Interview body language, without the folklore

Does body language really account for 55 percent of communication?

No. That number comes from two laboratory studies Albert Mehrabian ran in 1967, and it does not mean what it is used to mean. The studies looked at how people judged whether somebody liked them when the words and the tone or facial expression disagreed with each other, using single spoken words.

The ratio describes how people resolve a contradiction about feelings. It says nothing about ordinary conversation, explaining your experience, or answering a question about a project you ran. Mehrabian has objected to the misuse himself, and the ratio is described in the literature as an urban legend rather than a finding.

This matters practically, not just pedantically. If you believe posture carries most of the meaning, you will spend your preparation on how you sit rather than on what you are going to say, and the second one is what gets scored.

Does power posing work?

The evidence says no, and unusually the original author agrees. The 2010 study claiming that expansive postures changed testosterone, cortisol and risk taking did not survive replication: Ranehill and colleagues repeated it in 2015 with 200 participants and found no hormonal or behavioural effect.

Dana Carney, the original lead author, published a statement saying plainly that she does not believe power pose effects are real. A journal special issue of seven preregistered studies found virtually zero effect, and the British Psychological Society summarised where the field landed.

What is left is smaller and duller: standing somewhere quiet for two minutes before you go in may help because it is two minutes of not rushing, which is a real thing, just not a hormonal one.

So what actually matters?

Think of it as a subtraction problem rather than an addition one. Nobody is appointed because they sat well. People are marked down when something physical pulls attention away from the answer, or when discomfort reads as evasion.

• Repetitive movement. A clicking pen, a bouncing knee or a turning ring is the thing an interviewer remembers, because movement takes attention that was pointed at your words.
• Looking away while answering a direct question. It is usually thinking, but at exactly the wrong moment it reads as avoiding.
• Physical retreat. Arms folded, body angled away, shoulders drawn in. It reads as reluctance whether or not that is what it is.
• A face that does not change. Nerves flatten expression, and a completely still face reads as disengaged rather than calm.

Fix those four and there is very little left to gain. There is no posture that adds marks.

Where should you look?

At the person who asked the question, for most of your answer, and at the others occasionally if it is a panel. Unbroken eye contact is not the target and is unsettling to be on the receiving end of.

Looking away to think is normal and worth allowing yourself. The useful habit is to come back before you deliver the important part of the answer, so the point lands while you are facing them.

On a panel, answer to the person who asked and then include the others while you develop it. Ignoring the two people who did not speak is one of the more common panel mistakes.

What should your hands do?

Whatever they normally do, minus anything holding an object. Gesturing while you talk is natural and helps you think, and suppressing it makes most people stiffer rather than calmer.

The practical move is to take the props away rather than to control the hands: no pen, no phone, no lanyard, nothing to turn over. Hands resting on the table between gestures is a position most people can hold without thinking about it.

Is it different on video?

The frame changes what is visible, so the small things get larger. Only your head and shoulders are in shot, which means facial stillness and any repeated movement are far more noticeable than they would be in a room.

• Look at the camera when you deliver the point, not at their face on the screen. The two are not in the same place, and only one of them looks like eye contact at the other end.
• Sit far enough back that your hands are in frame. Gesture disappears entirely when the shot is tight, and with it a lot of what makes somebody look at ease.
• Put the light in front of you rather than behind. Being a silhouette removes expression completely.

What is worth actually practising?

The first ten seconds, because that is the part you can rehearse and the part where nerves are highest: walking in, sitting down, the greeting. Getting that stretch to feel routine removes most of the visible discomfort from the rest of it.

After that, practise the answers out loud rather than the posture. Delivery follows from knowing what you are going to say, and almost none of it improves by being managed directly while you are talking.