  We study a variation of the game of best choice (also known as the secretary
problem or game of googol) under an additional assumption that the ranks of
interview candidates are restricted using permutation pattern-avoidance. We
develop some general machinery for investigating interview orderings with a
non-uniform rank distribution, and give a complete description of the optimal
strategies for the pattern-avoiding games under each of the size three
permutations. The optimal strategy for the "disappointment-free" (i.e.
321-avoiding) interviews has a form that seems to be new, involving thresholds
based on value-saturated left-to-right maxima in the permutation.
