Why Body language matters in your Job Interview?

Stop reading for a moment, and notice how you are sitting or standing.

Where are your arms?

What is the expression on your face?

If someone were to walk in the room right now, what preconceptions might they make about you simply based on your body language?

If you don't think your body has a language of its own, think again. A large percentage of communication and how people perceive you comes from body language. This includes posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Your body language might reveal your true feelings or intentions.

Perhaps you feel tired, angry, bored, frustrated, or enthusiastic, but some of these might not be feelings you want to communicate in a given situation. Do you really want your boss to know his speech is making your eyes glaze over?

Understanding and managing body language boosts your confidence in two ways.

First, by managing your body language and sending appropriate signals in specific situations, you receive positive feedback and feel assured you aren't sabotaging your own success or the perceptions of others.

More importantly, when you practice powerful, positive body language, you're sending messages to your brain to reinforce positive, confident feelings. Confident body language actually makes you fell more confident.

People read your body language, often via instinct and without thinking. It’s because our poses and postures are a great source of information. They reflect our mood and our confidence level. We stand and walk a certain way when we’re confident and another way when we’re nervous. In a glance, most people can discern if we’re apprehensive or outgoing, relaxed or aggressive.

So here are few tips to show confidence with your body language.

• Avoid your pockets

The first tip to show confidence with body language is to keep your hands out of your pockets. We put our hands in our pockets when we’re uncomfortable or unsure of ourselves. And as long as you have your hands stuffed down your pants, that’s how other people will view you.

Instinctually we tend to hide our hands when we’re nervous; keeping your hands out in the open indicates confidence and shows people you have nothing to hide. Also, recognize that putting your hands in your pockets encourages slouching, which isn’t good. As an alternative, try putting your hands on your hips; it’s a far more confident posture.

• Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Standing up straight is perhaps the most important means of communicating confidence.

Concentrate on pushing your shoulders back slightly when standing and walking. Nothing major,just a little. That one simple motion does wonders for your posture. Try it in front of the mirror—you’ll be surprised how much more confident it makes you look.

• Keep your eyes forward

Keep your chin up and your eyes forward, even when you’re walking down the street by yourself.

Strong eye contact is probably the single greatest indicator of confidence, according to Glass.If this is something you struggle with, try looking at the other person's eyes for two seconds, looking at their nose for two seconds, looking at their mouth for two seconds, and then looking at their face as a whole for two seconds. Continue this rotation throughout your conversation.With this trick, Glass says the other person won't be able to tell that you're not looking directly at their eyes the entire time.

• Take wide steps.

Wide steps make you seem purposeful and suggest a personal tranquility, which denotes confidence in a man.

• Smile

Confident people smile because they have nothing to worry about. Try this as an experiment: smile at someone as you pass them on the street or walking around the office. Chances are good that they’ll smile back. Now wouldn’t you like to have that effect on people all the time?

• Don’t cross your arms or legs

You have probably already heard you shouldn’t cross your arms as it might make you seem defensive or guarded. This goes for your legs too. Keep your arms and legs open.

• Don’t touch your face

It might make you seem nervous and can be distracting for the listeners or the people in the conversation.

• Don’t slouch, sit up straight

Sit up straight but in a relaxed way, not in a too tense manner.

• Cut out 'um' and 'like.'

People measure confidence in the way a person speaks, so it's very important to be aware of your mannerisms and tone.

"You want to speak while pressing down firmly on your abdominal muscles, because you'll have a more confident, lower, more powerful voice," Glass says. "Cut out words such as 'um' and 'like,' and practice being more articulate."

"Don't run through your words, try to speak precisely and directly," she adds. "Also, don't be afraid to use inflection in your tone and show enthusiasm, because this shows confidence."

• Keep a good attitude

Last but not least, keep a positive, open and relaxed attitude. How you feel will come through in your body language and can make a major difference.

Take a couple of these body language bits to work on every day for three to four weeks. By then they should have developed into new habits and something you’ll do without even thinking about it. If not, keep on until it sticks. Then take another couple of things you’d like to change and work on them.

• At the interview desk

In the interview room, it's OK to place a slim portfolio on the table, especially if you'll be presenting its contents, but put your other belongings on the floor beside you. Holding a briefcase or handbag on your lap will make you seem as though you're trying to create a barrier around yourself, cautions Craig.

Avoid leaning forward, which makes you appear closed off, Bowden says. Instead, he advises sitting up straight and displaying your neck, chest and stomach area—to signal that you're open.

When gesturing with your hands, Craig says, you should always keep them above the desk and below the collarbone. "Any higher and you're going to appear frantic," she says.

Bowden advises that you keep your hands even lower, in what he calls the "truth plane"—an area that fans out 180 degrees from your navel. "Gesturing from here communicates that you're centered, controlled and calm—and that you want to help," he says.

It's fine to sit about a foot away from the table so that your gestures are visible, he says.

• The art of departing

At the end of the interview, gather your belongings calmly, rise smoothly, smile and nod your head. If shaking hands with everyone in the room isn't convenient, at least shake hands with the hiring manager and the person who brought you to the interview space.

You may be tempted to try to read your interviewers' body language for signals about how the interview went, but don't, because they're likely trained not to give away too much. Don't allow any thoughts into your mind that may [cause you to] leave the interview in a negative way.