You need to have the right skills to do the job you’re hoping to land. But your ability to communicate that you have them — and can use them to help your prospective employer become more successful — is just as important.
“The things that make us good at communication also make us very, very attractive in an interview,” Charles Duhigg tells CNBC Make It.
Duhigg has studied hundreds of people in authoring three books on productivity, habits and communication. His latest book, “Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection,” examines what sets the most effective communicators apart.
Duhigg shared three communication tips that candidates should take into their next job interviews to connect with the person on the other side of the table (or screen) and make a stronger impression.
1. Give authentic answers
Interviewers know candidates are eager to impress. But if your answers to interview questions sound too polished or canned, you could be doing yourself a disservice.
“They know that you’re performing; they know that you’re there to try and get a job,” Duhigg says. But the more we can “genuinely convey who we are,” the more the employer has “a chance to see whether we’ll actually succeed there.”
Answering questions genuinely, but tactfully, can help you stand out, he adds. “The interviewer is going to remember that answer,” he says. “The best communication is the most genuine communication.”
One of the toughest questions to answer in an interview is “Tell me about your weaknesses.”
If they ask a question like this, Duhigg says, “and I answer it as honestly as I can, it doesn’t mean that I have to expose my flaws, it doesn’t mean that I have to say something out of line.”
Career coach Madeline Mann previously told CNBC Make It that an ideal answer would briefly explain a genuine weakness, but not one that’s “core to the job,” before laying out steps you’re taking to address the problem area.
2. Ask questions
“Think about how many people go into an interview and the person asks them, ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ and the question they ask is completely predictable,” Duhigg says.
The best communicators typically “ask a lot more questions” than their peers, Duhigg says. They also ask what he calls deep questions, or those that center on a person’s values, beliefs or experience.
For job candidates, that might mean asking an interviewer how they got into that line of work, or what their favorite part of working there is.
3. Mirror their body language
Some of the most important communication is silent. Body language can be very telling, and mirroring things like your interviewer’s posture, gestures and expressions can make you a more attractive candidate for the job.
That could be as simple as smiling back when they smile during conversation or noticing when they lean in and doing the same.
“The more we are prepared and comfortable doing that, the better off that interview is going to go,” Duhigg says.
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