparation.
“You need to know the kinds of questions that an interviewer may ask and you need to practice, which is why I stress mock interviews,” she said. “It’s hard to teach someone how to interview. It comes with practice.”
Through embellishing the common mishaps on part of the interviewee, the Pappy Parker Players made clear the many things not to do in the interview.
“It was very interesting, we have never done an event where we’re actually involved in the presentation,” Casey said. “Normally we would just open for it, but it was definitely a good experience to do a workshop.”
The event closed with an improvisational comedy freeze game, an exercise where a comic may pause and change the situation at any time. It poked fun at many aspects of bad interviewees, such as bad-mouthing a previous boss, bringing up salary, and answering phone calls.
“My last girlfriend was such a bitch. She was also my employer, but it was alright because she paid me $24.50 an hour to be her boyfriend,” said Benjamin Moosher, a Pappy Parker Player and a freshman majoring in computer science.
Paul Nguyen, social vice president of the Hinman College Coucil and a freshman majoring in biochemistry, planned the ‘Seriously Brilliant Interviewing’ event.
“As the social vice president I like to have fun,” Nguyen said. “But being at Binghamton University I know that people get serious and I know that this is around interviewing time for internships, so I felt like it was really good timing. What better way to teach someone [how to interview] than by having fun with the Pappys. I wanted it to be informational and fun. I think that is an important combination.”