job interview confidence Archives - Job Interview Coaching

October 17, 2022February 22, 2023

Studies into job interview stress and anxiety

Many people suffer from anxiety, in a US study it found that around 20% of the population could suffer from an anxiety disorder.

Particular situations, such as the workplace, can increase the feeling of anxiety “It is not surprising that anxiety is an inherent part of the interview process, as the employment interview is a highly evaluative situation” (Heimberg, Keller, & Peca-Baler, 1986) source

Along with being ‘evaluated’ job applicants, and people in general, feel increased pressure when they are the centre of attention and the feeling of a lack of control.

Research around the impact of job interview anxiety has found that an anxious candidate is likely to score less on the interview scorecard than a less skilled, but more confident interviewee.

Anxiety pre-interview training and/or coaching can help to reduce job interview anxiety, and therefore increase the likelihood of a career professional gaining job offers.

Confidence, data has proven, improves the interview performance as a self-assured interview identity is more likely to give a measurable and detailed interview answer. In addition, confidence is seen as a valuable asset in an employee.

Being a confident interviewee also helps when self-promoting skills, qualities, and experiences. Relaxed applicants communicate better, a key skill in a structured job interview.

Smiling can negatively impact the job interview

Confident job applicants are more likely to express emotions through facial expressions, gestures, body language, and verbal communication. Relaxed interviewees are more likely to smile compared to nervous candidates. Smiling creates a positive loop, when we feel good, we smile. When we smile we feel good.

Therefore, a job seeker at ease in the interview process will feel good, increasing a ‘natural’ smile. A number of studies have found that when a person observes a smiling face, the observing brain releases the feel-good chemical – endorphins. An interviewer through observing a smiling candidate should therefore increase likability for the applicant, increasing that applicant’s chance of gaining a high-scoring interview outcome.

Some research has found the opposite to be true. In an experiment to check the impact of smiling on the outcome of a job interview, it was found that smiling could decrease the likelihood of a job offer. The findings show the importance of job choice. Applicants were rated less favorable for careers associated with a ‘serious demeanor’ if they were found to be smiling. Another experiment (Able & Deitz, 2008) found that DJs were seen as being more hireable based on smiling vs non-smiling photographs.

Other research backs up these findings. The job stereotype can increase or decrease desire for an applicant depending on the applicant’s image compared to the interviewer’s perception. An experiment that looked at the effects of appearance on job evaluations found that the ‘beauty is beastly’ stereotype can influence hiring decisions, an ‘attractive’ female applying for a traditionally masculine job position, could be related lower than an ‘unattractive; female with the same knowledge/experience.

Smiling is often associated to attractiveness. The ‘what is beautiful is good’ bias shows that attractiveness can increase job offers, as humans link physical attractiveness to the perceived suitability of the applicant to the job role.

In the research on smiling vs job interview offers, the hiring of an applicant was maximised if smiling was lower in the middle of the interview – during the competency-based section of the interview, compared with smiling at the interview start or end.

Does power posing create power?

Highly confident and egocentric types are more likely to adopt the power pose in a job interview.

Low-confident interviewees waiting to be interviewed will slump into their chair, hunch over their phones, and adopt powerless body-language. A self-assured person adopts confident body-language, mainly open gestures compared to closed-off body-language such as self-hugging.

As discussed previously, the body and mind are connected creating positive or negative loops. Above we discussed how when we feel good we smile. And when we smile we feel good. The same connection between mind and body is a result of gestures and body language. High-status people adopt power poses. And Power poses help people to feel high status. Source.

Power poses create the feeling of power, confidence, risk tolerance, and memory for positive words and concepts, cognitive processing, thought abstraction, and being action orientated. And importantly, reduces the feeling of fear. Other techniques help with the feeling of power. One experiment found that recalling a time that a person felt powerful increases the feeling of power, but not as strong as the power effect of a power pose.

The secondary gain from a power pose is the increased feeling of confidence which creates enthusiasm throughout the job interview. And creates a calm and collected mindset that decreases anxiety and stress.

Pre-interview preparation is required, as those looking to ‘fake it’ during the interview itself may be found out. Experiments looking at the impact of acting high-status, using self-promoting stories, positive language, etc, found that the longer the job interview was the harder it became for the anxious interviewee to ‘act’ confident. An expert interviewer using a structured interview process was also able to find flaws in the applicant’s fake persona, leading to the hiring managers perceiving them as manipulative and inauthentic – a dishonest interview identity.

Using power poses prior to the interview creates confidence with improves both ‘what you say’ and ‘how you say it’. What you say encompasses positive language, self-promoting answers, and the duration of the interview answer. Whereas how you say includes volume, emotions, tonality, and being enthusiastic.

Is enthusiasm key to job interview success?

Hiring managers, as well as looking at skills, experience, and knowledge, look for potential. An interviewee’s enthusiasm is key here. A lack of enthusiasm during the recruitment process creates a negative perspective of the applicant; they are viewed as anxious, a weak communicator, and less likely to complete the job role to a satisfactory standard.

How are anxious interviewees put off by an employer?

Job interview anxiety doesn’t only affect the job hunters’ interview performance, it also has a direct impact on the acceptance of job offers for those lucky few who make it through the recruitment process. Anxious job applicants are more likely to turn-down a job offer from an employer if they, the applicant, felt nervous during the recruitment process. This is due to the psychology of projection where you attribute feelings that you are uncomfortable with on to someone or something else, IE the employer.

Employers, therefore, would benefit from adopting techniques to help relax candidates before a job interview. The benefits would be two-fold. One, a calm and relaxed interviewee will offer up a more detailed answer that the interview panel can measure against the job criteria, to help hire the most suitable employee. Second, first-choice candidates are more likely to want to accept a job role from a positive experienced job interview.

Chris Delaney

Chris Delaney is one of the leading job interview coaches in the country, helping career professionals to successfully pass job interviews. Delaney is the author of several job interview reference books including ‘what is your interview identity’

August 10, 2022August 10, 2022

7 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Job Interview Outcome

Job interviews are tricky, aren’t they?

Most job applicants fear the job interview. Some, who are highly anxious, will even go as far as turning down an interview offer due to excessive low confidence.

This fear is real. In fact, the fear of speaking in front of strangers or in public – also known as glossophobia, is the number one fear in the world.

The job interview can double the impact of glossophobia and many candidates put an ‘all or nothing’ association on the job they are applying for – “if I fail this job interview, I will always be stuck in a job I hate”.

An article on Psychology Today explained how confidence comes from experiencing achievement in a task. There more you are successful in a task the more confident (in that task) you will be.

Most people fear public speaking, job interviews, or talking to strangers because of a previous negative experience. The experience of failure increases anxiety and fear.

As an example, a job hunter will fear being invited to an interview for a job they truly desire because of a past memory: when they were asked to read out a text in front of their classmates in school or their first public speaking experience that ended in disaster.

The job interview should be easy. Interviewees are asked questions about something they know well – themselves. Job applicants’ confidence should be high. If an application has resulted in a job interview offer from one company, it should then result in a second interview from another organization. This means a failed job interview can be a learning point that will increase future job interview performance and the applicant’s interview identity.

These 7 ideas will help you improve your interview confidence and interview performance.

People buy what they like.

In the psychology of sales, the ‘liking principle’ is quoted as one of the key determinators in persuading customers to make a purchase.

It works through creating a likeability association. As an example, many brands will use celebrity endorsements to sell their products. Example: The audience likes George Clooney, so they will like a coffee brand if they see Clooney drinking that coffee brand in a TV advert – even though the audience knows Mr. Clooney was paid to star in the TV commercial.

Tupperware famously embedded likeability into the sales of its product. Rather than have their products in retail stores (they tried this approach and it failed) they created Tupperware parties. A host would invite friends and family round for a party and promote the Tupperware products. People purchased the products, not because they were good or they needed them, they made purchases because they liked the host – their friend or relative.

To improve your interview outcome, you can create likeability.

Likeability can start prior to the job interview. We know from recent data that 70% of employers check social media before a recruitment day. Create likeability through a second persuasion law – authority. If an employer views an applicant’s LinkedIn profile and the feed is filled with relevant industry insights, sector-related intelligence, and positive opinions the employer will create a halo effect that will have a big influence on the interview outcome.

Research has also found that commonality creates likeability. By disclosing information that highlights commonalities with the hiring manager a positive impression will be made. Commonality can include, well anything: same interest or hobbies, attending the same university, or living in the same town.

Which interview timeslot to choose

Timing makes all the difference. The interview timeslot allocation given to each interviewee makes seem unimportant. In fact, the timeslot can change the way an employer scores the applicant.

The timeslot is related to the hiring manager’s confidence in conducting the interview, the interview panel’s tiredness or alertness, and if you become the baseline applicant.

Research has found that the first interviewee becomes the baseline applicant – following interview scores for other candidates are influenced by the original scores given to the initial interviewee.

The final applicant of the day is often interviewed by a panel of hiring managers who are tired from a full day of recruitment affecting how they view the last interviewee. And post-dinner candidates are affected by biology – the process of digesting food affects a person’s decision-making processes.

It’s the second or third interview time slot around 10:30-11:00 that is the ideal interview timeslot.

What we see we feel

Whatever the mind focuses on the body feels. A person looking forward to a holiday, a networking event or a job interview will feel positive. Whereas someone who fears flying, is anxious about meeting strangers or someone who hates talking about themselves will have a negative response to a holiday, networking event, or job interview.

Perspective creates motivation. Previously we mentioned how confidence is created through positive experiences. What is interesting is that the brain doesn’t see the difference between a real-life experience and a vivid memory. This is why dreams can feel real.

If what you imagine you feel, you can feel positive about a job interview by imagining yourself being successful in a forthcoming recruitment process.

To have a lasting impact, the process has to start with a relaxed state. Taking deep breaths or imagining being in a relaxed place; a countryside or peaceful beach helps to calm the mind and body. In this peaceful state imagine by relaxed during a job interview, then imagine being confident in a job interview, and final imagine being charismatic in a job interview. Make each visualisation vivid; see yourself confident, hear yourself being confident, and feel confident.

The repetition of the visualisation creates new neuro-pathways that create a positive association: job interview = calm and confident.

The hands have it

A little technique to help improve the first impressions is to manipulate the hands.

Anxiety kicks off the fight or flight response which sends oxygen from non-virtual parts of the body (hands and feet) to essential organs. The redirection of the blood cells leaves hands feeling cold and clammy.

At the initial introduction, where a welcome handshake is expected, the first impression is weak as a damp and cold handshake has a negative unconscious bias.

To be viewed as confident requires a warm and firm introductory handshake. When you arrive for the interview, either accept a cup of coffee (and wrap your hands around the warm cup) or visit the bathroom and hold your hands under the warm water for a few seconds, to warm the hands.

Turn off your phone the night before

One sleep study showed how using your phone three hours before you plan to go to bed can disrupt your sleep.

In addition, many people charge their phones overnight in the bedroom. If the phone is left on small LED lights will be on display. The brain is trained to stay more awake when there is light. Charging the phone in a different room, and having thick curtains to cut out any streetlights allows for a deeper sleep.

Deeper sleeping restores energy, increases blood supply, and improves cognitive ability. All this helps the brain to respond to tricky interview questions.

Create high status

How we view ourselves, as high or low status, is leaked through our language. The language used in a job interview is subconsciously filtered by the hiring manager creating a ‘gut feeling’.

As an example, a low status would use weak language such as ‘try’ – ‘I would try my best’ compared to a high-status person who uses assertive language ‘will’ – ‘I will achieve the task’.

One experiment found that writing a letter to yourself that assertively states skills, strengths and abilities increase self-worth, creating high status. The letter must use positive language, be true, and be assertive.

Get good at asking questions

The tip to improve a job interview outcome seems a little odd, it’s to be good at asking, not answering questions.

Obviously, in a job interview, the ability to confidently communicate competencies within a job interview answer is essential. But what makes a person stand out is their ability to ask the interview panel questions.

Questions create a conversation. Conversations improve likeability. Likeability, or rapport, increases job offers.

Also, the ability to ask questions relaxes the interviewee and helps them to clarify the required content of the interview answer.

At the interview start, the applicant can ask the interview panel questions about their day or the company.

During the questions, the candidate can ask for specifics to generic questions and can ask the employer’s opinion or an aspect of the interview question.

Towards the interview end, the employer will allow the interviewee to ask any questions to help clarify the company culture and job role.

Asking questions shows confidence, and confidence is a quality that all employers want staff to possess.

Questions, or their answers, also allow the applicant to decide if the employer is one they want to work for.

July 20, 2022February 22, 2023

Sweaty, scared, and ready to scream? Just another job interview

A recent poll of recruiters found that the average number of job interviews required to secure a job offer is three.

The magic number, three, does have a practical reality to it. Let’s say that a job applicant has decided to take a career sidestep or a promotion. This candidate has a vast array of transferable skills, lots of relevant qualifications, and some experience, but not a like-for-like experience as the applicant is applying for a new role, rather then the same position within a new organisation.

After an average of 4-5 hrs of interview prep, the nervous career professional attends their first interview that results in a ‘thank you, but no thank you’. A failed first interview for a new role is common, graduates also fall into this same pitfall, as do applicants searching for a big job promotion.

The reason behind the first failed interview is a lack of job understanding. When an experienced employee applies for a similar role in a new business, even if the interview is their first interview, the unexpected questions aren’t that unexpected.

The employer, following a structured job interview process, ask questions and score answers against a list of job criteria that are needed to complete business-as-usual tasks. The experienced applicant, even if they haven’t undertaken a lengthy period of interview preparation, can easily recognise the context of the interview question and present evidence that states they have the required experience.

The first rule of a successful job interview is to identify the job criteria. Appropriate examples, appropriate answers, simply score well.

A career professional wanting to climb the career ladder is applying for a new position. The first interview comes with a surprise, a list of unpredicted job interview questions and/or tests, presentations, and tasks.

Some questions asked may sound simple, and a good answer can be created in the moment by the interviewee, but again, without industry experience and a lack of context a low score is given for an interview question the applicant thought they answered well.

A confident applicant states they have the required skills, and sells themselves, but when an expert interviewer requests specifics to measure competence against the job criteria, the lack of experience shines through creating a deceitful interview identity.

Post job interview reflection is the key to success

Experience creates competence. The more job interviews a career professional attends the more skilled they become at answering tricky interview questions.

Creating a list of the interview questions asked during the first interview allows the skilled applicant to use industry research to help craft a higher-scoring interview answer, using examples that highlight how they meet the job criteria.

This is true when job interview technology is introduced. 98% of the top fortune 500 companies use recruitment automated software. Many shifting interview rounds are now conducted by AVIs – Asynchronous Video Interviews. The computer algorithms search for key terms that are then cross-referenced against the job criteria.

What is important, then, is to possess the ability to offer examples and interview answers that state enough of the essential skills, qualities, and experiences, to ensure a high-scoring answer.

Generally speaking, high-scoring answers come in one of three ways:

Being highly confident as this increases the number of words per answer
Having excessive experience that results in the nature spillage of job criteria
Attending a high number of job interviews relevant to the role to help craft answers that score well

Each job interview process, on average, is three rounds of interviews. Three recruitment rounds x three job interviews is a total of nine interviews. Each interview stage tends to last for sixty minutes, equalling a total of nine hours of interviewing.

Possessing at least nine hours of real interviews, plus a high number of interview preparation hours helps a career professional to become skilled at job interviewing.

Two is better than one

One interview alone isn’t enough.

The reflection after one single job interview isn’t enough for a candidate to become a first-choice applicant.

A list of remembered interview questions can be drawn up and new answers written in preparation for a second interview, which in itself increases the confidence of the interviewee. Once at the second interview, with a second employer, the now confident applicant can have the rug pulled from beneath their feet when 80% of the questions asked aren’t on their recently drawn-up Q&A list created after the first interview.

Each employer, even when recruiting for the same position, in the same sector, may have their own unique job criteria and therefore their own list of unique interview questions.

Over time, the new entry into a sector will find commonly asked job interview questions, which may be phrased differently, but underneath are designed to uncover the same skills, qualities, and experiences.

This is why more is better for applicants who lack experience (graduates, promotions, and entry into a new sector) The more interviews that a job seeker attends helps to improve the interview answers (and the prediction of the interview questions) for the next job interview.

Familiarity breeds confidence

It is the familiarity of the recruitment process that breeds confidence. Experienced candidates applying for the same position in a new business are more inclined to relax during the interview when they become aware that the tricky interview questions are really questions about their business-as-usual tasks.

From a job interview perspective, the lack of sector experience can, sometimes, be overturned, by being an experienced interviewee.

This is why at least three job interviews are needed to gain a job offer:

Job interview 1 – create a baseline of interview questions vs good/poor interview answers

Job interview 2 – recognise common interview questions/sector-related themes/job criteria to help shape interview answers

Job interview 3 – deliver high-scoring interview answers that increase the chance of an interview offer.

What is your interview identity?

Job offers are given to the candidate that the interview panel believes will be the best performing employee.

The content of the interview answers; the sector-related jargon used, relatable examples, industry knowhow, stating the job criteria including the required skills, qualities, and experiences vs the confident communication of competencies (verbal and non-verbal) create the candidate’s interview identity.

After each job interview the interviewee, to develop their interview skills must reflect on how they were perceived by the hiring manager – their interview identity. And make changes to improve how they are viewed in terms of predictable performance once employed.

Get Ready to Pass Your Next Job Interview

Chris Delaney

June 30, 2022June 30, 2022

The Barrier of a Structured Job Interview

The structured job interview is a standardised way of interviewing a number of candite’s to reduce unconscious bias and to create a fair hiring process.

This article will help job applicants to gain higher interview scores by not falling into the subconscious trap of the structured job interview.

Structured job interview and time problems

Even though research shows how a structured job interview is currently the best way to predict job performance, the asking of pre-written questions ‘boxes’ in an applicant’s answer.

Behavioral and situational interview questions are designed to be specific to allow the interviewee to give a relevant example/answer. The specific direction given to the applicant traps the candidate into a box, where they can’t discuss other skills and experiences, they feel would add value to the role.

It is common for a career professional, post a job interview, to reflect on their answer and to feel annoyed because they didn’t mention a key skill or experience, they knew would have highlighted their unique selling point.

In an informal job interview, the hiring manager will allow the applicant to talk about what they feel is important. The openness of the informal interview can be detrimental to the outcome of the interview as the interviewee, without conscious awareness, can discuss irrelevant information.

The duration of the interview creates a second barrier. The hiring manager, asking on average 8 job interview questions over a 45-minute period, feels pressured to ask a question, record the candidates’ answers, before asking the next question on the pre-written list. This is true even when the hiring manager requires additional information – the employer knows the applicant hasn’t disclosed all of their skills, but on the other hand, the next interview should start in 10 minutes’ time.

The pressure comes from the hiring manager knowing that each additional question and answer can possibly overshoot the allocated time slot for each interview having a knock-on delay. This ‘time’ problem comes from many employers having a recruitment day of back-to-back interviews. A solution to this problem would be a one-interview per day recruitment process.

Trained job interviewers versus untrained hiring managers

How can a job applicant overcome the rigorous job interview questions and time pressure created within a structured job interview?

First, it is important to understand that not all job interviewers are the same. A key difference is between being interviewed by a trained or untrained interviewer. Some organisations insist on a candidate being interviewed by a trained interviewer, often an HR staff member or specialist recruiter.

A trained interviewer will have spent time selecting which essential job criteria the interview questions should relate to, and how the interview question should be worded (situational behavioral or strength-based interview question).

Trained interviewers are often more confident in the interview environment than a non-trained hiring manager. Confidence increases the number of follow-up questions asked during the recruitment process.

A non-trained interviewer, often the future employee’s line manager, is likely to use commonly asked job interview questions, rather than taking the time to ask competency-based questions.

Commonly asked questions are more generic:

“What are your strengths?”
“What can you bring to the team?”
“Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?”

Competency-based questions are more specific, to drill down to a specific skill or experience:

“How would you deal with a (problem/situation)?”
“Give an example of when you (completed job duty)”
“What is your understanding of (industry knowledge)?”

Follow-up questions can be asked by both trained and none-trained recruiters, but it is more likely that a confident and experienced trained hiring manager will ask for more detailed information, allowing the interviewee to state job-relevant information, and therefore score higher on the interview scorecard.

“What specifically did you do?”
“Why did you choose that option over another?”
“What was the long-term outcome?”

It is the same experienced hiring manager who will ask follow-up questions when a job applicant unwittingly discusses a skill within the wrong context.

“Do you have an example within a (job-related context) environment?”
“Can you tell me about a team task when you took the lead rather than being part of the team?”
“Have you worked on larger scale projects?”

Duration of an interview

High-skilled positions are often gained through being successful in a multi-stage job interview process. The theory is that being asked similar questions, relating to the job criteria, over 3-4 job interviews, ensures that the employer makes a hire with a realistic vision of the new employee’s potential job performance.

In a single interview, the job applicant might be viewed as skilled, but in reality, a single interview isn’t enough to confirm the candidate’s level of competencies for medium to high-skilled positions.

For most low-skilled job roles, employers will only have a single interview as ‘potential’ rather than experience, is a key decision in the hiring process.

The duration of the job interview doesn’t create pressure on the interviewee. The job applicant can give a long or short, detailed or vague, interview answer. In fact, most interviewees are unaware of the time during the job interview itself.

Research shows how the higher number of words per answer often relates to the number of job offers. This is because, on average, the more detailed the answer, the more likely it is that the answer references the criteria on the interview scorecard.

From the career professionals’ perspective, the delivery of a job-relevant detailed interview answer is a more important focus than the duration of their interview answer.

Overcoming the generic question problem

The real problem for a job applicant is knowing what detail to reference to the job interview answer, especially when asked a vague question.

First-choice applicants – career professionals who do exceptionally well in a job interview, have the confidence to ask for additional details before answering the question.

As an example, when asked: “Tell me about a time you worked successfully within a team?” The self-assured job candidate will clarify what experience the employer is attempting to uncover: “Would you like an example of when a led a team or when I was a team member?”

Asking for specific information ensures that the right example is used for each individual job interview question.

Importantly, each answer needs to reference the job criteria for each specific question. Employers use an interview scorecard that has the interview question and a list of criteria that are required to gain a high score. If the job criteria aren’t referenced during the interview answer, the hiring manager will have no choice but to allocate a lower score.

Interview preparation, prior to the job interview, must consist of identifying the job criteria, predicting job interview questions, and crafting high-scoring interview answers.

In the interview itself, when asked a competency-based interview question, it is important to quickly reflect on what criteria the hiring manager is wanting to hear. This self-reflection can help to identify which one of the prepared interview answers to use.

Even when a prepared interview answer has been chosen, the job applicant can cover all bets by giving a specifically detailed answer.

The delivery of a detailed answer is important. If an employer refuses to ask follow-up questions, to gain a better understanding of the candidate’s future job performance, the applicant is scored on the initiative, often limited interview answers.

It is true that a weak interviewer often makes the wrong hiring decision. Many organisations with a high turnover of staff don’t interview correctly. But the same poor interview technique can stop skilled employees gaining job offers.

Specific job interview answers

Essentially, a detailed job interview answer is an example (behavioral job interview answer) or future scenario (situational job interview answer) that is embedded with the answers to the hiring manager’s potential follow-up questions:

“What specifically did you do?”
“Why did you choose that option over another?”
“What was the long-term outcome?”

The specific and detailed answer does have a longer duration, requiring the interviewee to mindful of speech speed, pauses, tonality, and to use emotional intelligence to ensure the interview panel is still engaged and listening.

For a behavioral interview question, the most famous structure to answer the question is STAR:

Situation
Task
Action
Result

When the additional detail has been embedded for the structure of the interview answer is increased:

Situation
Long-term outcome if the situation wasn’t resolved
Options to overcome barriers, including pro’s and con’s of options
Reason for choosing options
Task
Role within the task
Risk assessments
Stakeholder engagement
Action – team actions vs own actions
Additional/unforeseen problems and how these were overcome
Highlighting personal motivation
Result – short vs long term

As each interview question varies, the detailed structure can be amended as required. What is important to remember is that not all hiring managers will ask for a specific criterion when the job interview question is stated.

Nervous or less experienced recruiters ask fewer follow-up questions. A structured job interview cross-references answer against the interview scorecard (job criteria).

Many failed job interviews come down to detailed answers being given that don’t reference enough job-related competency.

May 31, 2022May 31, 2022

3 Things You Are Doing That Makes You Look Weak in a Job Interview

A hiring manager’s key objective is to determine the job performance of each job applicant. The interview, therefore, is a short window where candidates must make a strong impression that showcases suitability through the confident communication of competencies.

In the main, career professionals answer interview questions by stating knowledge, experiences, and skillsets – this includes skills, strengths, and qualities, allowing the interview panel to analyse each answer against the job criteria – a logical decision-making process.

Unknown to many job seekers, is the subconscious emotional decision-making process that influences the logical part of the brain – the gut reaction. The emotional brain – the amygdala, reacts much quicker than the logical thinking part of the brain- the frontal lobe.

This means that communication, verbal and non-verbal, produced by the interviewee initially triggers the emotional reaction of the interviewer – a generalisation ‘I like this applicant’ or ‘I dislike this candidate’ prior the interviewers logical decision-making process – a analytical choice ‘the applicant meets 5 out of 6 job criteria’s’ or ‘the candidate only has experience in only 2 out of 6 job criteria’s’.

A First Impression isn’t a Logical Process

Most employers adopt the structured job interview process as a means to fairly determine the job performance of each applicant, as research shows how a behavioral or situational interview is most likely to create a hiring decision based on the requirements to meet the job criteria.

The seven-second rule – ‘first impressions are made within 7 seconds of meeting an interviewee’ is incorrect, in fact, it only takes a tenth of a second. An article in Psychological Science explains: ‘A series of experiments by Princeton psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov reveal that all it takes is a tenth of a second to form an impression of a stranger from their face, and that longer exposures don’t significantly alter those impressions (although they might boost your confidence in your judgments)’.

Instant impressions can be wrong. They are filled with unconscious biases and, initially, have no evidence to support the belief – ‘I can see this person being a good fit’ or ‘I don’t know what it is but I can’t see them as part of the team’.

Importantly, the first impression influences the logical mind. Imagine you wanted to get a bite to eat. As you are walking down a high street looking for a restaurant you see two establishments side by side. As you quickly scan your head your subconscious takes in a large amount of information: the restaurant name. The colour and font of the restaurant’s sign. How one has tables outside and another doesn’t. If one restaurant looks cleaner than the other. The number of people in each restaurant. The style of dress of the waiters.

Instantly you are drawn to one of the restaurants – ‘this place looks nice’. Once a decision is made – ‘I like this restaurant’ or ‘this candidate seems suitable for the role’ the decision-maker will remember their choices as better or more suitable than they were. This is due to choice-supportive bias. Choice-support bias is the tendency to remember a decision as better than it actually was, by attributing positive features to the first choice, and negative features to the choice not taken.

In the job interview, this would sound like: ‘The (first choice) has X experience which would be suitable for (task). The (second choice) didn’t mention X in the interview which is an important part of the job role’.

What Triggers a Strong or Weak First Impression?

As seen with the ‘which restaurant to dine at’ decision, the subconscious computes a large amount of data which is filtered through the decision makers filters (experiences, beliefs, values, emotional state). A person’s filters makes the decision making process personal, another person choosing a restaurant may have chosen the second restaurant due to their personal filters. Or one interviewer may preference one applicant, and a second interviewer a second candidate.

What is interesting is that external factors can influence a person’s choice. Social proof, as an example – one restaurant being filled with customers and the second restaurant being empty can influence the choice – ‘if everyone is eating in the first restaurant is must be good’. In a job interview, a weaker interviewer may be influenced by a high-status interview panel members opinion.

In an experiment by Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov on first impressions, a group of participants were shown photographs of faces for 1/10th of a second, half a second, and a full second, and asked to judge each person’s IE ‘is this person competent?’ The results were compared with a second group who completed the same experiment but without a time constraints. The experiment found that no matter the duration of the decision-making process, decisions that were made in 1/10^th of a second were highly correlated with judgments made without time constraints

An employer’s first impressions can be influenced by the interviewee. Much research shows how a number of elements can help improve the first impression during a job interview. Negative impressions are often caused by anxiety. Feeling nervous affects non-verbal communication: facial expressions, gestures, and postures, and verbal communication: projection, tonality, and word choice.

Emotional Displays Influence Decision Making

A blank expression doesn’t create trust. A high number of interviewees will adopt a neutral facial expression during a job interview. Some, those with higher levels of anxiety, may subconsciously frown or have a look of shock – mouth wide open.

Both a blank expression, the look of shock, or even those who show contempt or anger will create distrust with the hiring manager. Even if the subconscious facial expressions are created due to the body’s response to anxiety, the employer will react from the initial negative impression. On the other hand, smiling and laughter, have been shown to promote affiliative tendencies in observers (Campellone and Kring 2012). Smiling improves trust, rapport and creates and more personal impression

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it

The advice given for job interview preparation is to prepare high-scoring interview answers. High-scoring interview answers are examples and data/facts that meet the job criteria on the interview scorecard.

Simply stating information isn’t enough. From a logical perspective, stating the required information should result in a job offer. As discussed previously, decisions are made and influenced by the emotional mind. Using varied pace, tonality and projection can improve the delivery of each job interview answer.

Anxious people will have a tendency to speak at a fast pace. The average rate of speech ranges from around one hundred forty to one hundred seventy words per minute. Speeding up or slowing down the pace of speech can help to reiterate a point. Speaking fast shows excitement and pausing before an important point helps an audience to know that they must listen. Speaking with emotion also conveys the desired message as the chosen words and voice match.

Speaking too slowly in a monotone voice can be detrimental to the success of an interview as a slow monotone voice can be hypnotic sending the interviewer to sleep, or at best into a daydream state where they don’t listen to the point being attempted to be made.

The Power of Physical Appearance

Science Daily shared an article that explained the mind – body cycle. Sitting up straight while writing why you are suitable for a job increases self-esteem, the participants were more likely to believe the statement compared to participants writing the same message while ‘slumped’ in their chair.

Much research shows that by standing/sitting in a confident posture increase confidence. Confident interviewees will have stronger eye contact, a straight back and head held high, chest out, and walk with a sway.

Anxious applicants look down, fidget, slump in the chair, cross their legs when giving an interview presentation and avoid eye contact.

By purposely adopting a posture, a job candidate can trick the brain into believing they are more confident. Feeling confident then improves posture creating a mind-body cycle.

Improve Your Job Interview Performance

To improve your job interview identity stop showing signs of weaknesses. The weak leaks come from negative facial expressions, monotone, and fast-paced voice, and slumped posture. Instead, smile and relax. Use emotions in your voice and pause when speaking. Walk tall with your head held high and increase eye contact. You are what you feel, feel more confident, become more confident.

May 30, 2022May 30, 2022

Why You Will Attend More Job Interviews Than Your Parents Did

As with any activity that is a constant, the more a person is skilled at the activity the more confidence they have when completing the task(s). The more confident a person is when performing an activity, the more skilled they will become at the task(s).

Job seekers in 2022 will attend more job interviews than their parents. This is due to a culture change from having a ‘job for life’ to a ‘job hopping’ mindset. Job hopping is seen as the quickest way to increase a salary and to gain promotion.

On average a career professional will have three separate careers in their career life-cycle and change roles once every three to five years. For each successful job offer and acceptation, a job seeker will attend around 6 job interviews with 6 separate organisations.

For high skilled positions the average recruitment process has 4 interview stages, including one with an AVI – asynchronous video interview.

This brings the total number of job interviews per person to 24 once every 3-5 years. Compare this to a career professional 50 years ago, who may have started out as an apprentice or graduate and worked their way up the career ladder internally, gaining a promotion once every 10 years – one job interview every 10 years, around 6 interviews in their lifetime.

The Recruitment Process is Changing

Previously an interview was a reactive process to requiring a new staff member due to, as an example, an increase in business or the replacement of a staff member. An old article in the Harvard Business Review on job interview strategies explained: ‘All too often, the inexperienced interviewer launches into a discussion only to find midway through that his preparation is incomplete’.

Recruitment processes have moved on and improved. It is well documented that the structured job interview is the best determinator of an applicant’s productivity. It is the asking of behavioral or situational job interview questions and their cross-referencing of answers against a logical scoring system that helps to create a hire from an analytical process rather than an emotional choice.

The distinction between analytical and emotional decision machining is an important one. Previously, in unstructured recruitment process ‘likeability’ was a key factor over ‘suitability’ for meeting the job criteria. Emotional hiring is filled with prejudices.

Currently, the hiring process is changing to deal with the larger number of applicants per position.

The average number of job seekers applying for an advertised vacancy is 250. For global and highly recognized organizations; Meta, Google, BMW, and Amazon, the number of applicants per position can be up to 25000.

Employers know that making the recruitment process easy and quick keeps the attention of 1^st-choice applicants (candidates that often get offered job roles due to their experience/knowledge and confidence in a job interview – their interview identity)

An easy process for a well-known brand increases the applications to an extent that no human can process the volume of resumes and CVs that is received. This increased workload for reviewing applications has been passed to AI bots.

Application Tracking Systems (ATS) are used, and increasingly being adopted by a high number of businesses, to review the initial application – a resume, CV, and online application form. The AI bot scans the documents looking for industry-relevant keywords and experiences to check the suitability of each applicant.

The shifting stage of applications used to be completed by HR professionals but is now a fully automated process.

In four-stage recruitment process, the second stage – an online video is also fully automated using an AVI. The AI bot asked questions which are answered within a set time frame and again reviewed via the AI bot’s algorithm.

It is only when the hiring manager reduces the 25000 applications down to 6-8 do humans get involved.

Get Interview Ready

Today’s job seeker must possess job interview skills.

The high volume of potential job interviews across their career creates an urgency to upskill for a job interview. The three key areas of growth must be:

The identification of the job criteria and potential job interview questions
The ability to self-promote when stating interview examples and the use a strength-based language
The ability to confidently communicate to ensure positive messages are being received by the hiring manager

In addition, the modern job seeker must be comfortable when being interviewed by an AI bot – the AVI asynchronous video interview system. This includes being confident talking on camera within a set time period while stating enough ‘keywords’ to be granted an offer to attend a ‘human’ interview.

The ability to recall prepared high-scoring interview answers that give examples and data that meet the job criteria during the various interview stages is key to an increase in job offers. Public speaking, therefore, is an essential skill. Professional speakers have learned the skill of crafting a speech (or interview answer) that is engaging, interesting, and relevant to the audience (interview panel).

‘Winging it’ is no longer an option. Having a lucky day may have previously been enough to secure a job offer, but with the introduction of multiple interview rounds it is only a skilled interviewee, one with a positive interview identity, that can beat the competition round after interview round.

Confidence has always been an important part of the recruitment process. Now more than ever, confidence is the golden key to unlocking a new job offer. Confident candidates are more likely to give state the job criteria, give longer answers, use pauses rather than filler words, and to build rapport with the hiring manager.

For very few confidence seems like a natural skill. For most having confidence when being the centre of attention in a job interview, confidence comes from many hours of job interview preparation and practice:

Breaking down the job advert into potential interview questions
Writing, editing, and rewriting interview answers
Mock interviews and practice out loud
Public speaking practice, including storytelling
Researching the interview team to create familiarity – as this reduces anxiety
Preparing for common or cure ball interview questions
Gaining beliefs in ones own ability and experience

May 26, 2022May 26, 2022

Why you are better than 97% of the competition

Imposture syndrome is the biggest barrier to job interview success. The data proves that a lack of job interview self-esteem is unfounded as any career professional who has been offered a job interview is in fact 97% better than the competition.

Much research has highlighted that the average number of applications per vacancy is around 250 (vastly higher for global organisations such as Microsoft or Google) HR statistics tell us how only 6-8 of the 250 applicants are offered a job interview.

The data speaks for itself. The percentage of 6-8 interviewees out of 250 applicants is around 3% – That means a candidate who has received an interview offer is in the top 3 percent of most ‘suitable’ from the employer’s perspective.

And it’s the employers perceptive that counts.

How an Employers Views a Perspective Candidate

How an employer views a candidate, either via their application or during the job interview, increases the likelihood of that applicant being offered the job role, or not.

The candidates ‘interview identity’ which is formed by the job seekers level of knowledge/experience vs their level of confidence creates 1 of 16 interview identities with only a small number of the ‘identities’ being view as suitable enough to be offered the advertised vacancy.

The office for national statistics explained how for the first time ever there are more job vacancies than unemployed people.

There hasn’t been a better time to gain a salary increase, by finding a new job opportunity, then now. Employers from across job sectors are looking at creative way to encourage applicants to accept their job roles from offering a blended office/home working option to wage increases.

The fear of career change

With an increase in job opportunities, a potentially high salary with a new employer and an awareness of growth sectors that offer a more secure career, why aren’t career professionals applying for new vacancies?

Even career professionals who hate their job role, those who are stressed out due to workload, or graduates that picked the wrong job sector to work in, don’t make a career change.

The reason is simple. Humans fear change.

In the world of work many career professionals see a career change as a backwards step where they would have to start of the bottom rung of the career ladder. This limiting belief is inaccurate as employers look for a diverse workforce who can bring a new perspective gain from experience in a different industry.

In fact, many employers seek to gain talented team members without direct experience in the sector. An example of this would be a manager – skilled at leadership, staff recruitment, finance projections. Managerial skills are transferable into many job sectors.

Humans fear failure

At a basic level humans have in built desire to ‘belong’. Humans are pack animals. To survive in a pack individuals need to be accepted by others. To be rejected is to die. The same emotional pull happens in all social situations. Many humans avoid asking someone on a date as they don’t want to chance being rejected. People fear public speaking as they fear being ‘laughed’ at. And career professionals hate job interviews because they might be told they ‘are not good enough’.

It is easier to stay with the devil you know than to make a change, even is the current situation is a toxic workplace that is making you ill.

It is time to make a change

A confident career professional with over 10 years industry experience and/or a degree level qualification or above should easily gain a number of job interviews – creating the 3% rule.

This means the competition is now only 6 other applicants. Six people, rather than 250 candidates, doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

During the 45 minutes job interview the average employer will ask 6 job interview questions – often behavioural interview questions (question based on past experiences – “give me an example of doing A”)

The initial question commonly asked is: “tell me about yourself” An easy question to ask, and the final question is “Do you have any questions for us?”

Knowing the structure of the job interview reduces the candidate’s anxiety levels. Lower levels of anxiety increase performance confidence, allowing an interviewee to produce more detailed job interview examples relevant to the job interview question.

Employers will hint towards the job interview questions by sharing the essential criteria of the job role. It is the main duties or essential criteria that is referenced in the job interview questions. This insight can help a job seeker prepare high-scoring interview answers and examples prior to the job interview.

Fear creates procrastination. As a high number of people fear the job interview it is unlikely that each candidate will complete the essential preparation before a recruitment process. If for example only 50% of candidates fully prepare, including yourself, that is only 2 other applicants who are confident enough to give good job interview answers.

From 250 initial applicants, only 3 of the 6 interviewees will be interview ready. This means you only need to give higher scoring answers then the two other prepared people.

April 26, 2022May 26, 2022

How Do You Handle Stress in an Interview?

A job interview is one of most stressful situations you can put yourself in.

This is because, most people, fear being the center of attention.

It is the fear of being rejected by the hiring manager that creates stress and anxiety. Job interview stress changes the candidate’s behavior which in turn creates a weak interview identity. Answers are weak, lacking detail and filled with an excessive number of filler words and weak language.

This article will explain how to handle job interview stress to create a strong interview identity that results in job offers.

Is a job interview a stressful situation?

Stress happens:

When we experience something new
When something unexpected happens
When we feel we have little control over something

All three stress activators can happen during a job interview. On the other hand, a well prepared career professional will feel confident if they:

Carry mock interviews and/or attend public speaking training – this reduces the ‘something new’ fear
Understanding the job interview process – this helps overcome the ‘unexpected’ fear
Predict job interview questions and prepare strong answers – this creates control

Humans are confident in familiar situations. Routine, processes, the norm, are all things that reduce stress. This is why some career professionals who are unhappy at work don’t search for a new job. The fear or something new outweighs the fear of the staying in an unhappy job role.

On average career professionals look for work, and therefore attend job interviews, every three to five years. It is the lack of preparing and attending the interviews that increases their levels of stress.

Stress isn’t an on or off button, its more of a scale. The higher up the stress scale you are the worse the stress can affect you. Stress can:

Create pain – stomach cramps, headaches, etc
Stop you sleeping
Increase nail biting, grinding teeth, and jaw clenching
Make you irritable, sad, or depressed
Stops you eating as your body is in ‘flight or fight’ mode

Do Employers Make the Job Interview Stressful on Purpose?

The myth that all job interviews are difficult, with employers asking awkward curveball questions designed to increase pressure on the applicant is just that – a myth.

Employers may asked: ‘how do you handle stress?’ for stressful positions, or ask problem solving riddles in engineering, IT or mathematical roles but for most advertised vacancies each job interview question will be based on the essential criteria for the job role.

In fact, employers will go out of there way to make the interview an ‘enjoyable’ or at least informative. Think about it, a recruitment manager is looking to hire the best person for the role.

All employers know that job seekers will be attending several job interviews over a short period of time, often with a rival company. It is in the employers interest to hire the best applicant.

If the employer did created an unnecessary pressurized job interview environment it is quiet likely that the 1st choice candidate will take the job offer with another, more friendlier’ employer.

Most employers use a ‘structured job interview’ process, by familiarizing yourself with this process will help you feel more in control and less stressed.

Reduce Job Interview Stress

Some well known basic stress reducers include:

Drink water
Eat healthy
Regular exercise
Learn to say ‘no’ as this increases assertiveness
List your skills and talents as positive reflection increases confidence
Use deep breathing or mindfulness to feel more calm and in control
Use a blackout curtains and a soundless room (no mobile phones, etc) to get a good nights sleep

Negative self-talk

Remove negative self-talk.

‘I’m not good enough’
‘Others are better skilled then I am?
‘I don’t have the relevant experience’

What you focus on you feel.

If you focus on negative statements you will feel negative. Instead focus on your strengths your skills, qualities and what you have to offer the new employer – your unique selling point.

Make a list of your key skill set
Reflect and record key experiences where your ideas, hard work or leadership resulted in a positive outcome
Re-read past appraisals and focus on what a previous manager liked about you

Perception

Perception creates or reduces the power balance.

Viewing the job interview as a life or death situation increases the body’s flight or fight response.

Breakdown what a job interview is. At the bottom level, the interview is you talking about you. And you are the expert on you!

View the interview as a meeting where you are teaching other people about what you have learnt; your knowledge, your experiences, and the techniques you have picked up to get a job done.

Reframing a job interview changes the perceived power balance. Being stress makes you feel you have no power, no influence. Feeling confident about talking about you makes you feel powerful, invincible.

Interview Questions and Answers

Repetition is the key to mastering a skill and practice creates perfection.

The more job interviews you attend (or mock interviews) the more confident you will be as an interveiwee.

This is true with any task. To be a good tennis player, play more tennis. Master chefing by cooking on a regular basis. Learn to speak a second language practice, make mistakes, and learn.

First-choice applicants – career professionals who receive a high number of job offers, will follow the three rules for passing a job interview.

Identifying the job criteria
Being a self-promoter
Communicating confidently

The more an interviewee practices job interview questions and answers, the better prepared they will be on the day in question.

Preparation equals confidence, confidence reduces stress.

Job Interview Procrastination

Stress is a barrier to action.

To avoid stress, job candidates will procrastinate – ‘I will start my preparation tomorrow’

When you hear yourself putting tasks off, you must STOP and take immediate action.

Write down all the interview preparation tasks; research the company, predict questions, prepare answers, check the venue address
Start with the easiest task and do this first – momentum creates motivation
Give yourself a deadline for each task
Reward yourself when you have completed a certain number of tasks
Meet with other people to research together as we like approaching difficult task in groups

March 11, 2022March 15, 2022

How to Answer Interview Questions Confidently

The ability to confidently communicate competencies during the job interview will give the interviewee a significant advantage over other, less confident, applicants.

Highly skilled and highly experienced career professionals often fail job interviews due to stress created by wanting to be viewed as knowledgeable.

It is the fear of being rejected by the hiring manager that creates job interview anxiety. Anxiety, sometimes at a subtle level, changes the candidate’s behavior which in turn creates a weak interview identity.

This article will explain how to reduce anxiety during the recruitment process to help answer job interview questions confidently.

Are you worried about the hiring manager’s opinion?

Humans worry about employers’ opinions as they don’t want to be seen as incompetent. Someone who consistently worries about other people’s opinions can become depressed.

Belonging is hardwired in the human psychic, to belong is to be safe. The desire to belong comes from our ancestors, the hunter, and gathers. Back in time when humans roamed the earth competing for food with wild animals, humans needed to be part of a tribe to survive.

A group of hunter and gathers were stronger together, but if one of the tribe rejected their survival rate diminished. Tribes were created on shared beliefs, values and through the individual skills, each person brought to the tribe.

In the job interview, how an interviewee thinks affects their behavior.

Research into the recruitment of staff has shown how applicants with low self-esteem have an internal focus, worrying about the hiring manager’s opinion. Whereas, a confident candidate is externally focused – giving the same quality of answers no matter how the employer acts in the job interview.

The research shows how the more confident a person the less they care about the opinions of others because self-worth out powers the self-worry.

Eggs in One Basket

Caring about a hiring manager’s opinion increases depending on context.

The advice that an interview coach would give, is to apply for new roles while in a position you are happy with.

Being employed in a good job takes the pressure off during the recruitment process, as the belief that ‘if I’m not successful I still have a job I like’ creates a win-win situation.

The increased confidence gained from the win-win scenario has a slight change in the candidate’s interview behavior. Confident interviewees will:

Give detail examples
Share their opinions rather then looking to agree with the interviewee panel
Stand up for themselves
Be a self-promoter
Have an open conversation
Tell the employer what they want from a job

In most cases though, career professionals look for new positions because their current job role is one they now detest. Many interviewees are desperate to leave their current employer and/or are highly stressed.

The new job role is viewed as a ‘last chance’ with applicants saying ‘if I’m not successful i don’t what I will do!’

A last chance mind-frame has an effect on the candidate’s attitude, as they focus more on the employer’s opinions than focusing on showcasing their skills and experiences.

Employers hiring decisions are emotionally led, which means the psychology of a job interview plays an important part in the recruitment of new staff. This includes:

Unconscious Bias
The power of likeability
Prejudices
Commonality and rapport
The applicants language and word choice

Action – apply for jobs while in a position you love

Answering Interview Questions Confidently

The first task then is to have an external focus – a focus on the delivery of high-scoring job interview answers.

Low confident interviewees use generic statements:

‘I’m not good enough’
‘Others are better skilled then I am?
‘I have less sector knowledge than other people’

Limiting beliefs limit the possibilities of a successful job interview outcome.

To change a limiting belief requires challenge. Question the belief, look for evidence to the contrary, request specifics.

Ask specifics:

‘Not good enough of what specifically?’
‘Good enough compared to whom?’
‘Who are these other people?’
‘Which skills in particular?’
‘Name your own strengths’

Language shapes our reality. Challenging oneself (a technique used by career and interview coaches) changes perception. Perception creates confidence. Confidence creates a stronger interview performance. A stronger interview performance increases job offers.

The language used to describe an interview also influences an applicant’s interview confidence.

Some confident career professionals view the job interview as a:

Meeting
Discussion about their experience
An opportunity to find more out about the employer

The frame of an interview, a life or death situation (if I don’t succeed in this job interview I will have failed), or an opportunity (a chance to develop my career), changes the candidate’s approach to the recruitment process.

Interview Questions and Answers

Repetition is the key to mastering a skill.

A job interview – communicating high-scoring answers confidently, is just another skill. A job interview is essentially a public speaking engagement. Many people initially fear public speaking but become more confident once they practice their oration skills.

One of the biggest barriers to a successful job interview is the lack of practice. The fear of rejection creates procrastination, which can increase anxiety if the applicant suffers from imposter syndrome.

First-choice applicants – career professionals who receive a high number of job offers, will follow the three rules for passing a job interview.

Identifying the job criteria
Being a self-promoter
Communicating confidently

The more an interviewee predicts the job interview questions, craft high-scoring job interview answers, and practices the delivery style of those answers, the more they are likely to feel confident throughout a hiring process.

5 Steps for Practicing Job Interview Answers

Step 1 – Turn each essential job criteria into an interview question

Step 2 – Draft an interview answer for each question

Step 3 – Rewrite the answer by adding an example

Step 4 – Tweak the answer 3-4 more times embedding positive language

Step 5 – Practice, out loud, saying the answer as you would in a job interview

Feeling Confident

The more an applicant feels confident, the more confident their interview answers will be.

Pre-interview preparation can help to increase confidence. Some basic advice includes:

Stay hydrated drink lots of water prior to the job interview
Exercise on the morning of the interview
Use mindfulness or a positive visualization to feel more relaxed

The candidate’s mindset is key to building confidence. Self-worth increases self-promotion. Become aware of your skills, qualities, and experiences by:

Re-read passed appraisals and make a list of all the skills, strengths and qualities a passed employer has stated
List of the key project you have been part of – focus on what you did to make the project a success
Breakdown your personality – What are you naturally gifted at? How do you work best? What are your natural strengths?

It is important to remember the power play of a job interview.

In the main, the job applicants frame is that the employer has something they want (the job role) rather than the realization that the candidate has what the employer needs (that is why the employer is currently recruiting).

The candidate’s frame – how they view the job interview, changes how they perceive the power balance themselves and the employer.

The Formula for a Confident Job Interview

Confidence, therefore, is created by perception – how the candidates view the job interview and the number of hours of interview preparation.

Mindset x Practice = a confident job interview

If we summarize the above advice, to answer job interview questions confidently:

Create an external focus – a focus on the delivery of high-scoring job interview answers
Decrease the internal focus – worrying about the hiring managers opinion
Apply for jobs while in a position you currently enjoy as this releases stress
Challenge limiting beliefs by asking for specifics
View the interview as a conversation or meeting
Follow the three rules for a successful job interview and practice answering interview questions
Identify your own skills, strengths and qualities
Use meditation, exercise and staying hydrated to increase confidence
Remember the employer needs you more then you need them – be in charge of the power play of the recruitment process

September 6, 2021September 6, 2021

Body Language that will make you look Confident in a Job Interview

The employer’s decision-making process is influenced by the applicant’s perceived level of knowledge and experience vs their level of confidence – the candidate’s interview identity.

Confidence is presumed by the interviewee’s body language, posture, walk, handshake, eye contact, and communication skills.

Therefore the initial impression, when the employer first meets the interviewee, is a key moment.

If the applicant exudes confidence, the impression of the candidate will be positive as humans like and are drawn to, confident people. In fact, most people are attracted to people who they believe are confident.

A confident first impression based on the appearance of an applicant, prior to answering any job interview questions, is an unconscious bias.

Biases act as an initial filter. At a basic level, the bias creates a likeability filter. If an employer has a positive opinion of the applicant, based on their confident initial impression, the interviewer will subconsciously search for evidence to back up their belief.

In short, utilizing confident body language encourages the interviewer to see the applicant as a potential team member.

A second gain to having confident body language is the body-mind cycle.

The mind-body cycle works by a person’s stance, confident or nervous, sends signals to the mind – I am feeling confident or nervous, which creates positive or negative thoughts: “I am going to ace this job interview” or “I am going to fail!”

The negative or positive thoughts, cycle back to the body reinforcing the confident or nervous posture – the applicant will stand more confident; head held high, should backs, good eye contact. Or more nervous; head hung low, arms crossed across the body, shaking legs.

The new reinforced body language sends a reinforced message to the mind, starting the cycle all over again.

Research shows how a confident interviewee will:

Actively promote themselves
Use positive and enthusiastic language
Give longer and more descriptive interview answers

Confident Body Language

The body can be broken down into four parts; the head, arms, torso, and legs.

Actors look confident when on stage.

One technique used in the acting world, to help people with poor posture, is the Alexandra technique:

Stand up
Imagine a piece of string going through your body and coming out the top of your head
Imagine someone pulling the string, so it pulls your body up until you are on stood on your tiptoes
Allow the string to relax, so you land on the balls of your feet
This ends with a straight back and an assertive posture

Head confidence

Microfacial expressions give away internal emotions. In the book, Emotions Revealed, Paul Ekman explains the 7 universal micro facial expressions:

1. Sadness – narrowed eyes, eyebrows together, down-pointed mouth, and a pulling up of the chin

2. Anger – lowered eyebrows, tense lips and eyelids, and wrinkled forehead

3. Contempt – single raised corner of the mouth, a slight tightening of the eyelids (sneer)

4. Disgust – raising of the upper lip, narrowed eyes, wrinkled nose, and narrowed eyebrows

5. Surprise – dropped jaw, relaxed lips and mouth, widened eyes, and slightly raised eyelids and eyebrows

6. Fear – eyes and mouth open rather widely, eyebrows raised and nostrils flared

7. Happiness – raising the corner of lips and cheeks, narrowing eyes to produce “crow’s feet” on the outside of each eye

An interviewer meeting the applicant for the first time will subconsciously register the interviewee’s emotions via fleeting micro-expressions.

Some research explains how a judgment of an applicant’s intelligence is based on the candidate’s face and expressions, with a narrow face, with a prominent nose being viewed as an intelligent face.

At a more basic level, a candidate with low self-esteem will often break eye contact quickly and look towards the floor, as they feel under pressure. In addition, nervous candidates are known to frown or scowl.

The lack of eye contact and the frowning and scrawling of an anxious person is an invisible wall to building rapport.

On the other hand, confident career professionals create likeability through smiling, direct eye contact, and holding their chin up.

Arm confidence.

Fidgeting is a sign of worry.

Nervous candidates will disclose their anxiety by:

Putting their hands in and out of their pockets
Pulling at invisible pieces of cotton on their shirt
Tapping their fingers on the desk
Twirling their hair around their fingers
Covering their mouth with their hands
Shaking hands
Itching

Hands communicate.

When speaking confidently, a comfortable communicator will express themselves with gestures.

“Speech and gesture are integrated not only at a speaker’s thought conception, but also in perception; listeners integrate information from speech and gesture into a single mental representation.”
The Role of Gesture in Communication and Cognition: Implications for Understanding and Treating Neurogenic Communication Disorders

Hand gestures affect how the interviewer perceives the applicant. Interviewers aren’t trained to understand each gesture. Communication is subconscious.

Open hands are viewed as being open and honest
Hand over the heart is viewed as sincerity
Fist shows anger or frustration

When talking, people communicate with their hands. The gestures reinforce the words they are saying.

The emphasising of words with the hands helps the interviewer to picture the point of the communication, the story, or the message.

Gesturing unlocks tension, helping the mind-body cycle, and shows energy, passion, and enthusiasm.

The advice is simple; relax and allow natural gestures to communicate your communication.

Torso confidence.

The body speaks.

The torso is the main factor when it comes to body language, The central piece of the structure.

Stand up as straight as possible
Put your feet shoulder width apart
Put your arms down and relax
Keep your shoulders back – push your shoulderbaldes slightly together
Pull your stomach in
Place the weight on the balls of your feet

This type of stance increases the lung’s capacity for oxygen, a confident stance creates deep breathing.

In an article on uchealth, they say: “Deep breaths are more efficient: they allow your body to fully exchange incoming oxygen with outgoing carbon dioxide. They have also been shown to slow the heartbeat, lower or stabilize blood pressure and lower stress.”

Nervous people will often sit with a hunched-up body, which can be viewed as the nervous applicant being bored or indifferent.

When anxious, the candidate is in fight or flight mode. The shortness of breath is the body’s natural response to help save your life – the original design behind the evolutionary fight or flight process.

The feeling of a tightening of chest muscles, shortness of breath, and short rapid breathing from the top of the chest is how the body prepares your body to run or attack – oxygen is sent to the muscles.

Leg confidence.

As with arm fidgeting, leg fidgeting is a visible sign of feeling uncomfortable with the situation.

Leg fidgeting can include:

Tapping the foot
Swinging a leg (corssed over the second leg) up and down
Shaking legs

Famously, crossed arms across the chest, creating a physical barrier between the interviewee and interviewer, is known to be one way to protect oneself when feeling vulnerable.

Cross legs are the same. Nervous applicants will put one foot behind the other, crossing their legs for protection. With highly anxious candidates constantly changing which leg is on top – a secondary nervous gesture.

The direction of the feet, towards someone or away from them (and towards an exit) is a telltale sign of interest. We point the feet to where we want to go. If confident and interested in the interviewer, an applicant’s feet will point towards the interviewing person.

When nervous, the applicant will point towards the door or exit. Unless the seating area for the interview doesn’t a fontal exit area. In this case, the feet will point away from the interviewer.

Job applicants can use this knowledge, by checking the recruiter’s feet direction – towards them the applicant, or away from them, to get an insight into whether or not the employer has an interest in them.

To be viewed as confident, and to feel more confident, stand with legs together (a natural stance) with a straight back. To feel more dominant, spread the legs apart a little. When sitting, lean back in the chair, hold the head high with strong eye contact.

Overley confident applicants, the egocentric interview identity, will sit in a ‘figure of four’ with one leg on the floor, and the second leg crossed over the first at knee level creating the figure of four.

Whereas a nervous interviewee will ‘ankle lock’ placing one foot behind the other.