Animals Who Would 100% Beat You in a Job Interview
You *think* you’re impressive because you can microwave leftovers and remember three passwords. Meanwhile, somewhere out there is a shrimp that punches faster than a bullet and a crow that can plan for the future like it’s running a hedge fund.
Welcome to the animal kingdom: LinkedIn Edition.
Let’s meet the creatures who would absolutely crush you in a job interview, negotiate a better salary, and still have time to nap in the sun.
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The Cuttlefish: Master of PowerPoint (and Lying to Your Face)
If the cuttlefish had a LinkedIn headline, it would be:
“Creative Problem Solver | Visual Storyteller | 200% Better at Vibes Than You.”
Cuttlefish are basically flashing mood boards with tentacles. They can change their skin color, pattern, and even *texture* in milliseconds. It’s camouflage, sure, but it’s also the ultimate presentation tool. Imagine a PowerPoint that updates *in real time* based on your audience’s mood. That’s a cuttlefish.
They’ve also been used in experiments where they had to choose between instant snacks or better snacks if they waited. They picked delayed gratification, like furry little investment bankers of the sea. That’s right: some cuttlefish have more self-control than you scrolling TikTok at 2 a.m.
Interview version of a cuttlefish:
- Adapts instantly to company culture
- Looks like the perfect hire to every single person in the room
- Politely waits for the “better offer” because it knows its worth
**Shareable angle:** “This squid-adjacent weirdo is better at self-control than most humans I know.”
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The Pistol Shrimp: The Unbothered Chaos Engineer
The pistol shrimp is about the size of your finger and somehow has the energy of every gamer who says “one more round” at 3 a.m.
It has a claw that snaps shut so insanely fast it creates a tiny cavitation bubble. That bubble:
- Hits nearly the temperature of the surface of the sun
- Makes a shockwave strong enough to stun or kill prey
- Is loud enough to mess with underwater microphones
So yes, there is a shrimp that basically stuns dinner with a Sonic Boom and then just… eats it.
At work, the pistol shrimp would be:
- The developer who “just changed one line” and crashed the entire system
- The coworker who speaks once in a meeting and completely obliterates the argument
- Absolutely unbothered by the chaos it creates
**Shareable angle:** “This tiny shrimp has a literal gun for a hand and uses it casually.”
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The Clark’s Nutcracker: Walking, Flying, Bird-Brained Spreadsheet
Clark’s nutcrackers are small gray birds that live in the mountains and do hardcore data management with their *brain* instead of Excel.
Every year, these birds hide tens of thousands of seeds in thousands of different little caches. Winter shows up, and somehow they remember where the snacks are. Months later. Under snow. With no labels. No color-coding. No Notion board.
Researchers have found they can recall a ridiculous number of these storage spots. If you gave this bird access to your calendar, it would probably fix your entire life and schedule your dentist appointment from 2019 that you never made.
In a job interview, the Clark’s nutcracker would:
- Remember every detail of the job description better than the hiring manager
- Casually reference something you said 47 minutes ago verbatim
- Never forget a deadline, a login, or where they parked
**Shareable angle:** “There’s a bird that can remember thousands of hiding spots and I can’t find my own keys.”
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The Octopus: Escape Artist and Systems Analyst
Octopuses are what happens when you give wet spaghetti god-level puzzle skills and a distrust of all containers.
They can:
- Unscrew jar lids from the inside
- Squeeze through holes the size of a coin
- Solve complex puzzles in labs
- Remember solutions and get faster over time
Some octopuses in aquariums have been caught sneaking out of their tanks, stealing fish from other exhibits, then quietly returning home like little eight-armed criminals. Others have learned to recognize individual humans, and they definitely hold grudges. You know who else holds grudges? Senior employees.
At a company, the octopus would be:
- The person who learns the entire system architecture in two weeks
- The one who can “find a workaround” for literally anything
- Also the one who definitely knows how to break the system if they ever get annoyed enough
**Shareable angle:** “This eight-armed weirdo is smart enough to escape tanks, remember faces, and judge you.”
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The African Wild Dog: The Manager You Wish You Had
African wild dogs are chaos-colored, big-eared canines that run the savannah’s most efficient group project.
Their teamwork is ridiculously good:
- They hunt in coordinated packs, using strategy and roles
- They have insanely high success rates compared to most predators
- They *vote* on when to start a hunt using sneezes (yes, actual sneezing democracy)
- They make sure pups eat first when they bring food back
You’re out here in meetings where no one knows who’s doing what, and wild dogs are over there running Agile like it’s their religion.
In a workplace, the African wild dog would be:
- The manager who actually protects their team
- The one who makes sure everyone’s fed (aka doesn’t “forget” lunch breaks)
- The leader who checks in like, “Hey, you okay?” and actually means it
**Shareable angle:** “There are dogs in the wild working as a functional team while your group project is on fire.”
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Conclusion
There are animals out there:
- Delaying gratification better than humans
- Punching with star-level heat
- Storing mental spreadsheets of thousands of snack stashes
- Picking locks like aquatic Houdinis
- Holding sneezing elections and feeding their kids first
And you? You opened the fridge twice and forgot why both times.
The next time you feel unimpressive, remember: you are sharing a planet with a shrimp that fires sonic blasts and a bird that could probably run your entire cloud infrastructure from a pinecone.
Now go send this to someone who’s currently proud of just “not hitting snooze more than three times.”
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Sources
- [Cuttlefish show self-control in a marshmallow-test-like experiment](https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/cuttlefish) - University of Cambridge summary of research on cuttlefish and delayed gratification
- [Pistol shrimp: Nature’s loudest little brawler](https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/pistol-shrimp) - Smithsonian Ocean overview of how pistol shrimp claws create shockwaves
- [Clark’s nutcracker and its insane seed memory](https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/clarks-nutcracker.htm) - National Park Service page describing caching and memory behavior
- [Octopus intelligence and problem-solving](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-octopus/) - Scientific American article on octopus cognition and escape artistry
- [African wild dog social structure and hunting strategy](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/african-wild-dog) - National Geographic profile covering cooperation, hunting success, and pack behavior