How to Get Any Interviewer to Agree with Everything You Say
Imagine you are attending a job interview and for some reason you get a feeling the employer is not fully convinced you are the right person for the job, how does this make you feel? As the nerves increase, your mind go’s blank and you start to forget your carefully planned interview questions and answers.
If you new how to get the employer to agree with whatever you wanted them to, what would you tell the employer to improve your chances of gaining a job offer?
Some employers will interview you, checking each answer, looking for your errors and/or weaknesses, if you could plant a suggestion knowing the employer would agree with it, would this improve your chances of employability or improve your interview confidence?
I agree these techniques are powerful, so don’t share them with every job searcher out there or everyone will be getting employers to agree with them. I would add, like all effective persuasion techniques this one is easy to learn!
Pacing and Leading
The pacing and leading technique has been around for a long time, often used in sales, all you do is pace the interviewer’s current situation, creating a “yes” set, followed by a lead – your suggestion or command.
During an interview session, we would pace the interviewer, as a hypnotist would pace his client, by pacing their current experience;
Hypnotist “as you are sat in the chair, listening to my voice….” The client can only agree with the pacing “Yes I am sat in a chair, yes I am listening to your voice”
As the client agrees, you add in your suggestion or command; Hypnotist “you are starting to feel sleepy” the client will carry on saying yes “…yes I am feeling sleepy”
Basically you Pace, Pace (pace again if you like) and then Lead.
Let’s look at this from in an interview situation, you cant say to an interviewer “you are sitting down, listening to my voice, you want to give me the job” or you can’t for that matter, start to dangle a gold watch in front of his face, swinging it from side to side saying “give me the job, give me the job” in these two situations you will probably be asked to quickly leave.
You can pace and lead any interviewer and I would add you need to pace and lead the interview without it being too obvious – pace and lead the conversation as part of your interview answers.
“You have recently won a new contract (Interviewer; “yes”) and you want to ensure your team meet the contractual specifications (Interviewer; “yes”) from my CV you can see me leading your team successfully achieving all the contractual targets (interviewer; “yes I can see you leading my team..I will offer you the job”) I will do this by XYZ”
The interviewer won’t be shouting out “yes” but will be agreeing internally, imagining you “leading the team successful” This technique is about getting the interviewer to visualise what you want them to do, because if they visualise it, they feel more compelled to do it, this is due to people associating emotions to their visualisations.
“Your company has been established for over 34 years and you specialise in selling Egyptian Antiques abroad and in the UK, you are looking to recruit someone like me with a passion for history along with the skills and experiences to sell antiques”
Did you spot the pacing and leading?
“You have already said you are looking to employee a young and enthusiastic person with a creative mind who can handle responsibility, give me the job and I will use my creativity and enthusiasm to add value to your company”
Alone using just one pacing and leading statement will not gain you millions of job offers, I would add you are trying to influence the employer thoughts and image of you throughout the job interview and when the employer imagines “giving you the job” “recruiting someone like you” or “seeing you leading the team” or any other embedded command you have told them to do, you are more likely to gain more job offers, wont you?
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