3 Body Language Mistakes That Sabotage Job Interviews - Your Career Intel

3 Body Language Mistakes That Sabotage Job Interviews - Your Career IntelTell me about yourself.Whats the biggest challenge youve faced at work?So, where do you binnensee yourself in five years?When prepping for a big bewerbungsgesprch its natural to spend a lot of time practicing your answers to these common questions. While the words you choose are important, in an interview its not just what you say, but how you say it. Ninety-three percent of what we convey to others is through non-verbal cues and body language, not words. What stellungnahme is your body language making?Even if you think youre coming off as confident and capable in your interview answers, your body language could be sending a different message. For example, I recently worked with a company that passed on a highly qualified candidate because this individual failed to make any eye contact during the entire interview. Maintaining steady eye contact is an interview essential, yet its still something many of us still struggle with during pressure-filled situations.Perhaps youre so anxious about making a positive first impression or nervous about tough questions you dont realize youre looking down at the table, tapping your foot, playing with your hair or crossing your arms. Unfortunately, no matter how prepared you are for the interview, these negative body language cues project the opposite message, or worse, send a signal that youre being dishonest about your credentials and experience.Early in my career, I worked with body language expert Janine Driver. Janine helped me bring awareness to my own body language and make subtle shifts that took my interview skills from good to great. Today, Im passionate about coaching and prepping my candidates on nonverbal communication best practices. By bringing awareness to your body language habits, you can speak with confidence and conviction, too. Heres howGoal Project confidenceSolution Keep your body open.When you cross your arms or legs, you appear cl osed off, reserved and insecure. Instead, keep your body open. Smiling while talking and place your hands palm-faced up and open on your lap projects confidence.Goal Demonstrate honesty.Solution Maintain eye contact and watch your head movements.Even if you are being completely truthful in your answers, failing to maintain eye contact or subtly nodding your head no when you speak sends the opposite message. Try to keep your attention focused on the interviewers face and avoid looking down at the ground or off into space when answering a question.Goal Convey enthusiasm.Solution Be an active listener.While its important to maintain eye contact, you dont want to stare at the interviewer either. If multiple people are interviewing you, ensure youre staying focused on the person speaking. Lean your body in slightly and occasionally nod your head while your interviewer speaks. Mirror the interviewers body language this subtly signals to the interviewer that youre engaged and enthusiastic about the position.Before a big interview, practice with a friend and ask for feedback on nonverbal cues. Did you maintain steady eye contact or play with your hair? Give your friend the Dos and Donts checklist and ask them to musiknote you gestures. Your nonverbal behaviors may be so ingrained that you dont even realize youre doing themFinally, get in the habit of checking-in with yourself during the interview. For example, if you know that you struggle with eye contact, make a mental note to refocus on the speaker and practice active listening.How do you stay confident and engaged during an interview? I invite you to share your best practices in the comments below.

8 Things You Should Never Say During a Staff Meeting

8 Things You Should Never Say During a Staff Meeting When staff members are called in for gruppe meetings, you dont want to be the one person who makes it a waste of time for all the other participants. Whether youve got a ton of one-on-one meetings, a weekly staff meeting or an all-hands meeting once a quarter, there are some general ground rules for the topics of discussion (only agenda items) that are permitted and the ideas employees can throw out (that relate to those agenda items) in order to have effective meetings.Staff meetings at work are unavoidable, however much you may dislike them or find them to be a waste of time. However, a meeting has many merits it fosters a sense of team, brings remote employees closer to the team, and allows announcements to be made in a more personal and efficient way. Good staff meetings are run intentionally, with a purpose, and are designed to be cognizant of team members time. Usually, there would be an agenda, a clear set of points to be d iscussed as the goal of the meeting. As such, staff meetings are also a distributions-mix that amplifies it amplifies your successful aura if you are an intelligent super-performer and a tactful communicator. On the other hand, if you are not intentional and thoughtful about the things you say, you could put yourself in sticky situations.1. Dont bring up issues that should be discussed privately.Anything related to performance issues (your own or others), questions about leadership directions, complaints toward a team member should always be discussed in private. Additionally, topics as such should only be discussed with the appropriate person on the team and be discussed with complete confidence.2. Dont bring up issues that only pertain to yourself.In other words, dont hijack the meeting and make it all about you. Its okay to mention projects that youre the sole contributor to for the purpose of updating the team. But dont go into the gory details of why things arent working, or the daily challenges you experience, or how difficult it is to work with IT. If the participants dont have the power to resolve or influence changes, dont waste the groups time just so you can vent.3. Dont say, Its not my job or I dont have time for that.This is more of a rule of thumb anywhere at work, applicable outside of staff meetings, too. No one likes to have unexpected work dumped on them on top of their existing workload. But if additional work comes your way, its either that youre the only person that can do it or the work is so important it must be done. You are better off discussing with your manager, in private, if you question your bandwidth as being flexible enough to accommodate the new project. Saying ansicht two things in a staff meeting makes you sound like you are evading responsibilities and refusing to be a team player.4. Dont talk over your colleagues when theyre talking.This sounds like a no brainer, but when you are passionate or just feel strongly for whate ver reason about a topic, sometimes people speak up out of urgency before they realize theyre cutting others off. This behavior is detrimental to the groups team dynamic if certain members of the team feel like they are constantly being interrupted.5. Dont talk about things unrelated to the agenda.It doesnt matter how urgent or how important you think it is, dont bring it up especially if you know it will get people really talking about it. If you truly feel the need for the topic to be discussed, schedule another meeting. The reason why group meetings are voted as the number 1 time waster in the corporate world is that people digress and dont stick to the agenda, or the worst of all, dont have an agenda.6. Dont call your coworker out.This point is borderline common sense, but sometimes under the disguise of for the betterment of the team or serving justice, some of us feel the urgency to call people out on their mistakes, omission, or flaws. Similar to number one, have these discus sions in private. Even more importantly, consider if its your place to bring up the issue to begin with.7. Dont insist on a point of view or position if there doesnt seem to be a consensus.If the team has reached a public impasse, a prolonged debate of the issue rarely fosters the creation of actual agreement. Let the topic rest for a bit, and streamline the options being debated, and ask the team to choose them over email or in a one-on-one environment. Whenever a team member goes on arguing about simply for the sake argument and to be right, its usually irrelevant for the group at that point.8. Never forget to practice empathy.This is a rule to stick to in a lot of murky situations. Would you like to be on the receiving end of what youre about to say? Are there better circumstances under which you can bring this up? How would you feel to be having this conversation right this minute? Asking these questions puts yourself in the shoes of the recipient of what you are wanting to say. Often times, this reverse thinking will answer your question of Should I say this now when youre in doubt. --Jessica is a writer, a digital marketer, social media aficionado and a lifestyle blogger atCubicle Chic.Through her writing, Jessica aims to connect with fellow corporate 9-5ers who may be bound by an office physically but crave for much more in life. She writes