Mastering Interview Eye Contact

Landing a job is about more than your experience and your achievements. A significant factor in how well you interview is eye contact. Good eye contact displays confidence, reveals interest and reflects honesty.

If you struggle with making good eye contact, here are some tips.

1. Don’t Stare.

It’s great to maintain eye contact throughout the interview, but do not go to the extreme and stare fixedly at the interviewer. Try to make eye contact in a natural and friendly manner. For example, look away briefly if you have to pause to think about your answer, then reconnect strongly as you begin to speak.

2. Take a Notebook.

Bring along a notebook to the interview. It will give you a natural opportunity to look down occasionally. Whenever you think it is time to pause eye-contact, you can look down and take some notes.

3. Eye Contact with Every Interviewer.

If there is more than one interviewer, make equal eye contact with each of them. You can not only make eye contact with the one who makes you feel the most comfortable or the one who talks the most.

4. When to Make Eye Contact.

Eye contact while you shake hands with your interviewer. Smile warmly and catch his eyes. Try to leave a good first impression.

Eye contact when your interviewer asks a question. Let him feel that you are interested and concentrated. Eye contact when you deliver the answer. Talking while eye-contacting with the interviewer will convince him that what you say is real.

5. How Much Eye Contact.

While too much contact will sometimes offend the interviewer, no eye contact will mislead the interviewer that you are lying about what you are talking, or at least you are not confident about this job. Therefore, it is important and hard to know whether to do eye contact or not.