Health and Human Services Professional Development

BUSTED! Prospective Employers Can Tell More About You Than You Might Think by   Mikki Sherwood   on   August 20, 2014 Nailed it!!…or did you? Have you ever been asked a question in an interview and felt as if you gave the best possible answer? Did you ever feel that you told a potential employer EVERYTHING they wanted to hear and totally nailed the interview? Photo by  mentatdgt  from  Pexels You may be surprised to know that much more is learned from your overall responses to interview questions than from the actual words you speak when answering. A study by Mast and colleagues (2011) took a look into how accurately a potential employer can judge an interviewee during the first impression. The study had interesting findings!! While recruiters are trained to ignore their first impressions of possible job candidates, it appears that they may be fairly accurate in their quick assessments. The research revealed that recruiters were better than the aver...

Impression Management and the Power of Your Handshake by   Constance Harriet, Guest Author   on   August 25, 2014   From previous experience, I have learned that the first impression can make a significant impact on the tone of the rest of a job interview. It has also been documented that handshakes influence first impressions; see our  Power of a Handshake  article. Indeed, handshakes can influence whether the people we meet trust, like, or want to work with us. Bernieri and Petty (2011) took this a step further and examined the links between impressions and perceived traits that convey something about one’s professional work ethic. These researchers found that a well-rehearsed handshake can convey traits such as conscientiousness and extroversion without using words.  Employers who are looking for employees that are detailed-oriented and thoughtful about their work may look for employees who reveal conscientiousness in their handshake, wherea...