Tag: job interview rapport

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 – effects of positive moods

Alice Isen and Paul Levin (1972) completed an experiment on the effects of good moods.

In a shopping mall, they left money in the coin return slot of a telephone booth to boost the moods of the lucky shoppers who found the cash. After the subject left the phone booth, another shopper (part of the experiment team) ‘accidentally’ dropped a folder a few feet in front of the shoppers. 4% of people who didn’t find the change in the telephone booth helped the man who had dropped the folder, but a staggering 84% of the people who did find the change, and as a consequence were in a good mood, helped the man.

The results clearly showing that if you feel good you are more likely to help others.

This ‘feel good, do good’ effect is a powerful tool in a job interview. The timing of your job interview also plays a key role in the success of the outcome of your interview.

Contrast bias is the process of comparing one thing; a weight, experience or a job interview applicant, to another recent experience in the same category.

The first interviewee to be interviewed becomes the baseline and all other applicants are compared to this initial interview performance.

As the baseline interviewee, you can never surpass the benchmark because you are the benchmark.

The timing of your interview, therefore, has a direct impact on your success rate. When possible never choose the first interview slot or you will become victim to contrast bias. *in addition to the job interview this same interview psychology has an effect on your salary negotiations.

Job Interview Psychology – likeability

If being the first interviewee has a negative effect on your job interview outcome, should you apply for the last interview slot? No! And the reason why is decision fatigue – the quality of decisions deteriorate after a long period of decision making, and deciding on the best candidate after a long day of decision making is very tiring.

Compared to the ‘feel good, do good’ theory, if the interviewer is in a negative mood they ‘feel bad, do bad’ The interview panels emotional state, therefore, has a direct impact on their decisions making ability.

To increase job interview success your task is to make the interviewer feel good about themselves. Your goal is to create an altruistic interviewer.

One contraction to the ‘feel bad, do bad’ theory is the ‘negative-state relief’ theory. Guilt creates an internal motivation to ‘do good’ as we believe that ‘a good deed cancels out a bad deed’

Also, sadness can increase ‘helping.’ The reason guilt or sadness influences someone to help others is because people will help others so they feel good about themselves, to relieve their guilt or sadness.

In a job interview, effective storytelling can induce sadness. We see this all the time on TV talent shows, where a sad backstory affects the votes of the judges

But as with the above audition, talent also plays a key role. ‘Talent’ in a job interview is your ability to influence the interview panel, not the talent of completing job tasks as you only need this skill once you are employed.

Humans like to be consistent, it makes us feel good as our actions are in line with our values and identity.

If you want to predict the type of interviewee that will be offered the job role, look at the type of person who was last recruited by the same interview panel.

If you create an association between the previously hired person, through identifying similarities, you are more likely to be hired “he’s like X, we hired X, let’s hire this person”

Ownership increases value. This is the famous (in sales) endowment effect; once we own something we add more value to it.

A study with students where they were given a cup with the university logo on it, worth $6. In a trading game the owners of the cup requested items of $5 value (on average) for the cup trade, but other students who didn’t own the mug, only believed the mug value was worth around $2. It was the sense of ownership that increase the value of the product.

In recruitment, people believe that internal candidates have a better success rate for internal job roles then external candidates because the company embraces internal mobility.

The truth is, an organization wants to hire the ‘perceived ‘best person for the role (internal or external). But, organisations have a feeling of ownership to their employees, and see them, initially, as a higher value (until you can influence them that you are the strongest candidate)

This is why volunteering, being an intern or an external mentor for employees – anything to link you to the ‘team’ gives you an advantage; you will be seen as being owned by the company – “she is one of ours”

Positive moods in the interview panel created from the association, the sense of ownership or comparison, can support you to achieve job interview success.

If the interviewer is feeling good (interviewing in the middle of the day – but not after dinner time, as eating food makes you tired, helps with this) they are more likely to see you in a positive light.

To increase happiness in others is relatively easy. And through association, what the interview feels, will be projected on to you – they feel good = you must be good.

If you smile you feel good. I suppose you cant always deliver a well-rehearsed comedy set in the job interview to make the panel laugh, but you can smile.

Mirror Neurons

Humans use mirror neurons to perceive how other people are feeling. Neurons activate when you need to complete a specific task (scratching your face as an example) these mirror neurons also activate when you see someone else performing a task; seeing someone scratch their face activates your ‘scratch my face neurons.’

In an experiment, two subjects had to look at and openly discuss a number of photographs.

In fact, one of the subjects was in on the experiment and would complete a subtle behavior; scratching their face or tapping their foot.

The experiment was about behavioral influence, (and had nothing to do with the pictures) the psychologist wanted to know if the subject would copy another person unconsciously?

Yes, they would and a lot. Mirroring is a natural rapport-building process.

Mirror neurons have the same effect with emotions. If you smile (and feel good) the interviewer, with mirror-neurons, will feel the same happy thoughts.

You can take this further, and have open body language, sit with confidence and your job interview panel will, with unconscious awareness, copy your behavior and feel good about you, which we know through unconscious bias, creates a positive effect on the job interview outcome

Finding common ground increases likeability, complementing people makes them feel good and seeding the idea of a good interview “I can see that this will be a good interview” will increase the likelihood of the job interview actually being good

But most importantly – people respond well to charismatic authority. Being confident, extrovert, humourous and knowledgeable, while showing interest in others (the interview panel) will create a powerful liking bond that will help you secure your next job offer.

Interview Psychology 4 of 5 – social proof

Job Interview Advice

Carers week (7th-13th June 2021)

In the UK over 6.5 million people are currently caring unpaid for a family member or friend who is older, disabled or seriously ill.

Caring has a direct impact on the carers life from where they could study in higher education to their career choices.

To support carers with the career options Employment King are offering FREE mini virtual career sessions.

Choose between a career guidance session to help explore career options, educational pathways, and apprenticeships.

• Match a career to your personality, values and skills
• Create a career plan
• Discuss job salary, duties and entry routes

Or, an interview coaching session to help improve your chances of gaining a job offer.

• Mock interview and feedback
• Learn how to structure an interview answer
• Improve job interview confidence

To enquire about a career coaching session complete the form below and one of our career coaches will get back to you to discuss a suitable date and time

All career coaching sessions will take place during 7th-11th June

Sessions are completed online via video call

Each session will last aorund 30 minutes

Carers have to be 18yrs+ to access this free service

Job Interview Advice

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

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 3 of 5 – Creating a Connection

“Listening is following the thoughts and feelings of another and understanding what the other is saying from his or her perspective” (1994 Neil Katz & Kevin McNulty)

Reflective listening, which came from Carl Rogers – client-centered therapy in counseling theory, has a powerful effect on the interview process.

The idea in a therapy setting is to listen to a client’s idea, then offer the idea back to the client, to confirm the idea has been correctly understood.

The skill of reflective listening is helping a client in a therapeutic setting to deal with something, or in our case, to help the interviewer understand that you are the right fit for the job.

Job Interview Psychology

Reflective listening is an easy skill to master and builds instant interviewer rapport.

Step 1 – listen to the specific words the interviewer is saying

Step 2 – repeat their statement (this reinforces to the interviewer that you have a comprehensive understanding of what they are discussing)

Step 3 – agree then add to their statement (this shows a higher level of thinking and creates authority)

An example of this is:

Interviewer (for a sales position): “communication is a key skill that shouldn’t be undervalued”

Interviewee: “I agree communication is a key skill that shouldn’t be undervalued. In fact, research shows how important the role of the ‘encoder’ and ‘decoder’ is. It is the interpretation of the communication that can make the difference between a sale or not. Are you familiar with Shannon-Weaver communication model? I found it highly useful in understanding how to talk to customers. “

Peak End Principle

The peak-end theory is a psychological rule in which an experience is evaluated and remembered based on the peak (most intense) point of the experience and/or the ending of the experience.

Interviewees often make a key error when being interviewed; they are too logical.

Often applicants will answer job interview questions in a process-driven way.

When asked “tell me about your experience” they will often list their experiences. This does get the relevant information over to the employer, but, it is….well…a bit boring.

To be successful in the job interview you need to create an emotional connection with the interview panel.

What many people don’t understand about the job interview process is that each applicant is asked the same interview question.

The interviewee’s reply, for each individual question, is scored on a scale of 1-10. As the interviewee answers the questions, the interview panel makes notes, often quoting your answers.

At the interview end, once you leave the building, the interview panel individually, at first, and then collectively, allocate a score based on what they recorded for each of your job interview questions.

Here’s the trick; when the interviewers reflect on your answers they remember how they felt about you in the job interview and this emotional reaction creates a perception filter that your answers are filtered through.

The filter is distorted by the emotional peak of the job interview (this could be positive or negative)

Creating a positive emotional peak is relatively easy;

First, you need to use storytelling when giving an answer to a job interview question. To use storytelling you need to follow a 3 step structure

Step 1 – set the scene. Here you describe a challenge, problem or situation you had to face. Keep this short, simple and relevant. The employer should be able to quickly understand the issue which is related to the position you are applying

Step 2 – become the hero. In all films and stories there is a hero who, after being in a tricky situation, takes action and saves the day. When explaining the solution to your stated problem you need to be clear in what YOU did, the action YOU took, that was part of the solution

Step 3 – create a eutopia. When being interviewed many people focus on past successes.

People are more future-focused than this; you are more likely to be offered a job by explaining what you can bring to the table rather than what you did in your previous role.

This last step requires you to make it relevant to this organization by explaining how you would use this experience to solve your new employer’s problems.

To do this use this special interview formula: XY = Z;

“if you struggle with X problem, I would use Y which will result in Z (positive outcome)

The second way to create an emotional connection in a job interview is through intrigue. Imagine beings asked “what is your biggest weakness?” and your reply with “In my last job I was nearly arrested for murder!”

OK I know this sounds extreme! but what happens here, is initially the interviewer will laugh at this ridiculous answer creating an emotional peak, but then in addition, especially if you leave a long pause before carrying on with your interview answer, you will create intrigue –“what does he mean, murder?”

These hooks generate curiosity – we all want to know what next. This is why TV series have a cliffhanger at the end of each episode, so we MUST tune in next week to find out what happened.

Back to the murder charge. Ok, the shock tactic hook has to be relevant or you will come across a bit strange. In this example, it could be an interview for a TV producer who was on an outdoor set secretly filing a prank when with unfortunate timing the police walked by. Or a worker who was helping a colleague who collapsed at work.

Yes, this example is a bit left field. Another more relevant example could be when asked “what is your greatest strength?” your intrigue reply could be “in the last 6 years I have built a reputation of turning around companies of the brink of bankruptcy and turned them into multimillion-pound organisations” Any employer requiring this skill will be shouting “how?”

Intrigue gets the employer feeling excited, creating anticipation. Anticipation releases dopamine in large quantities (the happy chemical) creating a strong emotional association with you the interviewee.

A final example is when asked, “why do you want to work for my organisation?” When asked this question most people answer by stating facts about the company; you have a great reputation, I like the fact that there is a focus on staff development, I have always wanted to work for a company like this.

Instead, use intrigue, get the interviewer asking you more questions to find out about the hook you have just fed them; “I was recently headhunted by one of your competitors but before I took the position I wanted to know more about this organisation”

This is very covert, the employer won’t be able to stop themselves by asking “which competitor was that?” They are also thinking, what is it about this person that a competitor of mine wants to hire them? Am I missing out?

Interview Psychology 2 of 5 – Unconcious Bias

Interview Pyschology 4 of 5 – Social Proof

Job Interview Advice

Can a work placement support your career ambitions?

Most pupils in yr11 have the chance to gain a work placement in an industry of their choice. The idea here is that a 2-week work placement is enough time to gain an insight into a specific job role. The pupils can use this experience to help them decide if their desired career path is a suitable choice.

In many schools a career lead has the responsibility of organising the work placement for the full year group. This means finding around 100 employers willing to take on 2-3 pupils for a two-week period. Pupils are matched to employers based on the pupil’s career ambitions.

During the 2-week work placement the pupil will undertake a range of duties to help them understand how a business works. Each employer will match each pupil with a mentor (an experienced member of staff who can explain the different areas of the business.) At the end of each week the employer will complete a review, allowing the pupil to reflect on their career choice.

When I undertook my work placement, my career goal was to work in retail management. The school career lead, very excitedly, explained that she had found me the ‘perfect’ placement; a retail assistant in a mini market. Originally, I was excited to undertake the work placement. I wanted to learn about retail management and starting in a small mini market would allow me to see all sides of a retail business.

Instead of learning retail managerial techniques I was tasked to take out the rubbish, make cups of tea for the full-time staff members and to clean shelves and mop floors. The mundane duties meant that the work placement was having a negative effect on my motivation to gain a career in retail management.

A couple of days into the work placement I was shopping with my family in a large supermarket. I was observing one of the floor managers directing a team of employees to create a new display. When the manager saw me watching them, he asked me: “is there was anything I can help you with?” I explained that I was hoping to work in retail management one day and that I was currently in a work placement in a mini market completing mundane duties. As I was about to leave, I asked if he would be willing to let me finish my work placement within his store, allowing me to learn retail management skills. To my surprise he agreed, and I spent the next 10 days understanding the supply chain line, sales psychology, rotating stock and how to create a reliable and motivated workforce.

The work placement that yr11 pupils can access can either be highly beneficial or a complete waste of time. To get the most out of a work placement I would highly recommend sourcing your own employer. Teachers do I good job at organising a large amount of work placements, but they don’t have the time to discuss individual pupil needs with every employer. By sourcing your own work placement, you can meet with an employer and discuss what it is you want to gain from the two-week placement.

Job Interview Advice

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 2 of 5 – unconscious bias

Everyone is prone to the psychological effect of unconscious bias.

Unconcious job interview bias if the phenomenon of the job interviewer generating a perception of you prior to the interview start. This subconscious process can have, either a negative or positive, effect on the job interview outcome.

Job Interview Psychology

Attribution theory explains how we attribute characteristics to people we don’t know, to assist our internal process of perception, by judging their behavior based on the references of people we do know – you act like Mrs X so you must have similar strengths and flaws.

It is these perception disorders, that all humans form, that affects the job interview outcome. You can attend two job interviews for the same position, in two identical organizations, give the same answers to the same job interview questions, and be up against the same competition (who give the same answers to the same job interview questions) only to be offered one position and to be declined the second. This is because people’s perception of the world is different; it is created from individual experiences, beliefs, and emotional associations.

What is difficult to combat is that these snap judgments are made at the subconscious level, instantly.

Be-aware of the invisible filters

Unconscious interview bias is the process of the interviewer’s brain creating quick judgments of you, the interviewee, prior to you being asked any job interview question. All your following answers, conversations, and even your body language will be filtered through this unconscious bias filter; if you are associated positively, your job interview answers are filtered through a ‘positive filter’ but if you are associated negatively, then it is these filters that your job interview answers will be filtered through.

Remember this, most people, including yourself, are unaware of the filers and therefore their bias that is in play

In an unconscious bias study, by Moss-Racusin, a number of science facilities in higher educational institutes (HEIs) were asked to evaluate the application materials of an undergraduate science student who had applied for a science laboratory manager position. The participants were then allocated either a female or male applicant and asked to give their opinion on the student’s competencies: the application details remained the same and only the gender of the ‘applicant’ had changed. The participants themselves were of mixed gender

Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/109/41/16474/F1.large.jpg

The results showed that the applicants perceived gender had an effect on the science facility participants’ unconscious bias; males were considered more competent and were more likely to be hired than a female with the same application and therefore the same skills, knowledge, experience and qualifications.

The participants were also more likely to invest time in mentoring males and to give them a higher starting salary

Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474

Unconscious bias can be positive. Interviewers will have a preferred person preference and will have a natural liking to people who they see they have common ground with. The common ground could include appearance, beliefs, background – this is where the advice to wear your ‘old school tie’ is founded. This natural ‘liking’ creates an affinity bias where the interviewer will be more supportive to one interviewee then another.

If you are nervous in the job interview environment and the interviewer feels an affinity towards you, they are more likely to help you feel at ease by repeating questions in a simplistic way or telling you to take your time. Some will even go as far as giving you hints. This affinity also alters how they see you performing within the team and/or organisation.

To help you pass your next job interview you can use this psychology to your advantage. The halo effect; where fast judgments are made based on one or more criteria (positive or negative) that creates a domino effect – if the initial opinion of an interviewee is positive, the interviewer will see all the applicant’s actions as positive (or less negative). An example of this is when the interviewer has a positive impression of a candidate and when the candidate answers an interview question stating that they don’t have X experience, the interviewer, through the halo effect, no longer deem this as that important (allowing you to score higher on the criteria scoring sheet)

Likeability, which is key to job interview success, can be achieved through some simple and/re extreme measures:

Dressing smart and being on time creates a low-level halo effect – as a reliable employee. But this is pretty basic.

Question the interviewer about their week, weekend or interest and find common ground by stating activities or hobbies you have in common – this creates a ‘natural’ conversation that increases likeability.

You can build subconscious rapport by mimicking the interviewer’s language patterns, gestures and body language. Mirroring another person happens naturally when two people are in rapport. You can switch this around and create rapport by creating a mirror image

Finally, you can become an industry expert. By creating a professional LinkedIn account and adding regular industry-related comments, links, stats, giving your opinion, sharing newsfeeds, and by following industry professionals and companies you are likely to get your future interviewer adding you via the same social media platform months before you apply for a position with their company. By seeing you as an industry expert, prior to a job interview, you will create a powerful halo effect that will help you win more job offers

Interview Pyschology 1 of 5 – rewards and fears

Interview Pyschology 3 of 5 – creating a connection

Job Interview Advice