- Wear what you're going to use at the interview in advance
and be comfortable.
- Make sure that your handshake is proper.
- Sat upright, good posture, eye contact,
but you are not staring them down.
[gentle upbeat music]
- The human body is always transmitting.
The question is, who is receiving that information?
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- The interview really starts before the interview.
- Outside the door already.
- When someone hands in a CV or their social media.
- When you're parking your car,
are you taking a space that is not allowed?
Are you greeting the security person that is standing there?
- I remember going to an interview once
and the person that was gonna interview me
was in the elevator with me.
- Sometimes I give CEOs the advice,
sit down on that reception stool
and observe the person who's coming in,
because then you can also already see
how they're treating reception staff.
- We assess each other in milliseconds, not even seconds.
- It's not just your body language or facial expressions,
it's everything that communicates.
- Some people are making already, judgments.
- You have to make a good impression,
first by understanding
that you have to make a good impression.
Selling yourself, you're promoting yourself.
- So that's why you need to be confident
and be perceived as trustworthy, as well as competent.
- Know what you're gonna say, what they're gonna ask you.
Prepare, prepare, prepare.
- You don't have a copy of your CV and they refer to it,
you now look less prepared.
- And if you hand it to somebody, hand it with value.
If you do it like this, you know,
a bit of the turtleneck like that,
completely different than this is who I am
and this is what I've done in life.
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- As I walk into the room, I have to remember
that I have to be respectful of that room.
- Always make yourself known,
so you walk up to them, you shake hands.
"Can I sit here?" "Yes, you can sit here."
- I have to make eye contact with everybody in that room
and then I have to treat everybody equally.
- And not focus on the chair that you want to sit in,
but focus on the people that are present in that room.
- As you make your introduction,
I want to hear a strong voice.
I want to see an upright posture.
I wanna see the chin up.
- Confidence.
- No hands in pockets, I wanna see your hands.
I wanna see you ready to engage in an interaction.
- I will shake everybody's hands equally,
not just gonna focus on the highest status person
or the leader.
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If you ask most people,
"Have you ever had a bad handshake?"
They, yeah.
- We all have had those awful handshakes.
- Yeah, it was wet, weak, this, that, whatever.
- If we are meeting up for the first time,
we align ourselves,
and that we have a short handshake, usually it's like this.
- If you are giving me a very light handshake,
don't wanna be grabbing at the knuckles.
If you are giving me a really strong handshake,
I don't wanna give you a loose handshake back.
I'm going to try and match your level of grip.
- Especially when you're a woman,
I've had so many bad handshakes
because of the strength that men probably want to portray,
I still don't understand.
- People try and dominate a handshake,
never try and dominate a handshake.
- But what we do see a lot,
too long, and they keep shaking like this all the time,
or they hold the hand, which makes it very uncomfortable.
Or they probe the hand,
which is the like the finger, like that.
- Keep all of my fingers below your wrist.
- So up to the point where they touch you here
or here, or even here,
and that we would not advise unless I know you very well.
It's like, "Hey, how are you?"
You know, then it's like, "Oh, so good to see you, great."
- Humans impress, first, visually,
then vocally, tone of voice, then verbally,
and the last is haptics through touch.
The brain catalogs all this negative stuff.
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- You have to let them set the stage and the rules.
- Don't talk over them.
- Turn yielding. Does this person ever shut up?
- Some people start talking immediately.
"Hi, I'm here for the job,"
and they start selling themselves.
- Take a breath, you know what you're doing,
and speak comfortably.
- Depending on how many people you're talking to,
I would always wait just to let them take up the moment
of interaction and to tell them what they want from you.
- Show you are engaged, you are actively listening,
and you are in the interaction present.
- Use your hands and use your face to emphasize.
- As they're talking,
and you want you to be nodding along
with what they're saying.
Not too much that you look like a bobble head.
You wanna have a slight head tilt
when you're talking to them,
especially when you're trying to show empathy.
- When people ask a question, make sure you answer it.
Don't be so busy talking
that you are not aware that you've been asked a question.
- I want to see you orientated towards them,
because orientation behavior shows interest.
- Don't pick at your clothing,
don't pick out lint and so forth, don't preen yourself.
- Even because they are uncomfortable,
you might see a self hug, you know those kind of things,
and we so do not advise that.
- The best conversations take place
with comfort for both parties.
- I'm overly sat with my shoulders back and my chest out
trying to be really, really upright,
I look like a robot.
- If you are very comfortable like that,
that's not a good portray.
- Will feel in your body when it feels unnatural.
Listen to yourself,
feel comfortable, and it should feel natural.
- Everybody knows this,
but a lot of people don't do it.
- Don't be caught off guard with any question.
Have a trial interview,
have somebody just ask you a few questions
and see how you come across,
and if you're clearing your throat
and you have to hesitate for too long,
people don't like that.
Hesitation is a killer.
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- Always say thank you.
Show them respect
by showing them you are grateful for their time.
- Expect to, you know, say goodbye and shake hands.
Maybe hand out a card.
- If not, you can just nod,
validate everybody that you had the opportunity.
- This is the last time you have a chance to influence.
- Remember, the interview is only over
when you are completely out of sight.
- You leave the room with proactiveness
and a posture that shows you're active
or that you are energetic to go for what you want to go.
- Often, if you feel that it went really well,
people can completely relax,
and they don't walk out the room with as much confidence
or as much poise as they came in the room.
- You're only done after you're back in your car, home.
- So maintain that confidence level,
maintain that posture, maintain that poise,
until you are fully out of the room.
[upbeat music]
When it comes to virtual interaction,
you're actually at an advantage.
There's actually a lot more control.
- Is the lighting good? Is the sound okay?
- Many people have learned the hard way
not to use the camera that came with their computer.
Go out and buy that or borrow a decent 4K camera.
- You are in complete control of your virtual space,
so you can make sure that it's tidy,
that you don't have things that are drawing attention away.
- There was somebody applying for a high-end job,
and in the background, there was only liquor.
It might be in his kitchen, so you can say,
"Oh yeah, well, he's got liquor in his kitchen,"
but we pick up on the liquor first,
and in our brain, we make an association.
- Eye contact is really important virtually,
you just have to remember
that everything is now exaggerated.
- Your gestures are now reduced to 27 inches.
That's what most cameras capture.
- They can't look at the rest of your body,
so there's going to be more emphasis on the face.
- The other difficult thing with Zoom is the technique.
So we have sometimes a delay of a question,
and that feels awkward sometimes.
Like, can I talk already or not?
And you see the hesitation,
the turn yielding is a bit delayed.
That can throw the interview, interviewee,
or the interviewer off,
so I have to be extra alert on that.
- When they are talking, look at the screen,
and when you are talking, look at the camera.
What people often do is they look at themself.
When we are constantly assessing our own non-verbals,
it's really tiring
and it's really cognitively demanding and draining,
so it creates what's called Zoom fatigue,
and that will affect our non-verbals,
because we're going to show fatigue,
we're going to show disinterest.
- In essence, the rules are the same.
The important thing is that you understand
that you have to be extra alert of your body language,
because there's no room for interpretations.
[upbeat music]
- The goal of any interview
as the interviewer is information elicitation,
as the interviewee is to show confidence,
competence, and trust.
- You're gonna create a conversation with that person,
or you're gonna ask questions as well,
or you will have examples that really apply to it.
- You want to make the other person feel comfortable.
You want to make them feel
that you are someone to be trusted.
- How did this person dress up?
Are your clothes clean or do you have food on your clothes?
I mean, I'm relaying here what I've heard from HR,
they're assessing you
because you're gonna be representing me.
We may have a great brand name,
but it's your face, your presence,
that's gonna make that difference.
- There might be a hundred people applying for that job.
If you come prepared
and you have a genuine interaction
with showing that you really want it,
there's so much more chance in that setting
than, "Oh, I'm just here, this is my resume,
"yeah, please hire me."