Top tips on how not to land that dream job

Our Man recently had another one of his near brushes with greatness and managed to fluff his lines, yet again. There was a faint possibility of a tasty journalism job going with a very big, very professional non-Japanese outfit and Our Man blew it with possibly the most unprofessional (but quite amusing) e-mail self-introductions he'd ever fired off. Cometh the hour, cometh the clown.

Anyway, it got Our Man thinking (uh oh...) perhaps the good folk of greater Abiko could do with some job-seeking advice to get through these hard times. So, here's Our Man's Top Tips of What Not to do If You Want to Land that Dream Job (all of which he has bitter personal experience of):

1. Don't back your car into a lamppost, obliterating the wing mirror, after leaving an interview for a reporter's position, in full view and earshot of the editor and publisher. Also, don't then drive off at speed as if nothing had happened.

2. When trying to impress potential employers in Piccadilly with how cool you are about working with the big boys in London, don't sweat profusely, which although a natural reaction, can become a freak show if you wear a wool suit in July and decide on the spur of the moment before the interview to run up the six flights of stairs to the office so as not to get stuck in the lift.

3. Find out the name of the person who is going to interview you. Close approximations formed from a half-heard answering machine message don't quite cut it. (Yes, I'm here to see Mervin Goo? Melvin Goop? Mr Good? The editor? Assistant editor? Somebody?)

4. Don't exaggerate your German-language-speaking prowess on your cv. An A-Level and copping off with a young lady in a youth hostel outside Innsbruck don't constitute fluency. You will be found out. By the German-speaking publisher. Yikes.

But, Our Man's not a born-again pragmatic fatalist for nothing you know. You what? It all works out in the end. In case 1, he got the job anyway, in 2, he didn't land the job, but two years later everyone there was laid off. In 3, his heroic failure led to him being available for a better job at the Yomiuri, oh, and 4? Well, who really wants to work for Cranes Today anyway? It's all summed up nicely here, folks.