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How can I learn to make a good first impression?

People interview for many purposes such as, a job, a scholarship, a letter of recommendation, and even a dating opportunity!

Learning how to make a good first impression can influence your relationships with friends and can even lead to you being hired for a job. Research has even shown that employers tend to ask applicants questions that confirm their first impression of the job candidate! So how can you be sure to leave a long lasting impression, and one that is positive?

Any information, from the way you dress, to the way you sit, to the outfit that you are wearing and the non-verbal facial expressions that you exhibit, can impact first impressions that people develop of you. First impressions can be formed in milliseconds. So, why is it so important that you make a good one? First impressions can have a long lasting impact and can be difficult to change (Gunaydin et al., 2016). The good news is that first impressions tend to be accurate. Research on teachers found that after watching 10 second clips of an instructor, individual's judgments were correlated highly with the teachers' end of the year evaluations (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993) . Be sure to present an accurate image of yourself! Of course, some situations require that you dress formally, while in other situations it might be beneficial to dress down. Be sure to research and ask questions about what is expected in any interview. Being prepared is one way to help create a positive first impression.

How can you apply psychology to project a positive first impression? Part of the reason that first impressions are so powerful is due to the primacy effect. The primacy effect suggests that we tend to remember items that appear first in a list of stimuli. How could you use this on an interview? Knowledge of the primacy effect suggests that a good technique during an interview is to share key information up front. Prepare for the interview ahead of time and consider what your strengths are as a candidate and how they match the description of the advertisement, whether it is for a scholarship or for a job interview. Then determine how you can divulge this information right at the beginning of the interview.

Reflection

Think of a time that you were meeting someone for the first time.

• What factors helped you to make a good first impression?
• Did you consider what you would wear, what you would say, or how you would act?
• Contrast that experience by thinking about a time that you met someone whom you were not prepared to meet or when you felt that you didn't make a good first impression.
• Why do you think the experience did not go well and with hindsight, what could you have done differently?