Who says work has to be all seriousness all the time? Actually, no one really says it, but most of us kind of assume. When asked, 91% of CEOs say a sense of humor is important for career advancement. Take that as your cue to use any and all of our 11 ways you can use humor to help your career.
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LIGHTEN UP A JOB INTERVIEW
It’s entirely possible that you are the 10th or 20th candidate for a job opening an interviewer has seen. By now he’s heard all the rote answers people give to “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Why not toss in a witty remark or joke before giving the real answer?
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BE THE BUTT OF YOUR JOKES
Obviously, making jokes at a coworker’s expense will not get you the kind of attention you’re after. Also verboten are blonde jokes and “a priest walks into a bar” jokes, for obvious reasons. The only completely safe person to rib at work is yourself. You can poke fun at your own taste in music or how you always screw up on first dates, just don’t make light of your ability to do your job.
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MAKE YOUR BLOG A MUST-READ
Companies and individual businesspeople have caught on to how important social media can be for successful business. Industry-specific blogs and Twitter feeds that are truly funny rope in people who wouldn’t normally be interested in what you’re talking about, simply because funny is funny. A wider audience means a better chance of a random contact offering you a better job, or simply making a name for yourself that you can bank on later.
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LIVEN UP A PRESENTATION
Unless you work at NASA and your presentation is about the aliens you’ve found living on Mars, you’ll need a way to jazz up the lecture and keep people engaged. Humor is the perfect way to do that, and it can also help deflect awkward or hostile questions from your audience.
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PICK COWORKERS UP
A great way to further your career is to show your boss(es) that you can step up and be a leader. You can do this by taking advantage of your sense of humor. Become the guy or gal in the office who sends out the funniest emails or who makes a point of brightening someone’s mood who is obviously down.
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FOSTER A HUMOR-FRIENDLY WORK ENVIRONMENT
If you are a CEO of a startup or otherwise have a way of influencing the company culture, keeping the business thriving is important for your career. Humor is an excellent means of not just keeping employees, but keeping them happy. Happy people work harder, the company benefits, and you as the manager have a success to add to your résumé.
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LAUGH OFF YOUR MISTAKES
Goofs. Foibles. Faux pas. Everybody makes mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are going to happen between the hours of 9 and 5. Instead of stewing over them, consider them an opportunity to prove you have a sense of humor and don’t take yourself too seriously.
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LAUGH WITH OTHERS
Staffing firm Robert Half International suggests an easy way to help you get ahead at work: just laugh. Laughter puts people at ease and helps you get along with them. People – even bosses — gravitate towards people who laugh easily and often.
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MAKE WITTY REFERENCES
When you’re around your boss, making a clever, humorous allusion at just the right moment is an easy way to stand out and show off your knowledge. Obviously this requires staying up on the news, especially business and economic news. Keep it classy, but hey, if you know your boss loves Seinfeld or Office Space, drop some quotes in once in a while.
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BREAK THE ICE WITH POTENTIAL CLIENTS
In many industries, everyone you meet is a potential client, which means when you fly on a plane, go to a ball game, go to church, or go pretty much anywhere people sit next to each other, you are sitting next to a potential customer. What better way to advance your career than to bring in their business? Of course, social norms being what they are, you typically can’t just ask people out of the blue for their business. Humor is the perfect lubricant to grease the tracks for a smooth introduction, then a conversation, then a date for a business meeting.
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ROAST YOUR BOSS
Getting up on stage in front of a crowd of people and publicly making fun of a superior is a guaranteed way to get fired … unless it’s all part of the show. Roasts for members of senior management are a common way for companies to honor them. It’s also considered an honor to be one of the roasters. The person being roasted will have a sense of humor (or he wouldn’t have agreed to it), and it’s a perfect time for you to display yours.
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