What are important things to keep in mind during a job interview?

When you walk into an interview, the first thing they look for is competence in communication. How can you show that? Through self monitoring, which is defined as the ability to take sociological concepts and adapt to different situations.

Perception process:-

 Interviewers (and people in general) form there perception of you in the beginning. When you meet somebody, you are producing a thousand non verbal and verbal stimuli. There are many stimulus they can latch on to and think about: clothes, fluidity, height, weight, eye contact, race. But out of the 1000, there are only a few things that they are going to latch on to

If you come and start with an outstanding answer, the interviewer is immediately going to latch on to that.Hence, the first thing is to meet their expectations (i.e. being there on time) and the second thing is to provide great and detailed answers that are visually and audibly stimulating to the very first questions. There is something else that is salient to interviewer: alignment. Anything that you can connect (both from same High School), anything that creates an emotional alignment will be powerful in their emotional memory (i.e. Common interests). This is where some research about the interviewer/your potential co-workers/the company can be useful.

Uncertainty avoidance:-

Uncertainty avoidance is a psychological theory that says that we have a primary human compulsion to be anxious when we are uncertain. Most of us are that way. Uncertainty creates anxiety so we pick up on clues that will let give us an accurate picture of what might happen.

Also, remember that your interviewer is also trying to determine your fit within the company. So they will ask you different behavioral questions in order to look for patterns of behavior, value system, ability to adapt, accept feedback. You therefore need to make sure that the experiences you share with them do not send contradictory messages. If the interviewer notices a pattern of behavior, then he will believe what you say, which will reduce uncertainty.

Fundamental Attribution Error:-

This comes from behavioral psych theory and refers to the explanations we create for people’s behavior. FAE is this instinct that we have to look at something negative in someone and attributing it to internal causes. He's late? Ah, he's not organized, lazy, etc. Instead of external attributions: subway was late, etc. When you are discussing something you need to improve, you need to provide detail that it is caused by external causes, so that your interviewer doesn’t jump to the conclusion that it’s a flaw in your personality that is not likely to be corrected. Very important. Remember it. 

Listening Skills:-

I want you to do attending behaviors. Its not about being silent, it involves continuing gestures: "aha", nods of your head, maintaining as much eye contact when listening to when you’re speaking. Its also about revisiting a topic that was introduced earlier, thus showing that you were paying attention. All of these are important.

Veracity:-

When you are being interviewed, the interviewer is also monitoring you on truth telling. For this reason, you need to be believable. He/she needs to see cue convergence. For example, when you are saying something truthful: you’re happy, in engaged body position (i.e. leaning forward). But there are also micro expressions that support what you’re saying. If you have a great example that comes out in stumbling way even though you're smiling, there’s going to be a lack of cue convergence. There needs to be verbal and nonverbal overlap, it needs to be spontaneous. Work on it.