Trash your former boss in a job interview? It should be obvious to anyone that doing that is a bad idea. Yet apparently people still do it. Or at least need to be told not to.

Yahoo ran a piece from Monster.com recently on five things that will make your interviewer hate you. Jumping at the chance to trash talk about a former boss was number one on that list.

Trash talk your former boss in a job interview? Not the best idea.

Second was telling your interviewer what you would change if you got the new job. The Monster piece notes that sometimes interviewers will ask you what you would change; often they’re looking for change agents to shake a place up or to implement new programs and new ideas. But be careful how you frame your new ideas. The piece suggests finding a constructive way to do did not want someone who could be rattled that easily working for me.

Rounding out Yahoo’s five no-nos are denigrating your interviewer’s appearance or speaking ill of the place you’re applying to. Yikes, do applicants really need to be told that? Apparently so.

I wrote recently about remembering job hunting basics. These certainly fit in the basics handbook.
John N. Frank