The job interview is one of the most nerve-racking experiences you have to face. The reason you fear the job interview is down to the psychology of the interview process. In this series of ‘job interview psychology,‘ you will learn 5 psychological processes that are in play, that effect your job interview success, without you even knowing about it.
Job Interview Psychology 4 of 5 – Social Proof
The current trend for job interviews is to be interviewed by a panel of interviewers (between 2-5 on average) The panel will be made up of a variety of personnel to create a fair interview process (but as we discussed previously unconscious bias plays a key part in the recruitment process)
A second psychological principle in play during a job interview process is social proof. The mind is lazy and is always looking for short cuts to decide how to act in the real world. One of these short cuts is following on the crowd; we unconsciously (and sometimes consciously) take our cues on how to act, what to believe and which candidate to offer the job to, from the people around us.
The process of social proof is well embedded in the human mind and was started in our evolutionary past. When we walked around the world as hunter-gatherers, to survive, we learnt that you had to band together – a group was stronger than an individual. Each tribe had its own group culture, beliefs, and values. If you didn’t ‘fit in’ (interviewers still use this terminology “he/she would be a good ‘fit’ for the team”) with the group culture you may be banished from the group and left to survive on your own – many ostracized group members didn’t last very long. To ensure we weren’t exiled, humans learned to agree with the group leaders, taking cues from the actions of others.
Job Interview Psychology – Group Polarization
To increase job offers you need to understand the power of social influence. Muzafer Sherif’s 1935 experiment shows how social proof impacts decision making; a number of subjects sat in a dark room one at a time and were asked to look at a dot of light a few feet in front of them. They were asked to state, in inches, the distance the dot was moving. The subjects were unaware that the dot of light was in fact stationary but an illusionary movement causes by the ‘autokinetic effect‘ tricked people into believing the dot was in motion.
After a couple of days, the experiment was repeated, but this time the same subjects completed the same experiment in a group. The groups were asked to shout out the perceived distances of the light movement. This time the group, ignoring their own individual estimates, came to an agreement on a common estimate.
In the final stage of the experiment, the subjects completed the same test for the third time. In this third stage, the subjects undertook the test on their own again, as they had initially. It was found that the subjects gave the movement estimates, in this third test, that matched the group consensus from the second group test, rather than sticking to their original (individual) test one results. This is because we are influenced by the power of social proof (we rarely want to be different) to make a decision.
Psychologist Robert Cialdini explains social proof in his book; Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: “Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat the chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important in defining the answer.” In the job interview, the ‘group’ that others take their cues from is relatively small. In small groups, we will often follow the lead of the person with the most authority (authority here relates to personality not the hierarchy of the position of each panel member)
Authority
If you can influence the most authoritative interviewer from the panel you will create a domino effect. Imagine being a farmer; your job today is to move a herd of cows from a top filed to the bottom field, ready for milking. The quickest way to achieve this is to find out which cow is the ‘lead cow’ If you are able to move the lead cow in the direction you intend, the rest of the herd will simply follow their leader.
The authority rule was proven with the now-famous Milgram experiment. In this experiment, subjects thought they were participating in an experiment about the effects of punishment on learning. There were roles for each of the subjects; teacher and learner (the learner subject was actually part of the experiment team and not a real subject) The teacher subject was tasked to help the learner remember a list of paired words, if the learner made an error, the teacher would give the learner an electric shock by pressing a switch. The voltage of the electric shock would increase with each mistake.
The teacher was observed by a scientist sitting behind the leaner assertively telling the teacher to continue with the experiment even when the fake leaner was screaming when each of the shocks was administered (in fact there were no real electric shocks) Milgram found that two-thirds of the subjects administered high levels of shock, believing that leaner was in real pain. The experiment showed how people complete actions because an authoritative figure (in this case the scientist) told them to.
To spot the leader of the interview panel (this isn’t always the person with the highest graded position) you need to learn how to spot an authoritative person through their temperament. There are several key characteristics of an authoritative person; a blind loyalty to what they believe in “this is the best team in the company,” they talk about their experiences and skillset and believe that these are better than yours “I also use to work in the sales team, I was the number one sales executive,” and they use authoritative language “my team WILL be the successful”
In the job interview the interviewers, especially the authoritative leaders, will wear a mask; they like the idea that they can persuade you by playing a role (the nice interviewer) But, it is easy to spot the leader of the pack. It is always the person that other interviewers on the panel look to (physically) The leader will often interrupt their colleagues and when asking a question, it somehow becomes about them not you.
To influence the leader you need to build rapport with them through an emotional connection. These 5 rules will help you achieve relationship building; once the lead interviewer likes you they will express this to their fellow interviewers and they, through the authority and social proof rule, will create an unconscious positive bias towards you.
Rule 1 Agree with the authoritative interviewer’s points, as they like to be seen as an expert on their chosen subjects
Rule 2 Ask them about their experiences and skill set (when they naturally discuss these) as they enjoy talking about themselves
Rule 3 Never interrupt an authoritative interviewer as they will take a disliking to you – for them, the interview is more about them then it is you (they like interviews as they can show off)
Rule 4 Praise the leader for their successes as this creates rapport and a poistive association
Rule 5 Build upon what they have said – if you only agree and come across submissive you will be seen as weak. The authoritative interviewer wants to hire someone like them (but just not as good as they are because they like to be seen as the best)
Interview Psychology 3 of 5 – creating a connection
Interview Pyschology 5 of 5 – the power of positive emotions
Job Interview Advice
