Page 244 - Marky Stein - Get a Great Job When You Don't Have a Job-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Fearless Interviewing

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 ask-
ing 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 self-esteem, 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 hand-
shake that is too loose unconsciously communicates to
the interviewer that you are not fully committed. On

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