THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WHERE THE JOBS ARE : BEARINGS : And Be Sure to Mention Your Favorite Subject: You
Compiled by Stu Silverstein & Nancy Rivera Brooks
Toot your own horn, not your interviewer’s.
That’s the advice of management professor Michele Kacmar of Florida State University in Tallahassee, who says a job-seeker’s personality can really be a plus when applicants “build themselves up and talk about their good qualities,” rather than attempt to flatter the interviewer.
Kacmar reached this finding after 80 FSU students trained as interviewers listened to a “graduating college senior” applying for a restaurant executive post.
When the applicant, actually a doctoral candidate, promoted his own ability, he was recommended for the job 41% of the time. But when he buttered up the interviewer, he was recommended just 7% of the time.
