Body Language for Job Interviews

Congratulations!

If you are here probably you just landed on an interview for your dream job.

But apart from the happiness of the situation,
You feel a huge pressure,
You want to be better than the other candidates to get the job,
And most likely you don’t feel confident with your communication skills.

You put so much effort to arrive at this stage that spoiling this opportunity
would feel like a tremendous failure.

Most likely it is not the first time you go for a beer with your friends and they ask you …

• Hey! How did your interview go?

Your pulse starts to accelerate,
first sweat drops pop up in your forehead
and you begin to stammer like a baby.

Then,
you feel the urge to lie and blaming on the interviewer
when you know your performance was far from your best one.

Let me tell you something.

We all have been there.

As you are taking the time to read this post and find some solutions,
I will provide you some tips you can implement to maximize your options.

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Interviewing James Bond.

Ask yourself this question.

What impact do I want to have in the person in front of me?

BOND.
James Bond.
You want them to interview James Bond.

Who would feel more pressure?

The interviewer or 007?
I risk my neck out that it would be Anna from HR.
If there is a referent of Extreme Self Confidence is the MI6 agent.

I am not talking about risking your life fighting global crime,
or driving an Aston Martin

I am talking about being perceived as someone who exudes Extreme Self Confidence.
The English spy is not known for his talkativeness,
But he doesn’t need it.

You only need to look at his body language to know what he is communicating.
Most of the interviews in corporate world are carried out online.
Therefore,
we will adapt our tips to digital environments.

Power Pose

 The first of our weapons is going to be our armour.

Having a powerful pose will allow us to show ourselves more confident.
Straight with your shoulders back.
Our body is directly connected with our mind.

When we feel sad,
we lower the head,
hunch the back and
lower the corner of lips among others.

If you try these body sensations when you are not sad you will start to.

On the contrary,
When we feel confident,
we straight our back,
raise our chin and show our chest.

To sum up,
confidence makes us feel bigger,
sadness or fear smaller.

Therefore,
if we push our body posture,
we will feel more powerful and project this emotion to others.

In a context of online interview,
we only need to sit straight,
shoulders back and raise our raise our chin.

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how to speak in public better than 90% of your colleagues

Hand Gestures

Every 1^st of January morning,
I enjoy watching in the TV the Vienna Symphony New Year’s Concert.

Getting a ticket for this requires you to be on a waiting list for 1 year.
And later pay up to 1 200 Euros.

Personally,
I can’t stop paying attention to the delicacy
and softness of the director’s hands.

 Coordinating tens of musicians at once
with the only use of his bare hands and a stick is hypnotic to me.

In your case,
you are going to adopt director’s role but

Not for an army of top musicians,
for the melody of your words.

Hand gestures can help to boost your message making you look more confident and relaxed.
They are like the spicy sauce for a boring meal.

In fact,
they’re an essential element in showing our emotions without words.

Here is how to use them:

• Treat your hands a storytelling tool. They help to bring life to your words making them more expressive.
• Don’t overuse them. They accompany your words. Robin knows Batman is the protagonist.
• During and online interview rest your hands on the table and use them to emphasize your words. In the same way News presenters do.
• Use them to convey numbers and signals. 

Facial Expressions

Could you say if a person form Korea, Nigeria or Colombia is…

Sad?
Happy?
Angry?

I bet you do.

There is a list of universal human emotions
common to all of us irrespective of our culture or context:
Shame, satisfaction, relief, disappointment, pride, rejection, etc.

This is the theory of the American psychologist Paul Ekman
developed through all his career.

Emotions and their facial expressions are biologically innate to all human beings.

No matter if you are from New York or from an isolated tribe in Congo.
People rely on your face to figure out what you are feeling.

If you are expressive,
people will get you better.

Communication is nothing different from acting.
You need to think, act and feel as the role you are interpreting.
In your case,
you are James Bond directing a band of musicians.

Virtual environments limit our ability to communicate as you can only show:

Your face, hands, and half of your core body.

In a job interview there are tens of factor we don’t control.

How many candidates do they have?
Who is interviewing us?
Is he tired or not? Experienced or not?
Are you the first or the last in the list?

Although,
there is one you CAN control.

YOU.

Most of interview questions are the same.
Check here some of them.

You can prepare them.

What most of the people forget about is to rehearse your answers.

Record yourself and check all the tips I mentioned before.

Don’t you like how you look in the video?
That is how interviewers will perceive you.

Practice, practice, practice
until you see you master your speech,
and you feel you are the new 007.

If this is not enough and you would like to learn more,

I have something for you.