Here’s hoping you’re not looking for a job right now, but if you are, remember these three tips for success. 

When two people meet, especially for the first time, a little non-verbal dance begins.  It’s a dance that’s hard-wired into us – something we learned eons ago as cave people – and it’s all about survival. 

Recent brain research shows that our bodies send out signals to the other people in the room that fire unconsciously in our brains – and are read unconsciously by the other people – before we are even consciously aware of the others. 

The first question your body asks, in effect, is ‘friend or foe’?  If you’re not prepared to answer that positively, you’ll send out a million little body signals that you’re braced for a fight.  The other person’s body will respond automatically, tensing up just as fast as you do. 

That means that any hope of a positive connection is over before you even open your mouth – unless you come in with the attitude of ‘this person is my friend, and I’m really glad to see him/her’.  If you don’t do that preparatory work, your body will almost certainly betray you.

So the first and most important task to prepare for a job interview is to spend some time just before it begins telling yourself, I’m about to meet a friend.  If it helps you, picture someone you’re very close to – a spouse, a family member, a significant other, a close friend – and with whom you’re very relaxed.  The point is to get to your unconscious mind before your instinct does.  That takes a little practice, but the payoff is enormous.

Second, keep your torso open – don’t cross your arms, fold your hands over your stomach, or put your arms in front of you – as much as possible.  Keep yourself oriented toward the interviewer.  The idea is to present your heart so that the interviewer will trust you.  Slight changes in orientation are instantly ‘read’ – again, unconsciously – by the other person.  If you move away, or point yourself away from him/her, the interviewer will trust you less. 

The point here is to be tactful, graceful, and open.  Don’t contort yourself to stay open, but do your best not to close off, move further away, or turn a shoulder toward the interviewer.  There’s a reason the phrase ‘cold shoulder’ still resonates with us. 

Third, prepare what you’re going to say.  If the body language conversation is positive, that means that you’ve got a chance to be heard.  So prepare three important (brief) messages about how you can solve a problem the organization has, and make sure you work those into the conversation – tactfully.  That means you’ll have to do your homework, to know what the organization’s issues are.  

Keep the focus on solving problems for the  organization, and you’ll find the communication during a job interview surprisingly positive and even fun.  

I go into all this in more detail in the new book, Trust Me:  Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma, and also in an earlier series of blogs on interviewing last August: http://publicwords.typepad.com/nickmorgan/the-job-interview/ . 

Good luck and be open!