Non-Verbal Communication in A Job Interview
Nonverbal communication refers to gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye contact (or lack thereof), body language, posture, and other ways people can communicate without using language.
When you’re interviewing for a job or participating in a meeting, your nonverbal communication is almost as important as your verbal responses. Crossed arms can seem defensive. Poor posture may appear unprofessional. A downward gaze or avoiding eye contact can detract from you being seen as confident.
Employers will evaluate what you do as well as what you say, and you can use your nonverbal communication skills to make the best impression. If your skills aren’t top-notch, you can practice them so you make a positive impression on everyone you meet in the workplace and beyond.
The Importance of Non-verbal Communication In A Job Interview
Most candidates carefully prepare what they will say during interviews and networking meetings.
However, knowing what you will say is only part of the picture. Just as important is having an understanding of how to convey your messages through your body language. Your interviewing and networking success will be largely determined by the impression people get of you, and how they respond to what you say.
Non-Verbal Communication in A Job Interview – Skills Examples
Want to brush up on your skills? Review this list of nonverbal skills and work on any areas where you think you could improve.
- Avoid slouching. Sit with your back straight up against the chair or lean slightly forward to convey engagement.
- Steer clear of smiles or laughter when messages are serious.
- Display some animation with your hands and facial expressions to project a dynamic presence. (But avoid talking with your hands excessively, which can appear unprofessional and unpolished.)
- Don’t bring your phone, a drink, or anything else that could distract you to an interview or meeting.
- Eliminate fidgeting and shaking of limbs.
- Establish frequent but not continuous or piercing eye contact with interviewers.
- Focus on the conversation.
- In a group interview, shift eye contact to the various speakers.
- Introduce yourself with a smile and a firm handshake. Be sure that your palms are dry.
- Keep your hands away from your face and hair.
- Listen carefully, and do not interrupt.
- Maintain open arms—folded arms can convey defensiveness.
- Modulate your vocal tone to express excitement and punctuate key points.
- Nod to demonstrate understanding.
- Observe the reaction of others to your statements.
- Read the nonverbal signals of others. Provide clarification if they look confused, and wrap up if they have heard enough.
- Refrain from forced laughter in response to humor.
- Avoid looking at the clock, your phone, or displaying any other signs of disinterest.
- Respect the amount of personal space preferred by your communication partners.
- Rotate eye contact to various speakers in group interviewing or networking situations.
- Shake hands firmly without excessive force.
- Show that you’re interested in what the interviewer is telling you.
- Smile to indicate that you are amused or pleased with a communication.
- Stay calm even when you’re nervous.
- Steer clear of monotone delivery.
- Wait until the person is done talking to respond.
Communicating at Job Interviews
Trust is fundamental to optimal communication. One way we judge trust is by comparing verbal and non-verbal communication.
Your nonverbal communications can either support the tone of your conversation or leave the interviewer wondering whether you’re all talk and no substance. Displaying nonverbal behaviors that are a match for your messages can help you to convince employers that you are genuinely interested in the job and suited for the work.
In the same vein, lack of eye contact is a sign of low confidence and an inability to truly engage with others.
In general, what’s most important is to be positive and engaging. If you feel confident about your ability to do the job and know you’ll be an asset to the employer, you can show that by your actions as well as your words.
Practice Makes Interview Perfect
Practicing your delivery of messages through role-playing with counselors and friends can help you to hone your nonverbal communication skills. Try recording your practice sessions so you can analyze some of the nuances of your style. Here are some tips to practice interviewing.
Spending some time practicing will ensure your skills are up to par. You’ll also feel more comfortable when you’re interviewing or networking if you’ve spent time getting ready. The less nervous you are, the better you’ll be able to communicate—both verbally and nonverbally.
Communicating at Networking Events
When you’re attending career networking events, your nonverbal communication skills matter. If you come across as awkward or flustered, you’ll be less likely to make connections who can help with your job search or career. Practicing how you’ll introduce yourself can make the entire process go more smoothly so you can make the best impression.
Communicating at Work
In many occupations, establishing credibility and trust is a significant success factor. Using nonverbal behavior (like eye contact, for instance) can further demonstrate your sincerity and engaging personality.
First things first: Confidence is not bravado, or swagger, or an overt pretense of bravery. Confidence is not some bold or brash air of self-belief directed at others.
Confidence is quiet: It’s a natural expression of ability, expertise, and self-regard. Confidence is built over time.
Here are 10 ways you know if you have confidence:
1. You take a stand not because you think you are always right… but because you are not afraid to be wrong.
Cocky and conceited people tend to take a position and then proclaim, bluster, and totally disregard differing opinions or points of view. They know they’re right – and they want (actually they need) you to know it too.
Their behavior isn’t a sign of confidence, though; it’s the hallmark of an intellectual bully.
Truly confident people don’t mind being proven wrong. They feel finding out what is right is a lot more important than being right. And when they’re wrong, they’re secure enough to back down graciously.
Truly confident people often admit they’re wrong or don’t have all the answers; intellectual bullies never do.
2. You listen a whole lot more than you speak.
Bragging is a mask for insecurity. Truly confident people are quiet and unassuming. They already know what they think; they want to know what you think.
So they ask open-ended questions that give other people the freedom to be thoughtful and introspective: They ask what you do, how you do it, what you like about it, what you learned from it… and what they should do if they find themselves in a similar situation.
Truly confident people realize they know a lot, but they wish they knew more… and they know the only way to learn more is to listen more.
3. You duck the spotlight so it shines on others.
Perhaps it’s true they did the bulk of the work. Perhaps they really did overcome the major obstacles. Perhaps it’s true they turned a collection of disparate individuals into an incredibly high performance team.
Truly confident people don’t care – at least they don’t show it. (Inside they’re proud, as well they should be.) Truly confident people don’t need the glory; they know what they’ve achieved.
They don’t need the validation of others, because true validation comes from within.
So they stand back and celebrate their accomplishments through others. They stand back and let others shine – a confidence boost that helps those people become truly confident, too.
4. You freely ask for help.
Many people feel asking for help is a sign of weakness; implicit in the request is a lack of knowledge, skill, or experience.
Confident people are secure enough to admit a weakness. So they often ask others for help, not only because they are secure enough to admit they need help but also because they know that when they seek help they pay the person they ask a huge compliment.
Saying, “Can you help me?” shows tremendous respect for that individual’s expertise and judgment. Otherwise you wouldn’t ask.
5. You think, “Why not me?”
Many people feel they have to wait: To be promoted, to be hired, to be selected, to be chosen… like the old Hollywood cliché, to somehow be discovered.
Truly confident people know that access is almost universal. They can connect with almost anyone through social media. (Everyone you know knows someone you should know.) They know they can attract their own funding, create their own products, build their own relationships and networks, choose their own path – they can choose to follow whatever course they wish.
And very quietly, without calling attention to themselves, they go out and do it.
6. You respect others and don’t put down them down.
Generally speaking, the people who like to gossip, who like to speak badly of others, do so because they hope by comparison to make themselves look better.
The only comparison a truly confident person makes is to the person she was yesterday – and to the person she hopes to someday become.
7. You aren’t afraid to look silly…
Running around in your underwear is certainly taking it to extremes… but when you’re truly confident, you don’t mind occasionally being in a situation where you aren’t at your best.
(And oddly enough, people tend to respect you more when you do – not less.)
8. … And You own their mistakes.
Insecurity tends to breed artificiality; confidence breeds sincerity and honesty.
That’s why truly confident people admit their mistakes. They dine out on their screw-ups. They don’t mind serving as a cautionary tale. They don’t mind being a source of laughter – for others and for themselves.
When you’re truly confident, you don’t mind occasionally “looking bad.” You realize that that when you’re genuine and unpretentious, people don’t laugh at you.
They laugh with you.
9. You only seek approval from the people who really matter.
You say you have 10k Twitter followers? Swell. 20k Facebook friends? Cool. A professional and social network of hundreds or even thousands? That’s great.
But that also pales in comparison to earning the trust and respect of the few people in your life that truly matter.
When we earn their trust and respect, no matter where we go or what we try, we do it with true confidence – because we know the people who truly matter the most are truly behind us.
10. You are always looking for information that might prove them wrong, rather than only looking at information that proves them right.
Most people like to think what they have to say is important. If you or I make the effort to share thoughts, feelings, or knowledge, then we want to believe the intended recipient is listening. But honestly, many people are too distracted to really take it all in when someone else is doing the talking. What’s worse is that so many just watch mouths move, waiting for the chance to chime in.
Great leaders understand the value of active listening and get the most benefit from what others have to share. They understand that if you want to be heard and understood, the first step is learning how to listen yourself. The following are actions shared by those who truly know how to listen. Integrate them into your conversational behavior and you might be surprised what you learn.
1. Be present.
Being “in the moment” is not just for yoga or Grateful Dead concerts. If you are going to take in what someone is saying, you have to truly focus your mental awareness on the person. Push distractions aside. Give a person the gift of your attention. Put down the smartphone, turn off your computer screen, put down the book or magazine, and look at him or her with a neutral or pleasant expression. Most people are so accustomed to having half of someone else’s focus at any given moment that this gesture alone will make them feel important and it will allow you to actually hear what they are saying. Try to listen.
2. Turn down the inner voice.
Internal analysis of any conversation is unavoidable and necessary, but often it’s at the expense of objectivity. That voice can actually take over in your brain to the point at which you are no longer listening to the person talking and instead simply listening to the diatribe in your head. There is plenty of time after a conversation to assess the value of what you heard, but first you have to hear it. One technique for quieting the inner voice is simple note taking. Writing down even key words or short phrases will force you to absorb the information coming in. Then you can process it on your own outside the presence of the speaker. As an added benefit, you’ll have a more accurate representation of what was actually said for later discussion.
3. Hold up a mirror.
This is a technique many psychologists and counselors recommend to help alleviate conflict. When the opportunity arises, speak up and describe for the person what you have just heard him or her say. It is OK to rephrase in your own words. Be sure to end with a request for confirmation: “So what you’re most concerned about is that the new hires lack training. Is that accurate?” The speaker then knows you are paying attention and fully engaged.
4. Ask for clarification.
During a conversation, hunt for areas of interest where you might further inquire. Without derailing his or her train of thought, ask the speaker to expand and clarify: “What do you mean by ‘interesting?'” or “Why do you think that is so important?” The speaker will appreciate the interaction, and you will gain better understanding of the person’s perspective as well as your own perception of the information.
5. Establish follow-up.
At the end of any conversation, discuss and determine if there are action steps required. This check-in will alert speakers to your actual concern for what they said, and help them assess their own relevancy to your needs. Express appreciation for their sharing, and let them know what you found to be valuable from the conversation. Making them feel heard increases the odds they’ll truly listen to you when you have something to say you believe is important.
Communication is critical to success!
But what you communicate is more critical.
And of all the things to communicate, being likeable is generally a good goal.
But, being likable is not just doing what other people ask. Being likable is a combination of many ingredients.
Here is a list of 11 simple skills will help you in your job, business, relationships, and life.
(This comes from a Linked in post by Dave Kelpern. Apparently he interviewed dozens of successful business leaders for his last book, to determine what made them so likeable and their companies so successful. All of the concepts are simple, and yet, perhaps in the name of revenues or the bottom line, we often lose sight of the simple things – things that not only make us human, but can actually help us become more successful. Below are the eleven most important principles to integrate to become a better leader:)
1. Listening/watching plus hearning/seeing
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway
The key skill in listening and watching is learning to hear what the speaker wants to say and see what the speaker wants to show.
It is human nature to see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear (it is called Selective Perception and Confirmation Bias). Therefore, the skill we need to learn is to get beyond our own perceptual momentum and try as hard as we can to really understand what others are trying to communicate.
But listening is not necessarily hearing. When you listen, are you just listening for ways to promote your agenda?
The key skill here is understanding your Intent in participating in the relationship. You need to understand why you are listening.
Great leaders listen to what their customers and prospects want and need, and they listen to the challenges those customers face. They listen to colleagues and are open to new ideas. They listen to shareholders, investors, and competitors. Here’s why the best CEO’s listen more.
2. Communicate by Example
3. Authenticity, Transparency, & Honesty
“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.” -Oprah Winfrey
Great leaders are who they say they are, and they have integrity beyond compare. Vulnerability and humility are hallmarks of the authentic leader and create a positive, attractive energy. Customers, employees, and media all want to help an authentic person to succeed. There used to be a divide between one’s public self and private self, but the social internet has blurred that line. Tomorrow’s leaders are transparent about who they are online, merging their personal and professional lives together.
4. Transparency
“As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.” -John Whittier
There is nowhere to hide anymore, and businesspeople who attempt to keep secrets will eventually be exposed. Openness and honesty lead to happier staff and customers and colleagues. More important, transparency makes it a lot easier to sleep at night – unworried about what you said to whom, a happier leader is a more productive one.
5. Team Playing
“Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.” -SEAL Team Saying
No matter how small your organization, you interact with others every day. Letting others shine, encouraging innovative ideas, practicing humility, and following other rules for working in teams will help you become a more likeable leader. You’ll need a culture of success within your organization, one that includes out-of-the-box thinking.
6. Responsiveness
“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” -Charles Swindoll
The best leaders are responsive to their customers, staff, investors, and prospects. Every stakeholder today is a potential viral sparkplug, for better or for worse, and the winning leader is one who recognizes this and insists upon a culture of responsiveness. Whether the communication is email, voice mail, a note or a tweet, responding shows you care and gives your customers and colleagues a say, allowing them to make a positive impact on the organization.
7. Adaptability
“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” -Ben Franklin
There has never been a faster-changing marketplace than the one we live in today. Leaders must be flexible in managing changing opportunities and challenges and nimble enough to pivot at the right moment. Stubbornness is no longer desirable to most organizations. Instead, humility and the willingness to adapt mark a great leader.
8. Passion
“The only way to do great work is to love the work you do.” -Steve Jobs
Those who love what they do don’t have to work a day in their lives. People who are able to bring passion to their business have a remarkable advantage, as that passion is contagious to customers and colleagues alike. Finding and increasing your passion will absolutely affect your bottom line.
9. Surprise and Delight
“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.” -Charles de Gaulle
Most people like surprises in their day-to-day lives. Likeable leaders underpromise and overdeliver, assuring that customers and staff are surprised in a positive way. There are a plethora of ways to surprise without spending extra money – a smile, We all like to be delighted — surprise and delight create incredible word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.
10. Simplicity
“Less isn’t more; just enough is more.” -Milton Glaser
The world is more complex than ever before, and yet what customers often respond to best is simplicity — in design, form, and function. Taking complex projects, challenges, and ideas and distilling them to their simplest components allows customers, staff, and other stakeholders to better understand and buy into your vision. We humans all crave simplicity, and so today’s leader must be focused and deliver simplicity.
11. Gratefulness
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” -Gilbert Chesterton
Likeable leaders are ever grateful for the people who contribute to their opportunities and success. Being appreciative and saying thank you to mentors, customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders keeps leaders humble, appreciated, and well received. It also makes you feel great! Donor’s Choose studied the value of a hand-written thank-you note, and actually found donors were 38% more likely to give a 2nd time if they got a hand-written note!
The Golden Rule: Above all else, treat others as you’d like to be treated
By showing others the same courtesy you expect from them, you will gain more respect from coworkers, customers, and business partners. Holding others in high regard demonstrates your company’s likeability and motivates others to work with you. This seems so simple, as do so many of these principles — and yet many people, too concerned with making money or getting by, fail to truly adopt these key concepts.
10 skills of Confident People
Confidence is not bravado, or swagger, or an overt pretense of bravery. Confidence is not some bold or brash air of self-belief directed at others.
Confidence is quiet: It’s a natural expression of ability, expertise, and self-regard.
1. They take a stand. But they take a stand because they know they need to state their position so everyone is clear, not because think they are always right.
Cocky and conceited people tend to take a position and then proclaim, bluster, and totally disregard differing opinions or points of view. They know they’re right – and they want (actually they need) you to know it too.
Their behavior isn’t a sign of confidence, though; it’s the hallmark of an intellectual bully.
Truly confident people don’t mind being proven wrong. In fact, they look for information that might prove them wrong. They feel finding out what is right is a lot more important than being right. And when they’re wrong, they’re secure enough to back down graciously.
Truly confident people often admit they’re wrong or don’t have all the answers; intellectual bullies never do.
2. They listen ten times more than they speak.
They say we have two eyes and two ears but only one mouth and we should use them in that proportion.
Truly confident people are quiet and unassuming. They already know what they think; they want to know what you think.
So they ask open-ended questions that give other people the freedom to be thoughtful and introspective: They ask what you do, how you do it, what you like about it, what you learned from it… and what they should do if they find themselves in a similar situation.
Truly confident people realize they know a lot, but they wish they knew more… and they know the only way to learn more is to listen more.
3. They duck the spotlight so it shines on others.
Perhaps it’s true they did the bulk of the work. Perhaps they really did overcome the major obstacles. Perhaps it’s true they turned a collection of disparate individuals into an incredibly high performance team.
Truly confident people don’t care – at least they don’t show it. (Inside they’re proud, as well they should be.) Truly confident people don’t need the glory; they know what they’ve achieved.
They don’t need the validation of others, because true validation comes from within.
So they stand back and celebrate their accomplishments through others. They stand back and let others shine – a confidence boost that helps those people become truly confident, too.
4. They freely ask for help. And give help whenever it is asked for.
Many people feel asking for help is a sign of weakness; implicit in the request is a lack of knowledge, skill, or experience.
Confident people are secure enough to admit a weakness. So they often ask others for help, not only because they are secure enough to admit they need help but also because they know that when they seek help they pay the person they ask a huge compliment.
Saying, “Can you help me?” shows tremendous respect for that individual’s expertise and judgment. Otherwise, you wouldn’t ask.
5. They think, “Why not me?” They think I could get “lucky.” They think “Why not try.”
Confident People tend to think that much of success is simply showing up. Once in the game, anything can happen. Confident people simply try more often. It is not that they absolutely believe they are more skillful or experienced than the competition, it is that they believe that they could be.
And very quietly, without calling attention to themselves, they go out and do it.
6. They Respect others.
Generally speaking, the people who like to gossip, who like to speak badly of others, do so because they hope by comparison to make themselves look better.
The only comparison a truly confident person makes is to the person she was yesterday – and to the person, she hopes to someday become.
Confident people understand that anyone can have a new good idea. And anyone can have actionable information. Confident people recognize that respecting others is critical to get good information from them.
7. They aren’t afraid to look silly…
Life is an average. If on average you are not silly then most people that know you will know you are not silly. One instance of being silly does not a silly person make.
And, confident people are not afraid to make mistakes that may make them look silly. All experiences should be learning experiences. And having the experience is about experimenting, and looking silly sometimes.
8. … They own their mistakes.
Insecurity tends to breed artificiality; confidence breeds sincerity and honesty.
That’s why truly confident people admit their mistakes. They dine out on their screw-ups. They don’t mind serving as a cautionary tale. They don’t mind being a source of laughter – for others and for themselves.
When you’re truly confident, you don’t mind occasionally “looking bad.” You realize that when you’re genuine and unpretentious, people don’t laugh at you.
They laugh with you.
9. They embrace “Honesty” is a life style
Being honest with yourself and others is a skill that truly confident people have embraced as a total lifestyle.
The age-old question of “does this dress make me look fat” is not a problem for a confident person. A confident person would only ask that question if they could accept a “yes” response. And a confident person could answer “yes” if that is what they really thought.
Being honest with yourself gives you the confidence to know what you don’t know. Being honest with others gives you the confidence to not have to worry about remembering the lies you may have told.
10. They Experiment
Malcome Gladwell talks about how successful people often spend 20,000 hours practicing their craft before they can succeed. The key here is those 20,000 hours are spent experimenting. Confident people are confident because they have often made a lot of mistakes.
