Technical Difficulty

Portfolios are important, no doubt about that. But any applicant worth their salt knows the cost of making mistakes during a job interview. Unless you can make it look like it's all part of the plan. In most cases, you'll just end up wasting a bunch of time and sweating like it's the middle of Summer (sometimes I do get job interviews during that time of the year as well) while having your interviewers stare at you irritatingly as you fumble around with your device BIOS.
Long story short, make sure things work before you show that the thing works. Gee, that was really vague in hindsight. But at least you get the general idea...

Painful Choice

I've had an employer give me this ultimatum once. As far as I know, it went better than he expected. Still, there's no experience like the feeling of getting your unemployed body tossed out of the building premises and having a terrible referee to validate your lack of practical sense. I mean, you can't get that in any university degree... Wait, no I think you still can if you get expelled from the university.
The point is that you're always going to miss these core opportunities for employment. But that's fine, there's more where that came from. Just like that meme of the dog drinking tea in a burning house.

Call Me, Maybe

Whenever people call me, it's either someone wanting to get into my house or a possible job prospect. Occasionally there are instances where I'm called about neither of those things.
But if it's about jobs, I always seem to be in this back-and-forth asynchronous conversation in order to get the application process in the works. This comic is based on one of those days a couple of years ago.

Some things are a bit different for this specific post. I will try and address the most immediate questions below:

Q. Why is the comic posted in two sections?
A. Blogger shrinks your images if they're too long or wide. And frankly I like to be able to read my comics  with minimal seeing effort.

Q. Piggo does HR work now?
A. Why not? He's a pig of all trades.

Q. Why are you posting on a Tuesday this week?
A. Because I have to study for exams while still having to deal with job applications from a few weeks ago. Also yesterday was the Queen's Birthday here in Australia, sort of like <insert public holiday here> in <insert country here>.

Emotional Breakdown

The feels are reals. Back when I used to use Facebook for more general purposes, I'd often see posts about landing that "dream job" or working your last shift at Subway before going off to become one of the best event organizers the country has ever known. These days, I'm more using LinkedIn and I still feel moderately inadequate when I read about other peoples' success. Perhaps I should move to those old school social media platforms like MSN or even *shudder* MySpace. At least the bar is set so low there that you'd actually have to try to fail in order to actually fail.
Well, as I've once said in the past: Prepare to be homeless...

Types of LinkedIn Mugshots

Trying to find network leads on LinkedIn is certainly made easier when they actually provide a mugshot. Understandably, some people don't update their profiles that often because, you know, they actually have a stable career.
Even so, most LinkedIn mugshots I encounter usually fall into one or more of these general categories. As in the case of my own profile, it's my go-to prison mugshot from the police station/photo processing store sort of close to the police station.
No that's not actually my face, just an image I found on Google Image Search.

Suspicious Job Interview

You know that feeling when you're *just* about to land that dreamy job, and then you realise that it's a huge scam and your entire life up to that point has been a lie? Yes, it seems that we're back to square one on this one, where every job opportunity always finds someone better as a potential hire and every entry level job sounds as suspicious as that one interview in the city library.
Well, you know what they say: Watch like an eagle, strike like a hawk, dance like nobody's watching...

The Last Laugh

Sometimes I'm able to crack a joke or something the employer can relate to, in context of a job interview. I would like to think they're not laughing at my stupidity or incompetence, although it might explain my track record of past failed job interviews.
Even so, I have to casually laugh along as well so that it appears that was the intention. Not sure if employers can see through that weak social facade, but then again, would you rather have a dead serious job interview instead?