Patti Wood Body Language Expert Blog : Apr 4, 2023

How quickly are first impressions made and how difficult is it to change that impression? And What Can You Do To Change a Bad First Impression in Your Job Interview?

According to research that has been replicated over and over again, most hiring decisions are made within the first 10 seconds of the interviews, then the interview tends to gather evidence that they were right in their first assessment.

It is difficult to change a first impression but, here are a few things you can do.

Interact in a different place. The research on first impressions says they are more likely to change if the person sees you in a different environment. So if you have made a bad first impression with someone try to see them in a different place or space. If you interviewed in a meeting room, make sure you chat in the hall or break room. If you interviewed on the phone, ask for Zoom or in person.

Check-In at the start and end of interactions. Check in on what you are doing at the beginning and end of every interaction. Since the first thing and last thing you do in an interaction has the greatest impact on your impression noticing what you’re doing and making adjustments in your behavior at those times will give you the most “bang for your buck.” These are also the times people are most likely to have heightened attention on you.

Practice a good handshake.

Research on handshakes and their importance. In research showing Using a 15-second piece of video showing the candidate knocking on the door, shaking hands, and being greeted by the interviewer, the researcher asked a group of participants to rate these applicants on the criteria that the two trained interviewers had been using to assess the full interview. On nine out of the 11 traits that the applicants were being judged on, the observers significantly predicted the outcome of the interview.

What makes a good handshake? Not a bonecrusher, but instead hand web to hand-web and palm-to-palm contact. To get a good grip and make sure you don’t get or give a weak wimpy partial handshake. Make sure your thumb is out and the rest of your fingers are fully flat and rest together. Then here is a trick. Scoop in. Tilt your fingers down and scoop up into the other person's hand so your first point of contact is the web where your thumb meets your forefinger. Then make sure your palm makes full contact with theirs. The scoop insures you a full confident handshake every time. The handshake is in your control.

Make sure you make palm-to-palm contact. Open palms symbolically show a desire to be open and honest in your interactions; not giving a person contact with your palm in a handshake is read subliminally as a lack of openness and honesty. It’s why we hate a wimpy

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.

Do Stereotypes Affect Your Job Interview? How Your Voice Can Impact The Success of Your Job Interview By Author and Body Language Expert Patti Wood

After I received my undergrad degree in Interpersonal Communication with an Emphasis in Body Language and Nonverbal Communication from Florida State University I moved to Auburn Alabama to work on my Master's degree and Study with one of the leaders in the Field. On my first day of teaching, I was gobsmacked by my student's introductory speeches.

Most of my students graduated in the top ten of their high school and had many impressive accomplishments, but their speeches sounded to me like they were uneducated. In part because of their heavy hard-to-understand southern accents and how they dropped their ING's to say things like, "I went huntin'?" "I was fixin' to go to Florida for school but I got/in to Auburn." My students were smart and educated, and I quickly grew to love and respect them but my prejudice affected my first impression. I was studying body language and yet my stereotype of Southern speech still impacted my impression.

Here is just one of the many research studies that show stereotypes affect job interview first impressions negatively.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191021151540.htm

Michael W. Kraus et al. Evidence for the reproduction of social class in a brief speech. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900500116

FYI I also quickly began matching and mirroring their speech and when I visited friends in Atlanta halfway into my first semester at Auburn my friends immediately started teasing me about losing my INGs

I also found out most of my students graduated in the top ten in their high schools in Alabama because most of them came from small towns where there might only be ten students in the graduating class.

How Does A First Impression Effect A Teacher or Public Speaker? By Author, Speaker and Body Language Expert Patti Wood

My best friend is a college English professor. She edited my book Snap, Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma several years ago and was struck by my information on the importance of first impressions and handshakes in the assessment of a speaker. I shared that I took the importance of handshakes and first impressions to heart and always shake hands with my audience members before my speeches around the country, even if I have 500 audience members I stand at the door and greet them with a handshake.

She had been teaching for over a decade and because of this information, she began changing her body language in each semester's first class. She stood at the door and greeted each student. She was stunned to discover that creating rapport with her students improved. Telling me that the connection and back-and-forth conversations with her students use to take several classes and now she felt their comfort and connection immediately and started having amazing discussions in the very first class of the semester.

It's not surprising. A Harvard University study analyzed the nonverbal aspects of good teaching. Harvard teaching fellows were videotaped, and a 10-second silent piece of that video was shown to outside observers, who were asked to rate the teachers on a 15-item checklist of personality traits. Even when Ambady cut the video back to 5 seconds--even to 2 seconds--the ratings remained the same. All the important stuff happened, apparently, in the first 2 seconds. The researchers Ambady and Rosenthal discovered that a person's conclusions after watching that 2-second video clip of a teacher he has never met are very similar to the conclusions reached by classroom participants after an entire semester's exposure.

Are First Impressions Important in Job Interviews and How Quickly are They Formed? By Author and Body Language Expert Patti Wood, Job Interview Body Language

In a study conducted by Prof Tricia Prickett and colleagues at the University of Toledo, Ohio, the decision that trained interviewers made in a 20-minute interview looking at job experience and skills was predicted by random observers looking only at the first 20 seconds of the interview.

A study on first impressions in interviews by Bryan Swider and colleagues at Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology, found that interviewees who made a good initial impression on the interviewer(s) received better scores for the questions they answered in the interview than those who made a poor first impression. Research indicates that the first 20 seconds – the initial greeting when you enter the room and walk across to your chair – in an interview could be key in determining the outcome of the entire interview.

Qualifications for the job, how you answer questions etc. are assessed after the first impression in a live interview. The most qualified candidate who makes the right first impression gets the offer.

Patti Wood, MA - Author and The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.

What's The Difference Between A First Impression and a Stereotype? By Body Language Expert Patti Wood

First let’s define the difference between a first impression, which is based on potentially up to 10,000 cues in less than a minute of interaction with another person, and formed in the limbic system and therefore has a high degree of accuracy, ( 70 percent or higher ) and a stereotype which is based on past experiences, radical, ethnic, socioeconomic and other learned prejudicial information and formed in the neocortex and has a low degree of accuracy less than 30 percent.

A first impression is typically accessing credibility, likeability, attractiveness, and power. First impressions help us asses if someone is safe to approach. So, for example, Attractiveness may seem a stereotypical assessment, however facial and body symmetry and other cues such as shiny hair and clear skin can also indicate overall health so someone is safer to approach and genetically healthy, (approach because they would make healthy babies.)

First impressions happen very quickly. Harvard teaching fellows were videotaped and a 10-second silent piece of that video was shown to outside observers, who were asked to rate the teachers on a 15-item checklist of personality traits. Even when Ambady cut the video back to 5 seconds--even to 2 seconds--the ratings remained the same. All the important stuff happened, apparently, in the first 2 seconds.

Here's the scariest part: Ambady and Rosenthal discovered that a person's conclusions after watching that 2-second video clip of a teacher he has never met are very similar to the conclusions reached by classroom participants after an entire semester's exposure.

Trump's Body Language Going to His Indictment Hearing by Body Language Expert Patti Wood. Trump's Perp Walk Body Language

Here is the full article with my analysis of Trump's body language for The Sun followed by a few highlights https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21932203/donald-trump-body-language-nyc-indictment-arrest/

FORMER President Donald Trump looked like "a scared child reaching for help" ahead of an arraignment on Tuesday following his historic indictment, a body language expert has said.

The ex-president, 76, was seen boarding his jet to New York City this afternoon after he was indicted over an alleged hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, 44, last week.

In one photo where Trump appears to be waving from his car, Wood noticed that he was hunched over.

“That is a protective stance," she said.

"You hunch over to protect yourself from a hit.”

Wood referenced the fight or flight response, which can sometimes entail making yourself smaller or tightened as Trump appears to have done, according to Wood.

“The expression on his face … there’s not a smile. There’s not a playfulness," the body language pro said.

"The musculature is downward … around his eyes, it’s a mixture … it’s both fear and a little bit of anger. They’re combined together.

"Then, the hand is not his typical wave, not his typical thumbs up. It looks more like a child … to me that hand is reaching [for] help.”

This couple at the Country Music Awards.

https://www.tiktok.com/@mtv/video/7217588777227963694?_r=1&_t=8bBdYiQug4k

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