Angelo DiTocco
“I GATHERED 100 COLLEGE STUDENTS, AND WHOEVER IMPRESSES ME THE MOST GETS THIS $120,000 INTERNSHIP!”
The students all whispered to each other in excitement. They had no idea that by sending their applications to IBM, they were entering a contest hosted by the man himself, Jimmy Donaldson. What was he doing here? It wasn’t until one student looked MrBeast up on his phone that they learned what had happened: Jimmy had inexplicably quit his job as the world’s biggest YouTuber to become a hiring manager. As demonstrated by his videos, he was the perfect man for the job.
“THIS CONTEST HAS THREE DIFFERENT PHASES, AND IN EACH ONE, APPLICANTS WILL KEEP GETTING ELIMINATED! THE LAST ONE STANDING WINS!” said Jimmy, clearly having never heard the term “inside voice”.
“This is crazy!” said Karl Jacobs for no fucking reason.
“IN THE FIRST PHASE, WE’LL BE LOOKING YOU UP ON LINKEDIN!” The students quickly scrambled on their phones, making sure their LinkedIn profiles were as optimized as possible. Any mistakes and they were out of the race.
“Applicant number 3! Not enough technical skills listed! You are eliminated!” said Tyler, who had logged into LinkedIn on Jimmy’s account. The applicant stood up from her seat, disappointed. If only I had learned machine code, she thought to herself as she left the room.
“APPLICANT NUMBER 5! YOUR URL IS AUTO-GENERATED! GET OUT OF HERE!”
“Fuck!” the rejected student exclaimed. He had double-checked to make sure his profile itself was perfect, but he somehow forgot to change the link to include his name. We’ve all been there.
The MrBeast crew repeated this process until nearly half the contestants were out, leaving the remaining 56 applicants to move on to the next phase.
“NEXT, WE’LL BE LOOKING AT YOUR RÉSUMÉS!” roared Jimmy. A massive screen emerged behind him, showing every remaining contestant’s résumé simultaneously in a grid layout. “CHANDLER, I’LL LET YOU DO THE HONORS!”
Chandler looked at the screen for approximately three seconds before turning back to the crowd. “Applicants 1, 6, 10, 24, 40, 41, 54, 61, 71, and 75! You are eliminated!” He refused to explain his choices.
“WE STILL HAVE TOO MANY CONTESTANTS IN THIS ROUND, SO LET’S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK!” hollered Jimmy as he started pulling up each résumé individually. “APPLICANT NUMBER 7! THIS BULLET POINT IS WRITTEN IN THE PASSIVE VOICE! YOU’RE OUT! APPLICANT NUMBER 8! NO LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE! GET LOST! APPLICANT NUMBER 12…”
“You’re putting me on the edge!” moaned Kris Tyson, not to anyone in the room, but to a random 13-year-old in a Discord call.
“This is crazy!” said Karl, again, for no fucking reason.
“…YOU PUT A PERSONAL PRONOUN HERE! YOU ARE ELIMINATED!” finished Jimmy as applicant number 100 sighed and left the room. “AND THAT LEAVES ONLY 20 CONTESTANTS! IT’S TIME FOR THE FINAL PHASE: THE INTERVIEWS!”
Mark Rober entered the room from behind and got on stage. “We’ll be using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to assess your soft skills and your prior research of the company,” he said as Nolan handed out a tablet to each of the remaining applicants. “But be careful! If you get a question wrong, your device will explode!”
The screens started showing one interview question at a time, alongside a timer ticking down. Some students tried their best to answer the questions, but others panicked. One competitor threw his tablet across the room, but it was no use. The device grew propellers and flew towards him like a drone, exploding on impact. “BYE BYE, NUMBER 26!”
The questioning continued. Another student slipped up and used the word “middleman” instead of “middleperson.” Unfortunately for her, the AI model had been trained to follow the company’s DEI initiative. Applicant 56 was no more.
The other applicants mostly managed to answer the questions correctly, as they had done a lot of preparation. They were serious job hunters, after all. But after a few minutes, the impossible question showed up. Everyone’s screen read, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”
“Uh, making more money?” BOOM. Discussion of the salary was not allowed. 28 was down.
“At another company?” BOOM. Shoulda sucked up more, 84.
“Doin’ your wife?” BOOM. Goodbye, 69.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Only a few managed to survive by spouting some word salad about extra responsibilities and long-term career goals. “LET’S GO! NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!” shouted Jimmy, his enthusiasm seemingly more genuine than before.
“I’M LOSING IT! OH!” yelped Kris, again to his underage Discord kitten. Now the shrapnel and blood weren’t the only substances covering the room.
The interview phase continued, with each wrong answer or even hesitation leading to a poor student’s explosive demise. The number of contestants steadily decreased through the single digits, with the chance of winning that coveted internship becoming more and more real for each survivor. “ONLY TWO APPLICANTS LEFT!” screamed Jimmy, now laughing maniacally.
“This is crazy!” repeated Karl. Could he shut the fuck up?
The last two no-lifers dedicated job hunters showed no signs of stopping, reflecting the hundreds of mock interviews they’d done to practice. They answered question after question as the minutes passed by. Would there ever be an end to it?
All of a sudden, the two contestants hit a weird question: “You’ve reached your free limit of GPT-4 usage. Subscribe now to get unlimited access!” The bombs were neutralized.
“GOD DAMMIT!” bellowed Jimmy, back in his normal voice. In an effort to maximize the profits of the company, he hadn’t thought to fork over the 20 bucks a month for the premium version of his generative AI program. “WHATEVER! IT’S TIME FOR SPLIT OR STEAL!”
Applicant 38 gulped. He had made it this far, and now the last thing standing between himself and the grand prize was the classic moral dilemma. If he chose to steal and 55 didn’t, he’d get the prize all to himself. But if they both stole, they’d get nothing.
Before he knew it, he was presented with the two buttons and began to think it through. $60K wouldn’t be great, but at least he’d have something for his first few years after graduation. He made his choice.
“ALRIGHT! THE RESULTS ARE IN! APPLICANT 38 CHOSE TO SPLIT, AND APPLICANT 55 CHOSE TO… STEAL! CONGRATULATIONS, NUMBER 55! YOU WON!”
“Thank you so much, Jimmy!” 55 exclaimed in shock and gratitude. “You’re the best cousin ever!”