Sunday, Nov. 08, 2009

Job interviews: High-stakes improv

Yes, and ...

Those two words can really help you in a job interview.

Just ask a comedy improvisation teacher.

While the lessons actor and comedian Bill Chott teaches in improv classes in St. Louis may be aimed at those with dreams of stage and screen, he and his students have come to realize that the courses prepare the unemployed for the moment they take a seat opposite a hiring manager.

When you think about it, a job interview is really little more than high stakes improvisation. Anyone who has watched Drew Carey's "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" can attest, improv is all about listening carefully to the cues and responding appropriately - a lot like responding to an interviewer.

Among the most effective tools in that bag, Chott teaches, are a couple of ordinary words, separate by a comma: "Yes, and ..."

Chott, who appears in the Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place," kicks off an exercise by bringing two volunteers to the front of the class where they initiate an extemporaneous, improvisational discussion featuring half-completed sentences on nonsensical topics.

The idea is to pick up on inferences and subtext, then bridge the dialogue by starting each response with, "Yes, and ..."

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood ..." says the first person. "Yes, and I can see it getting a lot worse ..." "Yes, and when it does ..." the second responds.

"It's a good device," Chott explains, "because it allows you to stall and it leads (the ongoing conversation) to a logical conclusion. It's not about being funny, it's about being real."

- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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