One More Job Hunting Tip

I know you’ve heard this before. Everyone has heard it before. But, if this past few days of interviews is any indication, most people think it doesn’t concern them.

Here’s the tip: Don’t bathe yourself in cologne.

Seriously, you’d think people would realize… one small spritz of cologne = okay. 45 spritzes = not okay. Or, let’s put it a different way. If I can smell your cologne before you enter the room, that’s bad. If I can smell your cologne ten minutes after you leave, that’s bad. If I can smell your cologne all day because the scent is burned into my nostrils, that’s bad.

I understand when older people do it, since you lose a lot of your sense of smell as you age (still, you’d think you’d recognize the fact you’re using too much when you’re spraying half a dozen times). And I understand when really young people do it, because they are relatively new to the workforce and maybe don’t know all the do’s and don’t’s of interviewing yet.

But all of these people have been people my age, or thereabouts. And while none of the perfume has been obnoxious, like those shiteous kind that smell like baby powder, it has been overwhelming.

Listen, don’t wear any cologne to an interview, okay? Some people are very sensitive to it. (I’m not particularly sensitive, so that should tell you how bad it was this week.) But, if you think you smell bad enough that you need more than one small spritz of cologne… take a shower.