Hey guys, it's great to see you again.
If you are new here.
My name is bill Benoist.
I'm a certified professional career coach here in Silicon Valley.
Hey guys, it's great to see you again.
If you are new here.
My name is bill Benoist and I am a certified professional career coach here in Silicon
Valley.
So guys in this video want to talk about creating confidence when you're going into an interview
and you're actually going to do this within the first 20 seconds of the interview because
this is when you're going to be making the first impression.
You knew how important first impressions are.
Well, actually there's been some studies done at the university of Oregon by a professor
there, guy named Frank, and I hope I do not, um, butcher his last name, Berneira, I believe
it is Frank Berneira.
He’s a professor there and he's done a number of research studies on first impressions.
And one of the best ones that I have read this came out of, um, Oregon State University
is where they had these two evaluators, professional evaluators who did some live interviewing
for an actual, uh, staffing company back East or in the Midwest, I believe it was, where
they interviewed, um, individuals for 20 minutes and they rated them on interview performance,
behavior, rapport and professional skills and this what they rated them on during this
20 minute interview.
Now this is what was really fascinating.
They then took the, these, these, these interviews were videotaped and what they did was they
did some editing on the video tapes and they took only the first 20 seconds of the interview,
the, the actual point where the individual was first meeting with the interviewer and
no interview questions had been asked or anything like this.
It was just the initial introduction and the interviewer and the interviewee, you know,
meeting for the first time.
And then they had random evaluators go through and rank those individuals on the same four
characteristics or skills or traits or whatever you want to call it.
But the only difference was instead of 20 minutes, they had 22nd video clip of this.
You know what?
Every single one got the same exact ratings.
Isn't it amazing.
So in other words, the first impressions were really being formed within the first 20 seconds
of, you know, watching a person or meeting an individual.
And I knew this, this professor he'd gone on, he's done a, you know, studies on, uh,
predicting the outcome of, of interviews, even hiring on just the handshake alone.
They've done so many studies on first impressions.
So what is it that you really need to show in that first impression?
Well, you need to show your competence or not competence, excuse me, the confidence
of this, I've said this before, your resume and the phone screen is going to validate
your competence, but when you actually go into the interview itself, it's going to become
more about compatibility and likability than it does about competence.
And one of the best things that you can do is show your confidence.
Now I'm thinking probably there's a number of people out there that are, you know, saying
to themselves, well I'm screwed because I have no confidence when I go into the interview.
That's why I looked up your video.
But here's the thing I can tell you, I can show you demonstrate just how to improve your
confidence and one of the first things is going to be the appearance.
You notice how much more comfortable I am with, you know, dressing up.
My hair is a little bit nicer than when I first came into the interview.
You probably formed a first impression.
I'm glad you didn't leave.
I tried to make that right at the 20 second marks and nobody would just hop off the uh,
video.
But appearance is going to be one of the first things that you can control because the more
you feel what I would say dressed up for the part, the more confident you're going to feel.
Now you don't want to overdress.
Of course, you know, here in Silicon Valley, everybody wears pretty much jeans and a polo
shirt.
So you want to take it one level up.
I mean, that's what I encourage my clients to do when I'm working with them.
One level up from the culture there.
So if the culture is a, is a shirt like this, then go ahead and put on a tie.
If the culture is a tie, then you want to put on a, a, a suit.
Just take it one level up.
You know, make sure that your shoes are shined in that your hair is combed, but make a point
to check your appearance before you go in there because it's going to help you with
your confidence.
Now the other thing is energy going into the room, feeling energetic.
All right?
And how do you do that?
Well, there's a couple of ways to do this.
Number one, you want to make sure it what, what I would call, um, how much space are
we taking?
So if you even noticed this, people who are confident, they take a little bit more space,
okay, they're there, their arms are out.
Sometimes they're sitting like this, you know, they're, they're standing like this are kind
of looking around.
They're there taking more space.
That's not a narcissistic.
Uh, uh, view, that's just simply a person that's feeling confident.
In fact, as I was preparing for this video and I've been preparing for it in my mind
for the last couple of days, my wife and I went out, uh, for breakfast at this little
cafe and I was watching individuals coming into the restaurant waiting for the server.
And it was really interesting because I saw some individuals that came in and they just,
you could tell their back was, you know what, what are, you know, their front, their back
was held back, their head was high, their torso was out and you know, they, they took
up space and other people came in and they were just really tight.
And I could just tell the way people were holding themselves.
And this is important.
So you want to make sure that you hold yourself correctly, you know, um, your back held back,
your head high.
In fact, something called fronting, which is your head looking towards the interviewer,
your torso looking towards, uh, directed towards the interview at your toes, directed towards
the interviewer.
Okay.
But back, not, you know, not holding yourself tight because this is really kind of a defeat
type of pose versus something that's more what I would say prideful your facial expressions.
My God, I cannot tell you how many times as a hiring manager, I would go out and interview
or meet somebody for the first time that was coming in for an interview and they would
not smile.
I mean they, they weren't like frowning or anything, but they just, they couldn't smile
and say, Oh hi, yes, my name is bill Benoist or whatever.
Smile.
I mean, people liked to see teeth and smiling out there.
So this is really important.
You're vocal power.
I mean just [inaudible] this is something that's really important on phones too because
you're even smiles themselves can come through phone.
I mean, if I'm appearance, you know, say you know, hi, how you doing?
Or you know, hi, how are you doing?
You could just tell the difference there.
And people on the other end can tell this as well, but it's also in person with the
interview.
Just have that, you know, my name is bill Benoist or yeah.
Hi, my name is bill Benoist.
Just bring it forward.
Okay.
You can do it.
I know we all have it in us to be able to do this.
Your handshake and other thing that I've seen out there, what they're talking about in the
first 20 seconds, every one of those candidates had a handshake.
Um, but I've seen handshakes and I'm sure those evaluators have to where Oh, they put
out like, Oh three fingers there or uh, I've seen, you know, I, I've seen it was kinda
awkward so that instead of having their hands straight there, you know, parallel from the
sky to the ground that have it tilted a little bit.
There's a little bit more Palm or this or I, there's one guy, he was actually a client
that I had when I was doing a career transition gig and he had the wettest fish handshake
I'd ever seen.
And it's like, God, please don't go when interviewing, you know, with a handshake like this, all
of these things are really contributing to the overall confidence that you are projecting
outward.
Um, eye contact.
Self touching is another one.
You sit down, you know, and you're, as you're talking, you're, you know, kind of playing
with your hands here.
It's kinda like that, that, you know, when you were having a difficult day and your mom
or dad kind of came up and rubbed your shoulder was, you know, kinda falls into this, this
feels good, but you don't need that during the interview.
Okay.
You're confident feeling so quick, your hands to your side, but don't hold them in like
a defeat pose like this.
Don't try to make yourself smaller, make yourself a little bit bigger.
So in conclusion, I just want to say I can't overstate enough how important those first
20 seconds are of the interview.
That's going to say your confidence level.
So I hope you found this video informative and useful.
And if you haven't already done so, make sure that you subscribe to this channel, hit the
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That way you're not gonna miss anything moving forward as I do, upload new career tips and
strategies every Tuesday.
Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.