How To Judge Impressions You're Making in a Job Interview

We’ve all been there. It’s the morning of that big job interview. You wake up as soon as the alarm goes off after getting only a few hours of sleep. You were thinking too much about what to say in the interview to get any real quality sleep. So, you’re already playing catch up. You go through your morning routine a little faster than usual, hoping to get to the interview at least on time, but hopefully early. Once you’re there thirty minutes early, hoping it makes a good impression, you have to sit in the lobby for over an hour. Then you walk in and meet your new potential employer. The interview you’ve been waiting for finally begins.

The beginning of an interview usually goes well. It’s nothing more than hellos, hand shaking and questions about the weather. Since it would be very difficult to mess this up, the boss is smiling. He doesn’t know you and has nothing to judge you on but your looks and attire. While those might way on his decision, he hasn’t gotten to know you yet.

Suddenly, the questions begin to fire from his end: Why do you want this job? How would you define teamwork? What do you do if your project manager calls in sick and the deadline is today? How important is your job and why?

You’re doing your best to stay cool, but you know the beads of sweat on your forehead are forming. You do your best to answer the questions correctly, thinking of them as dodgeballs or potential landmines. And at that point in time, you look across the desk and try to get a read on your potential future boss.

When you reach this stage and you want to know if you’re scoring well without actually asking, here are some clues.

• If he is explaining details about what they do, you’re off to a really good start. He wouldn’t bother getting into those details if he didn’t have any potential interest in hiring you.
• It’s also good if he asks for details about you. Of course, there are certain questions that are asked to everyone on an interview, but if he seems to go into more specifics, that’s a good sign.
• If he nods his head after your response to a tough question, that’s a really good sign!

Some of the bad signs to keep watch for are when he seems taken aback by one of your responses, looks very serious about everything, rushes through a series of questions, stares at one of your nervous habits, takes a phone call, or mentions he’s going to take a second to respond to an e-mail.

Basically, if his entire focus is on you, you’ve got a good shot.