Cracking jokes during an interview
Having some trouble recruiting. Want to improve my strategy. I'm a jokester but in interviews I shut that down because I'm scared I'll get dinged for being unprofessional. But I'm getting dinged anyway.. probably for being too nervous/not personable enough if I had to guess.
When I say cracking jokes I mean responding to "why do you want to work here?" with "the city of [] needs me... I'm Batman" in the Batman voice.
Or if someone asks a technical that I don't know the answer to, saying "Who do you think I am... Mario Freaking Einstein or something?" instead of "I don't know the answer to that question".
I figure doing these interviews can't be incredibly interesting for professionals... do you want the analyst interviewing you to think that you're funny?
I don't think there is anything wrong with light jokes. The jokes you described in your post are not really funny. Just reading those I cringe at working with someone that would say stupid stuff like that all the time.
You want to be known as personable. You want the interviewer to see that you would not be a nightmare to work with. No one is going to hire a failed class clown.
Sorry bro, I think you are actually socially retarded. Have you considered a career in IT or operations? They don't have much human contact in those fields. I think you'd be a great fit there!
"jokester"
Letting your personality shine through can be helpful. I usually see it happen (from my perspectives as interviewee and interviewer) when you talk about hobbies / extracurriculars in one’s resume. Or you can inject a bit of humor when talking about your experience (or if you get something like - “tell me of a time something went wrong / a failure”)
Your jokes though, oof... instant ding.
Be natural. Everything else will appear forced and uncomfortable. Being personable is great but is hard to do if you're not personable. Certainly don't force jokes in the interview. Try to make the interview feel more like a casual conversation. People (including hiring managers) want to be around others who are authentic. Authentic serious is fine. Authentic casual is fine. Authentic personable is fine. Forced anything is awful!
I just looked through some of your previous posts to make sure you weren't a troll, and it turns out, you're just weird. That's not inherently a bad thing, but you're probably not cut out for high finance. I've worked in every aspect of high finance. I've been in investment banking, trading, corporate development, management consulting, venture capital--you name it, I've done it. You seem like an odd duck that won't fit well into any of those fields.
I take very little in my life seriously. I have been an enormous success. But the list of my failures outweighs the number of things you have tried. I joke in interviews, but I get interviewed by Cabinet secretaries and C-suite executives. You can make a life that way, but it's hard. You have to be not just different, but better than your peers. And your jokes have to stick. You sound like a guy who imagines himself to be funnier than he is, which means you're socially awkward and interview poorly.
If you want to be funny in an interview, you have to also know basically everything for the job. You can't hope to deflect from the conversation with a politician's answer. Politicians aren't well-liked precisely because they never answer the question that's asked. If you do that in an interview setting in finance or consulting, you're not going to fool anyone. Instead, you will look like a fool. Unless this is a troll post, you sound like a fucking dork.
Just play it straight, fool.
FINISH HIM!
FATALITY
He's telling you straight up. If you can't handle it, leave?
When someone acts like a smart ass in an interview, they do have to know everything about the job. That's the ante. I come to the interview ready to conduct it seriously - if you treat it like a joke, you are going to put me off. If you treat it like a joke and you don't have any substance underneath your cockiness to back it up, I am going to ding you hard.
Not trying to hurt your feelings, but I think you should lay off the jokes - the ones you tried above do not land, and would frankly make an interview scenario very uncomfortable for me as the interviewer.
Perhaps instead of trying to find a gimmick that will set you apart, you should present yourself as someone that knows as much as they can be expected to from their schooling, and will be a hard worker that will appreciate whatever opportunity they're given. This impression will do so much more to make you memorable than telling me weird jokes.
As said many times above, don't crack a joke like that, it's very cringey.
However, my advice would be to feel the vibe of the interviewer(s), if they seem ok to have a laugh then yeah, throw a casual joke in. Obviously don't force one in like "So, why do you want to work here?" - "Hold on, let me tell you a joke before I answer. Knock knock.."
It needs to be in the moment. My last interview was a day after I found out I passed my CFA exam, I was asked something along the lines of "What's the biggest challenge you've overcome?" and simply answered "Not going out for drinks last night after I found out I passed the CFA". They liked it, I then answered seriously. It was early in the interview and got rid of any tension, plus, it told them I passed the CFA exam (my CV said I was waiting for the results)
On a serious note, let's think about the point of an interview.
It's to prove that you're capable enough to get the work done and mature enough to not look out of place while doing it.
Note how subjective the latter point is. This is why bankers rolling up to a startup interview in a suit get dinged. They couldn't put the effort into thinking about how they need to do what they're being asked to do.
I remember talking with a FTSE 100 CEO a couple years ago and she mentioned how she almost didn't hire her CFO. She'd expressly asked the headhunter to stress how warm the culture was and the dude with the most relevant experience came in in a three-piece suit. Classic British stiff-upper-lip type. He ended up coming back for a second chat in jeans and a blazer and talked a lot about his family, and once he proved he was relatable and personable enough, she was sold and brought him on.
Now let's think about an investment banking interview. They are screening very young adults for a role where they'll have exposure to some highly sensitive corporate information, potentially sit in rooms with very senior client executives, and have to interface with senior internal staff regularly.
Does someone who flips into Batman voice unexpectedly in a setting where they're supposed to be putting their best foot forward seem to match that requirement?
Let's go with an easy analogy. Does it make sense to be weird as hell on a first date? The answer is obviously no. You want to be as attractive as possible. You don't let your crazy fly on day one. Everyone is weird in certain ways, they just save it for once someone knows them well enough.
This does not mean you can't show personality in an interview. Whyphy's example is great. It's lighthearted and safe. It shows self-awareness.
One general pointer is to rely on stories that both answer someone's question while highlighting something unique about yourself.
If someone asks you about a time when you handled unexpected adversity, you can share a story that highlights one of your biggest hobbies or interests. e.g. The first time you took a road trip after you got a driver's license, you got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and had to change it yourself; this gave you a lot more confidence about cars, and you ended up becoming a gearhead and learning a lot about automotive repair which has sparked your hobby of visiting classic car shows.
You can also convey a lot of personality in how you answer something. What's better: someone who tells the flat tire story in a complete monotone while looking a little nervous, or someone who is clearly excited to be talking about something they care about, using expansive vocabulary, and making fun of themselves ("I was so sweaty I couldn't even hold onto the tire jack" ... "was so happy to get the old tire off that I forgot about it, only to look up and see the thing rolling fifty feet away")?
In short, play it safe. Don't make someone doubt your maturity.
“I’m Batman”
That is Michael Scott level of lacking self awareness. It’s so remarkably unfunny, that it almost could be funny, if it wasn’t just fucking sad. I would say you should do whatever the opposite of what your instincts tell you to do, because if all of your instincts are wrong, the opposite must be right (George Constanza Style).