Mimicking a Statue, (c) 2012 Michael Coghlan (CC BY-SA 2.0). Via flickr.

Imitate Your Interviewer To Get The Job

Forrest ChristianCareers Leave a Comment

Are you going to a job interview sometimes soon? Have a meeting with a prospective client? The other person will like you more and think the meeting went more smoothly if you subtly mimic their body language.

This has long been a part of the salesman’s Influence bag, of course, and is even a goodly part of the original neuro-linguistic programming. If the other person leans back, you lean back. If they put their hands on the table, you put your hands on the table.

Of course, NLP called it “leading” and said it was a great way to manipulate people, even getting someone to want whatever it was you wanted to give them. That’s a bit different from the simple mimickry. Although it can make for a lot of fun in church and funerals.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. People know when you are copying them, so you have to subtly mimic them. You will also want to dress like they do.

Remember: managers are much more likely to make self-enhancement bias errors than team members. This means you are more able to manipulate their impressions this way than you can with potential peers on the team.

All of this was sparked by the The Situationist post “The Situation of Immitation and Mimickry“, which has an excerpt from a recent TIME Magazine article on the subject.

Image Credit: Mimicking a Statue. &copy 2012 Michael Coghlan (CC BY 2.0). Via flickr.

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