Interview Goofs You Can't Make Up

(NEWSER) - Don't shoot yourself in the foot in your next job interview. A Fortune poll of hiring managers uncovered some anecdotes about the dumbest pitches they'd heard: The interviewee:

1. "...told me to hire him because he was allergic to unemployment."
2. "... said that we should hire him because he would make a great addition to our softball team."
3. "...said he should get the job because he had already applied three times and he felt that it was now his turn to be hired."

DC tops search engine's list

(NEWSER) - Washington, DC is the easiest city in the country to land a job, says job-search site Juju.com, which ranked cities by comparing the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ figures on unemployed workers to the number of job postings on Juju itself. The site finds 1.87 “unemployed individuals per advertised job” in the District. More»

How many tennis balls are in this room, and why, wonders Yahoo

(USER SUBMITTED) - The employment resources blog GlassDoor.com has rounded up some of the most bizarre interview questions of 2009. Some beauties:

• How many tennis balls are in this room and why? (Yahoo)
• If you were a brick in a wall, which brick would you be and why? (Nestle USA)
• If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it? (Apple)
• Say you are dead — what do you think your eulogy would say about you? (Nationwide)

Findings confirm it's good to be nerdy

(NEWSER) - How desirable is your daily grind? A new study aims to answer that question with a list ranking the best and worst jobs according to five factors: “environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, and stress,” the Wall Street Journal reports. In the end, the CareerCast list suggests, nerds rule. Best jobs:

1. Mathematician
2. Actuary
3. Statistician
4. Biologist
5. Software engineer

Gigs that straddle the line between necessary and absurd

(NEWSER) - From Parisian sewer guides to a coconut safety engineer in St. Thomas, some travel industry jobs straddle the line between necessary and absurd. Travel and Leisure highlights some of the strangest.

1. Tourism ambassador, Japan. Diplomacy never looked so soft and cuddly after Japan appointed elder statesfeline Hello Kitty for PR duty in Hong Kong and China.