The Importance Of Body Language In Interviews

The importance of body language is often mentioned, but doesn't always get the attention it deserves. It is essential that you have an understanding of it if you are going to be successful in job interviews, networking meetings and giving presentations. It is described as being the most basic, fundamental form of expression used by human beings to communicate with one another, and at the same time a part of a highly sophisticated and culturally specific system of coded signals, in which bodily and facial movement play at least as important a part as verbal utterance.

Body Language is also referred to as 'non-verbal communications', and less commonly 'non-vocal communications' which is especially crucial when we meet someone for the first time. At a job interview, it plays such an important role in building rapport with your interviewer or the hiring manager, that it should not be overlooked.

You Are Being Observed...

When you are at an interview, you may not be aware of it but your interviewer will be observing your body language very carefully. Starting with the Tell me about yourself question, you start to give all sorts of information to the observant interviewer. Your body language says a lot about yourself, so you need to control negative body movements and encourage positive body movements and habits. Humans naturally send and receive nonverbal communication; they have been doing so since the beginning of time. When your girlfriend folds her arms but has a smile on her face, are you not wondering what she upset is about or clammed up for. At an interview, you never want your body language to contradict your words, this makes you appear like a liar.

The First Impression

The first impression, or the first few minutes of your interview are the most important and most remembered.

The Handshake:

Your hands should be clean and well manicured, and free of perspiration. You want to allow the interviewer to initiate the handshake, which should match the interviewer in firmness, do not give a firmer handshake than them. Smile at the interviewer and look them in the eyes. It should last between two to five seconds. Since the visual sense is dominant for most people, eye contact is an especially important type of nonverbal communication. When departing the interview, the handshake may last longer, smile and lean forward as you shake.

Nonverbal communication equips you to understand what interviewers are thinking, helping you tweak your body language to create a 'rapport' and get them to see you as a person like themselves. The experts call it "non-verbal communication," but it amounts to the same thing: a second source of human communication that is often more reliable or essential to understanding what is really going on than the words themselves. By familiarizing ourselves with a few basic non-verbal signals, we can improve our ability to understand what people are really communicating and become aware of what we are broadcasting to the world with our own non-verbal cues.

Here are a few things you will want to avoid at an interview:

• Clasping your hands behind your head
• Adjusting your tie constantly
• Slouching in your chair
• Pulling your collar away
• Picking at your face or outfit
• Tight smiles or tension in face
• Little eye contact
• Wrinkling your eyebrows
• Rapidly nodding your head
• Any nervous tics
• Crossing your ankles - means withholding information
• Crossing your legs away from the interviewer- toward is ok
• Crossing one ankle over the other knee
• Invading your interviewer's personal space
• Avoid grinning idiotically
• Gnawing on one’s lips absentmindedly
• “Faking” a cough during a tough question
• Folding or crossing your arms
• Avoid compulsive jabbing the floor or desk with your foot
• Loud, obnoxious laughter

Nonverbal speech sounds such as tone, pitch, volume, inflection, rhythm, and rate are important communication elements, so it helps to vary your tone and speed of talking. When you’re stressed out, you’re more likely to be misread by other people, send off confusing or off-putting nonverbal signals, and lapse into unhealthy knee-jerk patterns of behavior. Understanding body language is the secret to inspiring confidence, conveying authority, and building relationships with business clients, according to Joe Navarro, a former FBI agent and expert in non-verbal communication. Now go on to read these very specific Interview Body Language Tips.

You can also learn about how NLP and Neuro Linguistic Programming can help you.

Body language also has an important part to play on other aspects of your career or job change:

Interview Questions

If you follow the guidance here, and take the time to prepare properly, the Interview questions they ask will give you the best opportunity to demonstrate your talents and skills and position your answers so that you are seen as the right person. These tips apply equally to telephone interviews as much as one-on-one or face to face job interviews.Remember also that most interviews begin with the interviewer asking you: tell me about yourself so you should be ready for that straight away.

Job Interview Strategies

The eleven strategies I've laid out on this page, won't take a lot of preparing for because they are mostly just good commonsense, but too many people seem to insist on 'winging it' which is not a very good interview strategy.

Most of all, there is every reason to succeed because the hiring organization has already told you what it wants either in the 'help wanted' ad or in the job description package they send out to applicants.

Interview Tips

Please read these Job Interview Tips carefully because the most important step towards getting the job you want is when you meet the potential employer for a face to face interview. Everything else is secondary and when you understand what the interview really means to the employer you will ideally be coming out with the job offer. Here are a few job interview tips that will help you to have a successful interview...

Networking For Jobs

Networking for jobs is one of the most important business and career development skills anyone can learn. It's important for everyone and is particularly effective for finding job vacancies, especially management jobs. When done in the right way, it can open up all sorts of new business opportunities and make new contacts who can help you in the future. Yet, even to a seasoned professional, heeding this valuable career advice, it can seem intimidating or positively scary some of the time.

Self Confidence

Self Confidence inevitably takes a knock when you lose your job – whatever the reason. What I’m going to describe is my version of what I believe you are going through, how it affects you, how it may affect your family or loved ones and what you can do about regaining your self confidence.

Dress For Success

Dress for Success and Get the Visual Messages Right! Body language is all about looking right for the job you applied and the organization you applied to, plus being seen by the hiring manager as someone who will 'fit in'.

Personal Marketing

The preparation of some self-marketing, personally spoken “Presentation” statements can give you a real edge when it comes to your turn to talk about yourself. The importance of positive body language and a good self-introduction in your interview should not be under-estimated. Neither should the value of an outstanding CV be forgotten. These personal marketing statements can easily be learned and delivered when you need them.

Presentation Paranoia

By following some simple steps you can improve your skills in this area, reduce your Presentation Paranoia and build your confidence. As you have more success in making presentations you may well find yourself actually looking forward to doing more of them. Clients, colleagues and other staff will be more responsive and supportive. You will realise the principles apply to groups of 2 – 200 and above, and whether sitting across a desk or in a conference hall.

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