"Well, actually um, are you sure you want me to answer that question? Because you may not like what I have to say."
"No, really. What does my body language tell you about me?"
We were sitting on a park bench in the middle of the city. "We" refers to my significant other and myself. She also happens to be the manager of a sales support team for a large corporation, and has a number of years of hiring experience. She had agreed to meet me for lunch and tell me about the role that body language plays in interviews. It was noon, the sun was shining, and the pigeons were gathering.
"You hunch your back, and you also tend to look away from people when you talk to them. It happens all the time when you've just met someone at a party."
"OK," I said, watching the other benches fill up with office workers from the surrounding buildings. An old man across the park seemed to be having a rather intense conversation with a seagull.
"Now, if that happened in a job interview, I'd draw a couple of conclusions. First of all, it would tell me that you lack confidence and/or you're very shy. It might also suggest that you're aloof, and that's not a positive trait, at least – not for the type of hiring that I do."
"Yes. I hire for the sales team, usually, and look for candidates who are confident in their abilities, and who'll be able to convey that confidence to potential clients. So, good posture is important, and so, too, is eye contact. By the way, you also tend to touch your nose or scratch your ear when you're talking to strangers."
"Yes, you do. And that just reinforces the whole confidence issue thing. Some people might also read it as a sign that you're not being completely honest with them."
"There are other things that I look for. Candidates who go over their notes before we meet are saying to me that they're not yet fully prepared for the interview. I also expect them to come into my office, when I ask for them – which is to say, I don't expect them to knock or whisper "can I come in now?" after they've already been told to do so. That also tells me that they're not that confident about themselves. Obviously a firm handshake is important, but not too firm."
"You see – a job interview is an odd thing. It doesn't represent a typical work situation, and therefore it's not really a good indicator of how someone is going to perform on the job. So I'm more inclined to look at how someone presents him or herself, rather than review their background, which I'm already familiar with. I look at everything, from the way the candidates posi