It’s a cliché, but people hire people. In a more perfect world, perhaps you’d be hired based exclusively on your skills, experience, and ability to do a job.
But in reality, however good you are as a candidate you’re unlikely to be offered your next job without establishing one thing:
“Rapport” – that is, a good personal connection with the people interviewing you.
This goes beyond just being friendly – although that does help. It’s about making sure your interviewers leave the interview with the feeling that you’re the sort of person they’d like to work with.
So with that in mind, here are five ways you can build rapport in your next job interview, and give yourself the best shot of making it through to the next round:
They say that first impressions last, and the scientific evidence backs this up.
If you’re interviewing in person, start by greeting your interviewers with a smile, a firm handshake (but not too firm!), and genuine warmth.
If your interview is online, try a big smile, and say how happy you are to have this opportunity.
Make some small talk: ask how their day has been, what’s going on in the organisation at the moment, or other open-ended questions to encourage conversation. Really listen to the response and show genuine interest in how your interviewer responds.
Prior to the interview, do as much research as you can into the organisation’s work by reading their website, blog, or emails. Then you can demonstrate your interest by asking a question about something that’s going on in their organisation. Perhaps they have an upcoming event, new program, or piece of interesting news you could ask about?
This interest must be genuine, however. Interviewers will quickly see through attempts to curry favour if you show just a surface-level interest in what the organisation is up to.
During the interview, your interviewers will be spending up to an hour (or more) observing you closely. That means that when answering questions, the way you say things can be almost as important as what you say.
Use the way you sit and your body language to show that you’re engaged with the interviewers. That’s obviously much more the case when you’re interviewing in person, but it can make a difference online too.
You can show you’re engaged in a number of ways.
Where possible, try subtly mirroring your interviewer’s body language. It shouldn’t be obvious you’re trying to copy them, but according to Wikipedia:
Mirroring can establish rapport with the individual who is being mirrored . . . [and] allow the individual to feel more connected with the person exhibiting the mirrored behavior. As the two individuals in the situation display similar nonverbal gestures, they may believe that they share similar attitudes and ideas as well. Mirror neurons react to and cause these movements, allowing the individuals to feel a greater sense of engagement and belonging within the situation.
But be careful not to mirror disinterested or distant body language – that can have the opposite effect!
If you’re applying for an ethical job, then passion is probably one of the key attributes your interviewer is looking for during the interview.
Are you passionate about the role? Or about the broader work that the organisation does? Don’t keep it a secret – make sure to let the interviewers know!
If you’re asked about why you’re interested in the role or the organisation, that’s the best time to show some passion. But even if you’re not asked, a great way to start or end the interview is to mention how passionate or excited you are about working for the organisation or in the particular role, and why.
Don’t be afraid to talk about a personal connection if you have one – that’s one of the best ways to demonstrate your passion is real. For example, if you’re interviewing for a disability support role and someone in your family lives with a disability, talking about how that has affected you personally is a great way to show your interviewers why the job matters to you.
Interviews should be two-way conversations. As well as allowing a potential employer to find out about you, they are a chance for you to ask questions and find out more about what the role involves and the organisation’s culture, processes and work more generally.
But asking genuine questions in the interview can also be a good way to build rapport.
In particular, people love to talk about themselves! So getting your interviewers to open up and talk about themselves and their work will actually leave them with a better impression of the interview and of you.
There’s no perfect number of questions you should ask, but more than one is usually good. Interviewers should leave some time at the end of the interview for your questions, but if you’re deciding how many to ask and you’re unsure how long they have to answer your questions, just check with the interviewer.
Here are a few you might like to try:
How will your interviewers remember you after the interview is over?
According to research by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman:
People judge experiences largely based on how they were at their peak (i.e., their most intense point) and at their end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.
That means the end of your interview is one of the most important moments to make a good impression on your interviewer.
As with when you greeted your interviewer, ending with a warm smile, a handshake and some small talk is a good plan.
If you haven’t had a chance to mention it fully, you could also reiterate your passion or excitement about the role, or about the work of the organisation.
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If you’ve successfully gone through these five steps, you’ve hopefully built a good rapport with your interviewer, so when they sit down to decide who gets the job, you’re the one who stands out in their mind as the person they’d really like to be working with.
By Ethical jobs