Graduate Recruitment

Let’s begin with a couple of interesting numbers to mull over.  The first one is 30.  Thirty is the number of seconds it takes for an interviewer to form an impression of a potential recruit.   And once they’ve formed that impression, research shows that they’re not usually likely to change it.

Now don’t panic!  The first impression you make at the start of an interview doesn’t necessarily have to be the impression that you leave behind at the end of it.  However, we can’t change the nature of human psychology.  Research confirms that when people form an initial hypothesis, they generally try to find a way to confirm that hypothesis with all the things they subsequently observe.  So even though your first impression won’t necessarily make or break the interview, there’s a very good chance that it could!  So really, it would certainly seem to be a very good idea to make the most of those 30 seconds.



But how do you make a good first impression?

Well there’s lots of things you could do.  You could burst into the room with a fleet of high-kicking Las Vegas dancing girls.  Or you could ride in on a baby elephant performing pirouettes on ice skates,  and then serenade the interviewer with an upbeat swing-band version of ‘ All that Jazz’.  However, both these things may prove to be logistically difficult.  Furthermore, not every interviewer will regard a performance of this sort as being entirely appropriate for the professional context.  It’s unfortunate, but it’s true.

So sadly, your effort to make an impression during these 30 seconds will have to will simply have to fall back on those two old foundation stones of job interviews: effective communication and rapport building.

But how do you communicate during the initial part of an interview?

It’s fair to suggest that the pleasantries you exchange in the meet-and-greet formalities of the start of the interview are not a great opportunity to say anything of note.  So in a situation in which you have such little scope to say anything worth hearing, you’re going to have to find a way to communicate without words. Or, to put it another way, you’re going to have to communicate non-verbally.

Non-verbal communication

It is generally accepted in social psychology that the bulk of our communication has nothing to do with words at all.  And this brings us to our second interesting figure; research shows that 60-90% of every interaction communication is carried out using non-verbal cues.  These cues include a whole bunch of subtle signifiers ranging from the pitch and tone of your voice, to body language guides such as your posture, your facial expressions and various other social gestures.  So if you can master these social gestures then you’ve gone a long way towards ensuring that those initial 30 seconds are the deal-maker that’ll result in the rest of the interview panning out on your terms.

As it happens, most of us are familiar with the basics of using non-verbal communication, particularly at the beginning of the interview.  Always dress smartly.  Always stand up straight and give your interviewer a firm hand-shake.  Sound familiar?  And of course, this old chestnut: always look your interviewer in the eye.

Eye-contact

It’s important in the days leading up to the interview that you actively practice eye-contact with your friends, your family and the people you encounter.  Eye-contact is not something that will blow your interviewer away by itself.  However the absence of eye-contact will certainly stand out and create subtle assumptions about you that you’d rather avoid.  A lack of eye-contact can leave the impression of nervousness, a lack of confidence, poor interpersonal skills and poor listening skills.  It can also mark you out as someone who is not telling the entire truth.  So get into the swing of maintaining eye-contact well in advance of the interview and it’ll create habits that’ll serve you when the heat is on.

A further note to remember about eye-contact is that you need to maintain it both before and after the hand-shake when meeting multiple interviewers.  In those nervous moments, many people make initial eye-contact, but then avert their gaze to look down at the hand-shake.  And then, without looking back up, they turn their head towards the next person.  This must be avoided at all costs!  Remember that the interviewer will be the one offering their hand to you.  This means that they’ll be looking at YOU while you’re glancing downwards to accept the handshake.  That’s why you need to make sure that you restrict that glance downwards to a split-second before you re-establish eye-contact  and smile as you shake the interviewer’s hand.  You can then turn your head to make eye-contact with the next person as you get introduced.

Mirroring

Mirroring is a well-established psychological principle that can serve us not just during the first 30 seconds of an interview, but for its entire duration.  It refers to the phenomenon in which two people match each other’s postures, gestures and other non-verbal communications such as breathing, tempo and attitude.  Mirroring occurs naturally in conversations between people who know each other well and have an already established rapport.  However you don’t need to have spent three months backpacking around Europe with your interviewer before you start mirroring each other’s behaviours.  Instead you can make a conscious choice to do so as soon as you meet them in order to build rapport through non-verbal communication.

One thing you definitely need to mirror in those first 30 seconds is their energy, tempo and enthusiasm in those early exchanges.  Your interviewer may greet you with a big, friendly smile, shake your hand vigorously, announce her name and position and express how pleased she is to meet you in an animated voice.  If your corresponding gestures are only lukewarm by comparision, then you have immediately failed to build rapport.  Similarly, if the interviewer conducts the initial exchanges in a polite but formal manner, your response needs to be measured to the same degree.  Otherwise, expect to hear a splat as your rapport with the interviewer goes the same way as a water balloon hurled against the side of a Pajero!

And as you sit down, try to observe other things that they do as they begin the conversation.  What are they doing with their hands?  Have they placed them on their knees or clasped them together, or placed them on the desk?  Are they moving their hands in a particular way when illustrating a point? And are they leaning to one side, or crossing their legs?  And if they are, you should be too.

Of course, you’re not expected to mirror everything that they do.  Otherwise your interview will start to resemble one of those old fashioned routines in which two face-painted mimes stare at each other from opposite sides of an invisible mirror and proceed to copy every movement the other one makes.  This situation is only desirable if you’re actually interviewing for a part in a two-man mime show and your interviewer is the other mime. However, in order to take advantage of mirroring, you should be observing the different parts of their non-verbal behavior and trying to reproduce only one or two of them in your own non-verbal cues.

Remember, you have a 30 second window to build rapport and seal a positive impression for the rest of the interview.  Everything you do after that will only confirm what your interviewer has already decided about you in those 30 seconds.  A job interview is no time for shrinking violets!  So go into your next interview not just with the intention to be yourself, but to be the best version of yourself.