People often underestimate the power of likeability in the job interview situation.
Throughout the application process, the employer has checked your qualifications, experience and skill set. The final stage, the job interview, is to decide if you are a good fit for the team, to undercover your unique selling point/strengths and to decide if they like you.
Teams that work well together produce a higher quality of work, have increased retention and employees have fewer sick days. The interviewer at this stage of the application process is looking at your temperament as much as they look at your skill base and experience.
In many situations employers have hired not the best qualified or the most experienced, rather they hire the person they feel will fit in best with the team.
Remember if you have been invited to the interview stage you have already met the essential criteria of the job spec, the employer knows you have the minimum requirements, they are now focusing on your personality, values and work ethic.
How to Increase Rapport
The interview is, for many, a stressful situation. When stressed your personality, likeability and rapport-building skills take a back seat.
These simple techniques will help you increase your likeability increasing your chances of being offered the position.
Gaining Employers Agreement
In the interview, you may find yourself in a situation where you disagree with a point the employer has made. Is this a test? Are you more of an expert than the employer? Do you agree or disagree?
By agreeing with the employer they will like you more than if you disagree. But in many situations, you need to highlight your knowledge and expertise by disagreeing. To overcome this, you can agree than disagree by using this simple line.
“I agree on that point (this breaks down resistance) but (add in your expertise)…” Compare that line to “no that not true” or “I don’t agree with that” these two lines will instantly break rapport, by agreeing and then adding a “but…” you breakdown resistance, the employer likes you and you get your own thoughts/expertise across.
Adding value
To really build up your likeability while at the same time showing off your knowledge and expertise you can use a sneaky technique that works in any sector interview.
The idea is to share your knowledge and expertise, the interviewer will see you as pure gold, thinking “if they are sharing this valuable content with during the interview what will they share when I employ them.
When the interviewer makes a statement, you need to “repeat and then add value” By repeating first, shows that you respect the interviewer’s thoughts, experience and opinions which builds rapport. The sharing of insight will increase the value the interviewer unconsciously attributes to you.
As an example, the interviewer may be discussing a piece of technology they use in your sector. Your answer would be “yes that piece of technology is very good at X(repeat) ……(now add value) recently a new version of the software has come to market the advantages of this is X and the disadvantages is Y…”
By giving both advantages and disadvantages of the technology, you can wait to hear the employer’s opinion and then agree with this, to increase likeability. If you only quoted either the advantage or disadvantage and the employer discussed the opposite you would break rapport. And rapport easier to break than it is to build.
Likeability
People like people who like them.
At the interview end when asked if you have any questions to ask the employer, make reference to how you would enjoy working together as you like there (work ethic, values or commitment)
By stating that you like X about the employer, the employer will automatically like you in return.
As well as structuring your interview questions, as well as preparing your answers, as well as planning which key strengths and unique selling point to discuss you also, and this is key to job interview success, have to learn how to build rapport and likeability.
