Layoffs

Back in college there were men I knew who would always shadow other men at parties. The first man would typically spend his entire evening drinking and talking to a woman he met at the party. At some point he would have had too much to drink, and would start losing his focus. At that point the shadow would appear, and would talk to the girl and, oftentimes, end up going home with her. Since the woman was usually also a little drunk at this point, she was not processing if she liked the shadow as much, and she was discounting the fact that she really did not know him at all.

Whether you admit it or not, an aggressive attitude doesn't work anymore at interviews. With the recession breathing on their necks, both interviewers and interviewees are aggressive enough and there's no cause to add incentives for further irritation. It used to work in the last century, especially in sales, but now, an aggressive attitude would more likely result in a similarly aggressive rejection of your job application.