Interviewing -What's Body Language Got To Do With It?

Humans are capable of communicating over four channels - voicenquality, voice content, micro signals and body language. Each ofnthe four broadcasts cognitive and emotional information in varyingnstrengths and forms. Because communication skills, talents andnhabits for each person vary, the overall contributing percentagesnof each can be different. Of the four channels, body languagenprovides the most output making up anywhere from 50 to 85npercent depending on the person or even which expert you maynask. The question is what's all the body language about and whatndoes it mean to the interviewer? First of all body language can obviously contribute to a verbalnmessage that is being broadcast. Often we judge a person's levelnof communication skills based not only on their verbal talents butnalso on the artistic flair of the person's body language. Thisnsubclass of nonverbal behavior includes what are callednillustrators. These are motions, gestures, movements and in somencases facial expressions that support or supplement the verbalnmessage. Second, body language cues are also often directly connectednwith extreme emotional and sometimes cognitive stress changesna person may be experiencing. It's important to note thesenbehaviors are not a part of the stress reactions but are the afte shocks of developing or increasing stress. Think of these cues asnbeing similar to a tsunami. The tsunami occurs because ofndramatic unseen seismic events that occur under the ocean. Body language stress cues occur because of unseen seismicnstress events occurring internal in your interview subject. Finally, the interviewer may observe body language symptoms thatnhave a higher correlation with deception. There are two verynprominent categories of these cues most frequently seen duringndeception - aversion and negation. These cues are not part of thenlie but occur because an emotional or cognitive lie has been told. In this case the person is attempting to deceive the observer bynhiding a strong emotion they are experiencing or faking annemotion they do not genuinely feel. These symptoms can also benassociated with stress subject may experience when attempting tonwithhold information they do not want to expose or pronouncing tonhave knowledge they do not possess. In either case your subjectnhas a great deal at stake in sustaining the deception that canncreate varying degrees of stress. It's important for the interviewer to remember that not all changesnin body language indicate deception but can be nothing more thanna sign of changing emotion. In addition, body language is the onenchannel that is often subject to misinterpretation. One bodynlanguage cue can have multiple meanings and are thereforensubject to misinterpretation. We should also note that diagnosingnevery single body language a person may generate in an interviewnis very labor intensive and concentrating all our efforts of nonverbalncues can result in the observer missing a significant verbalnmessage.nn© 2007 by Stan B. Walters "The Lie Guy®"