You have 20 seconds or less to impress upon an employer whether or not she should consider hiring you. From the moment you walk into her office to the moment you sit down in a chair, thousands of neurons will be firing in the interviewer's brain asking one of two things: "Is this person friend or foe?" It's an inescapable reflex, necessary to our survival as a species, to gauge immediately whether the stranger before us is going to help us or hurt us.
First Impressions
Whether it is morally right or wrong to judge a person the moment we meet her, it is a biological necessity that we do so. As long as we know that's a fact, we need to ensure that we use it to our advantage.
If you want the interviewer's initial response to be "this is a friend" rather than the opposite, you should follow a few seemingly simple instructions.
1. Wear a smile, no matter how you feel. A smile conveys confidence, high selfesteem, competence, warmth, and enthusiasm. Plus, believe it or not, medical testing of brain activity has shown that when people smile, they actually perform better at what they are doing because they are using more of both the left and right sides of the brain!
2. Wear clothes that are appropriate to the occasion. It is not so much the color of your suit or the pattern on your tie that matters. It is the respect you show to the interviewer by indicating, indirectly, that the interview is an important occasion to you and that you value the interviewer's time so much that you have put serious consideration into your appearance.
3. Have a firm handshake, using the whole hand. A handshake that is too loose unconsciously communicates to the interviewer that you are not fully committed. On the other hand, a bone-crushing handshake sends a message that you may be overly competitive. Neither of these messages is attractive to an interviewer. A handshake that is firm with one, two, or three "pumps" of the elbow is an appropriate business greeting, signaling to the employer, "Let's get down to business."
4. Address the interviewer as Ms. or Mr. until you're invited to call him or her by a first name. Again, this greeting is part of being respectful of the interviewer's time and authority.
5. Introduce yourself by your first and last names and say that you are happy to be there. Do you know that only 40 percent of interviewers are trained to do the job of interviewing? My surveys of managers and directors from Fortune 500 companies indicate that they very often feel more nervous about interviewing you than you feel about the interview! Introducing yourself and expressing that you're glad to be there is the first step to putting the interviewer at ease, so that you can both enjoy a relaxed meeting.
6. Do not sit down until the interviewer suggests that you do. If he or she doesn't, ask politely if you may sit down. As soon as you sit down in a chair in the interviewer's office, you become part of his or her territory. It is therefore wise to wait until you are invited to sit or you have asked permission to do so.
7. Do not, at any time during the interview, put anything on the interviewer's desk. Keep briefcases, note pads, date books, and purses by your side or on your lap. The employer's desk is even more sacred and private territory than the surrounding office. Keep hands, elbows, and any other items from the top of the desk. If, however, you have been invited to sit at a conference table or a round table that is not a desk, you should feel free to take notes on the tabletop as the meeting goes on. These spaces are shared territory, unlike a person's desk, which is private.
8. Make your behavior in the waiting room impeccably professional and polite. Interviewers often ask their receptionists what they thought about you. Many managers, directors, and executives rely on their assistants as a second pair of eyes, so you'll want them to give their bosses a good report.