Thank you for writing this. I am an employer and see versions of the advice / similar techniques to patio11's post put into practice by candidates (ie used against us) with some regularity. It doesn't always work, and we try to be disciplined, but it helps fairly often and at worst does no harm as long as you're polite.

I strongly encourage people to read the post and not give up because of the unrelenting cynicism in these comments.