Can you speak the language of 'impression management'?

Before, during and after job interviews many variables are in play, including candidates' nonverbal and self-promotion behaviors. These behaviors — as well as the nature of the positions to be filled — shape the direction of interviews and how hiring managers perceive candidates. Of course, interviewees often adapt their behaviors to create certain impressions in the minds of interviewers because those will influence how others perceive, evaluate and treat them. Conveying a favorable impression — what I informally call the "likeability factor" — increases the chances that candidates will achieve their preferred outcomes, which could be second interviews or job offers. Who goes into a job interview unwilling to promote their accomplishments, expertise and character? Only the perpetually unemployed.

Occupational psychologists define jobseekers' behavioral approaches that indirectly influence hiring recommendations as impression management. If you've ever shown up for a job interview wearing your best business attire, you've engaged in impression management. If you've been conscious about your vocabulary during a job interview or first date, you've applied impression management. If you've turned on the charm to avoid getting a speeding ticket, you've used impression management. Your attempt to influence a decision or individual in your favor through visual, verbal and written communication can be thought of as building rapport. You're trying to raise your likeability factor, and we've all done it.

Candidates are more motivated to manage their impression for hiring managers who are powerful, of high status or likeable themselves. When the likeability factor runs in both directions, thereby creating rapport, people connect at levels that often make it easier for candidates to manage particular impressions. It helps "grease the skids" toward getting on the hiring manager's short list and improves the chances of receiving a job offer.

If the idea of impression management sounds like behavioral manipulation, you're right. In fact, psychologists claim that public self-presentation is almost always overtly manipulative because the intent is to maximize projected benefits and minimize expected penalties. But it's not sinister at all. You're managing your impression by simply observing others and mirroring their communication style and demeanor in an attempt to connect with them on a relational level that makes you memorable.

(Of course, you shouldn't communicate something that you're not. If the organization hires you, it should know that you'll still be the same person with the same personality a year down the road.)

Can you read, write and speak impression management fluently?

Fluency with the language of impression management has parallels with learning a foreign language. Successful impression management means you can read different people in a variety of social contexts (such as job interviews), write a cover letter and résumé with persuasive style and speak with a convincing confidence about the benefits of your expertise. These three factors work simultaneously in nearly every job interview. They're critical components of building rapport and raising your likeability factor.,

How does this translate to scoring points in a job interview? It's important to understand that even though hiring managers are now emphasizing objective assessments that claim to be more accurate at predicting candidates' potential for future on-the-job success, many who have hiring responsibilities continue to rely on intuition to determine who gets job offers. Even if all candidates for a position had equal skills (and even when they don't), likeability and impression management heavily influence hiring managers' decisions.

We all want to work with people we like and with whom we share common interests, beliefs and motivations. I won't hire an individual who might constantly upset the team or department dynamic. (I made that mistake once.) Some degree of likeability between the hiring manager and the candidate — and a high degree of fit with the organization — must exist so the candidate can continue moving forward in the hiring process. Skills and expertise take you only so far. For some candidates, this is an easy task; for others, it's a challenge.

Candidates fluent in the language of impression management have the ability to adapt to the communication styles of interviewers they're trying to impress ...

Dialing it up or down

Most people monitor how others perceive them at a subconscious level. However, many company CEOs who are self-proclaimed introverts have learned over their careers how to manage that aspect of themselves to accomplish goals and objectives. They're always aware of how far they're extending themselves out from their comfort zones.

But even outgoing, gregarious individuals have to gauge the strength and direction of their interactions, depending on their perceived rewards (job offers, a rewarding contract, a marriage proposal, etc.).

You might normally carefully manage the impression you project but refrain from doing so during a job interview, depending on external cues, or the lack of them, such as personal familiarity with the hiring manager or relationships with other employees.

Also, the more expertise and accomplishments you have, the more likely you'll minimize overt impression management and allow your documented expertise and achievement to speak for themselves. (And that's why it's very important to create an achievement-focused résumé.) However, if you're in significant competition for a job, you'll be more motivated to turn up the volume on your impression to try to obtain some advantage.

When short-listed candidates have equal technical or professional expertise, hiring managers often ask: "Which candidate would my team and I prefer to work with?" As long as many hiring managers rely on gut instinct and personal chemistry to varying degrees when making hiring decisions, people will have to stretch (or contract!) themselves accordingly to remain viable candidates in the hiring process.

During interviews, someone who's typically sociable might appear to be reticent and withdrawn; another individual who's normally quiet and restrained might seem outgoing and present. Which candidate will have the advantage? In both situations, the candidates could be mirroring the hiring manager's demeanor (body language, energy, vocabulary, etc.) or reflecting the tone of the social setting.

The key to enhancing your chances of receiving a job offer is to be fully engaged in the interview environment and with the participants. This might require dialing your impression management fluency up (stretching) or down (contracting) a couple of notches with each person in the interview process.

The language of impression management isn't all verbal; it's also partly visual, such as having a firm handshake with a smile and direct eye contact, appropriate business attire, neat grooming, and so on. Both work hand in hand to create that favorable impression that helps get that second interview — or second date.

Donn LeVie Jr. has nearly 30 years of experience in hiring manager positions for the U.S. Department of Commerce-NOAA, Phillips Petroleum (now Conoco-Phillips), Fisher Controls, Motorola SPS and Intel Corporation. He's a career strategist, keynote speaker, trainer and the author of "Confessions of a Hiring Manager Rev. 2.0 (Second Edition)," and "Strategic Career Engagement: The Definitive Guide to Getting Hired and Promoted." His email address is: donn@donnleviejrstrategies.com.

Impression management language for cover letters

• Create a "future forward" tone by promoting the benefits of your expertise instead of the features of your past experience, which will communicate to the hiring manager and his or her team that you can take the organization from where it is now to where they want it to be. In other words, don't use your cover letter as a summary of your résumé.
• Stop closing cover letters with "hoping to hear from you at your earliest convenience." You must make the next contact.

Impression management language for résumés

• Here's the order of importance on a résumé: 3) job/duty, 2) task completion and 1) a bona fide accomplishment. Accomplishments significantly and measurably contribute to the higher strategic objectives of an organization beyond everyday tasks and responsibilities.
• Your résumé should have a "Professional Summary" (replacing an "Objective" section) immediately following your contact information block, which captures your high-level value and expertise in four or five short sentences. It's the only narrative section on your résumé.

Impression management for interviews

• You're prepared to answer the question, "So tell me about yourself. ..." Don't respond with "what do you want to know?" Example: "I'm a cello-playing kid's soccer coach and active in the PTA. As a problem-solving  , I always keep a balanced perspective on customer support and the bottom line."
• Your most important questions to a hiring manager: 1) "What is your most pressing project challenge, and how can I address it?" 2) "Can you tell me more about your highest project priority that I would be involved with?" These questions contain future-forward assumptions that overflow with the impression management language.