Here's a good article
from Chronicle for Higher Education
on the use and misuse of humor in job interviews
It's titled "Sense of Humor Preferred"
by
Dennis M. Barden, an executive search manager.
Barden says this about the use of jokes to start a presentation
and the positive and negative use of humor in general
for professionals:
There are two ways to put a sense of humor on display. Telling a joke is always the most difficult and therefore the most dangerous. In fact, as a candidate, you probably should strongly resist the urge. Seldom does a planned joke at the outset of a presentation to a strange audience strike the right chord. In an interview, it is almost always a mistake -- at best not funny and at worst offensive to someone in the room. Don't force humor; it must come naturally to have the desired effect.The other way of displaying your sense of humor, however, is the easiest and the most ingratiating: Laugh at the humor of another.
For example, as a manager, I will not hire people if I cannot get them to laugh during the interview. Life is just too short to work with someone who can't laugh at its absurdities.
The whole article is good. This is job-hunting season--
a good time to build up your career-development theory
and put it in practice.