Interview Tips – What Eye Contact says about you in an Interview

Body language is important in any social setting and can help the other person determine how you feel about a situation, especially eye contact. In this blog, Interview Tips Eye Contact, you will learn what eye contact conveys about you during a interview.

Eye contact with an interviewer during an interview conveys many different messages; the most important being confidence and self-esteem which are both important qualities to have as an employee. The interviewer is also able to gage your interest level based on the amount of eye contact you make. If you are constantly having shifty eyes and keep your gaze away from the interviewers, it may show a lack of interest in the opportunity on your part and it can also be seen as disrespectful. However, this may not necessarily be the case in all parts of the world as it is in North America. In Japan for example, it is considered incredibly rude to maintain constant eye contact.

Build Trust

An appropriate amount of eye contact during an interview is extremely necessary in order to help convey sincerity as well as honesty. If you continuously avoid eye contact, you will have a hard time building a rapport with the interviewer and trust will be hard to establish as well because it is difficult to trust someone who you feel is avoiding making eye contact with you. The interviewer will think that you are trying to come up with a lie to the question they have just asked you. 

Show Interest

Eye contact is a really easy way to convey your interest level during an interview. When you are excited and happy, your eyes naturally tend to dilate and exhibit a certain amount of sparkle, which will help the interviewer pick up on how excited you truly are about the opportunity. Avoiding eye contact will make the interviewer think that you are not interested in the job, company, salary or worse—them.

Look, Don’t Stare – Interview Tips Eye Contact

Even though maintaining a good amount of eye contact is extremely important, remember to look and not stare. You don’t want to stare down your interviewer as that can be seen as threatening and just plain creepy. There are certain tactics that you can use in order to maintain a natural eye contact level. Take a short pause and look away to think about the question that was asked in order to formulate a good answer. Breaking eye contact to think of your answer shows that you are confident and are interested enough to think about the question before you answer. You may even consider bringing a notebook to the interview. This shows your interviewer that you are interested enough to take notes and learn about the company, and it helps create an effective and natural opportunity to look away from the interviewer. Often times there are more than one interviewer. It is important to make eye contact with everyone that is present in the room, and refer your answers to everyone, not just the person who asked the question.

Interviewing can be daunting, but you need to realize that you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. In order to build good rapport and trust with the interviewer or within any relationship in life, eye contact and body language helps play an integral role. Use the information in this blog, Interview Tips Eye Contact, to prepare for your next job interview.