How to Win Jobs and Influence Interviewers: A Psychological Exploration of Job Interview Best Practices

Navigating the formal employment interview has long been an imposing obstacle to acquiring gainful employment in the white-collar world, particularly that of the United States. Conventional wisdom offers a wide variety of suggestions for achieving the best possible outcomes from the interview, for instance smiling, having a firm handshake, demonstrating interest in the company, and “being yourself.” Much of this common knowledge is based primarily in intuition and carry-over from standard conversational best practices, rather than rigorous empirical testing. As such, this literature review sets out to bring together the various works of interview research that currently exist, with the goal of determining A) what candidate behaviors are most conducive to high interview ratings, B) strategies for coping with the effects of interview and interviewer characteristics on the interview’s reliability and validity, and C) areas of this still-growing topic that would benefit most from further research. By implementing the findings discussed in this review, employers and employees alike will be better equipped to make the best, most mutually beneficial use of the formal job interview