Improving Your Interviewing Charisma

The ideas for the following 10-items to enhancing your charisma appeared in MoneyWatch (March 14, 2012 edition), authored by Tom Searcy. The article credits Cynthia Burnham, author of The Charisma Edge. Burnham coaches Fortune 500 executives being groomed for senior-level management.

I have borrowed some of Burnham’s suggestions and applied them to job-interviewing situations. Once you review them, it is easy to envision how and why a hot career opening can easily go south. Rarely do we see ourselves as others see us. Nonetheless, these are invaluable recommendations when you want to connect to others.

Stand and sit-up straight:

It is inconceivable to imagine that anyone would walk into a job interview looking downtrodden and stoop-shouldered, but it happens. When you want to portray self-confidence, you have to stand and sit tall. A slumped over image projects a lack of confidence.

Practice handshaking:

Ever shake hands with someone as if he or she were handing you a dirty rag? Research shows that employers prefer those with a better handshake. A good handshake consists of an appropriate grip and a measure of pressure. Pretend you are on a campaign trail.

Hold eye contact—without staring:

Staring usually makes others uncomfortable, yet if you avoid making eye contact, you project the image of not being trustworthy. Somewhere in between there is a happy balance. Upon initial meeting, making and briefly holding eye contact is highly important.

Lower your voice—not volume:

Do not confuse lowering your voice with speaking softly or whispering. Lowering one’s voice just a decibel or one notch will make a tremendous difference for those with a squeaky or high-pitched voice. A lower voice implies credibility.

Avoid chopping gestures:

Everyone has a few annoying tics. TV character, Adrian Monk, comes to mind. If you have a tendency toward waving your arms, over-gesturing or perhaps fidgeting, you may need to tone it down during job interviews.

Pause before responding:

Even if you are armed and ready with your response to an interviewing question, do not be in a hurry to blurt it out. Pretend the question caught you off guard, or take a breath before answering. This will help you appear thoughtful, rather than rehearsed.

Reduce extraneous nodding:

Avoid undermining yourself with too much head nodding. It is supposed to signal others that you either understand or agree. That say, however, excessive head nodding can make you appear as a bobble-head. After the interview and once out of earshot, too much nodding may make you the subject of comment.

Speak and enunciate properly:

Nothing will kill a job interview faster than sloppy speech habits. Furthermore, poor enunciation often leads to miscommunications. There is a famous old saying to keep in mind: Speak so that I may see you.

Flash smile:

Smiling signals others that you are pleased to see them. This also helps reduce your interviewer’s stress level. They are just as nervous as you are, but for other reasons: They worry about making hiring mistakes. Smile, even if your interviewer fails to do so.

Laugh:

While job interviewing is serious business, you should avoid taking yourself so seriously you inhibit your ability to laugh. It is okay to laugh at yourself. The key is to appear genuine. Naturally, if you are afflicted with a nervous laugh, that is a separate issue.

While you may not be able to address all these issues, consider selecting two or three of the ones posing the greatest challenge. Focus on those, and the less important ones will standout less. From the big-picture prospective, you want to avoid unwittingly setting yourself up for failure.

Interviewing Behavior

Uncontrollable Interviewing Behaviors

This has been mentioned previously, but bears repeating. Your subconscious mind is amoral. That means the subconscious mind does not make value judgments! Only the conscious mind performs that function. The subconscious portion of your brain runs on auto mode. It does what the conscious mind tells it to do.

Here is an example. Let us suppose we have a job seeker who has convinced himself that he is nervous about going on job interviews. Somewhere in the annals of this individual’s life, a troubling event occurred. The event left an indelible impression—in this case, an implanted thought about job interviews.

Whenever a similar event resurfaces, the individual’s panic mode is triggered. Many job seekers will acquire habits (or behaviors) that help them circumvent situations. In some instances, the job seeker may exhibit passive-aggressive behaviors, or create seemingly plausible excuses to avoid performing a task.

This occurs at the subconscious level. The individual does not consciously say to himself, “Okay, I have a job interview, so I better start acting nervous before I get there.” --Of course not. The apprehensions and related behaviors automatically occur without conscious thought.

Whenever this occurs, it is virtually certain the individual will be unable to deliver a stellar job-interviewing performance. If you have confronted a similar situation, you should consider reprogramming yourself. Self-reprogramming is challenging, and sometimes requires outside assistance.

The trick is correctly identifying the problem. Once problem is isolated, you can zero in on changing it. The key to addressing employment-related problems is to use a structured procedure. This can be as simplified as follows:

1.  Identify Problem (i.e. Nervous about job interviews)

2.  Prepare list of common/advanced interviewing questions

3.  Rehearse and perfect responses

Admittedly, this may appear overly simplistic. Nonetheless, this method has proven successful. It can be beneficial to practice delivering your interviewing responses before another individual. Have someone feed you interviewing questions, while you practice your delivery and perfect your responses is highly beneficial. 

While this will not eliminate all interviewing-related stress, it will substantially reduce it. You should also consider videotaping your performance. This lets you see yourself as others do.