8 small things people use to judge your personality

8 small things people use to judge your personality8 small things people use to judge your personalityThe human brain is hardwired to judge. This survival mechanism makes it very hard to meet someone without evaluating and interpreting their behavior.While we tend to think that our judgments are based on the content of conversations and other obvious behaviors, the research says otherwise. In fact, the majority of our judgments are focused on smaller, subtler things, such as handshakes and body language. We often form complete opinions about people based solely on these behaviors.We are so good at judging other peoples personalities based on small things that, in a University of Kansas study, subjects accurately predicted peoples personality traits, such as extroversion/introversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, simply by looking at pictures of the shoes they wore.Looking for an inspiring way to start your day? Sign up forMorning MotivationIts our friendly Facebook robot that will send you a quick notlagee every weekday morning to help you start strong. Sign up here by clicking Get StartedOur unconscious behaviors have a language of their own, and their words arent always kind. These behaviors have likely become an integral part of who you are, and if you dont spend much time thinking about them, now is a good time to start, because they could be sabotaging your career.How you treat waiters and receptionistsHow you treat support staff is so indicative of your makeup that it has become a common bewerbungsgesprch tactic. By gauging how you interact with support staff on your way in and out of the building, interviewers get a sense for how you treat people in general. fruchtwein people act the part when theyre speaking to the hiring manager or other important people, but some will pull a Jekyll and Hyde act the moment they walk out the door, treating others with disdain or indifference. Business lunches are another place thi s comes to light. No matter how nice you are to the people you have lunch with, its all for naught if those people witness you behaving badly toward others.How often you check your phoneTheres nothing mora frustrating than someone pulling out their phone mid-conversation. Doing so conveys a lack of respect, attention, listening skills, and willpower. Unless its an emergency, its wise to keep your phone holstered. A study from Elon University confirms that pulling out your phone during a conversation lowers both the quality and quantity of face-to-face interactions.Repetitive, nervous habitsTouching your nails or face or picking at your skin typically indicates that youre nervous, overwhelmed, and not in control. Research from the University of Michigan suggests that these nervous habits are indicative of a perfectionistic personality, and that perfectionists are more likely to engage in these habits when theyre frustrated or bored.How long you take to ask questionsHave you ever had a conversation with someone where they talked about themselves the entire time? The amount of time someone allows to pass before they take an interest in you is a strong personality indicator. People who only talk about themselves tend to be loud, self-absorbed takers. People who only ask questions and share little about themselves are usually quiet, humble givers. Those who strike a nice balance of give-and-take are reciprocators and good conversationalists.Your handshakeIts common for people to associate a weak handshake with a lack of confidence and an overall lackadaisical attitude. A study at the University of Alabama showed that, although it isnt safe to draw assumptions about someones competence based on their handshake, you can accurately identify personality traits. Specifically, the study found that a firm handshake equates with being less shy, less neurotic, and more extroverted.TardinessShowing up late leads people to think that you lack respect and tend to procrastinate , as well as being lazy or disinterested. Contrary to these perceptions, a San Diego State University study by Jeff Conte revealed that tardiness is typically seen in people who multitask, or are high in relaxed, Type B personality traits. Contes study found that Type B individuals are often late because they experience time more slowly than the rest of us. Bottom line here is not to read too much into people showing up late. Its better to ask whats behind it than to make assumptions.HandwritingThere are all manner of false stereotypes attempting to relate your handwriting to your personality. For example, people believe that how hard you press down on the paper relates to how uptight you are, the slant of your writing indicates introversion or extroversion, and the neatness/sloppiness of your writing reveals organizational tendencies. The research is inconclusive at best when it comes to handwriting and personality. If you have an important letter to write, Id suggest sticking to t he keyboard to keep things neutral.Eye contactThe key to eye contact is balance. While its important to maintain eye contact, doing so 100% of the time is perceived as aggressive and creepy. At the same time, if you only maintain eye contact for a small portion of the conversation, youll come across as disinterested, shy, or embarrassed. Studies show that maintaining eye contact for roughly 60% of a conversation strikes the right balance and makes you come across as interested, friendly, and trustworthy.Bringing it all togetherSometimes the little things in life make a big difference. Its good to be ready for them, so that you can make a strong impression.Travis Bradberry is the co-author ofEmotional Intelligence 2.0and the co-founder ofTalentSmart.Thiscolumnfirst appeared onLinkedIn.8 small things people use to judge your personalityThe human brain is hardwired to judge. This survival mechanism makes it very hard to meet someone without evaluating and interpreting their behavior.Wh ile we tend to think that our judgments are based on the content of conversations and other obvious behaviors, the research says otherwise. In fact, the majority of our judgments are focused on smaller, subtler things, such as handshakes and body language. We often form complete opinions about people based solely on these behaviors.We are so good at judging other peoples personalities based on small things that, in a University of Kansas study, subjects accurately predicted peoples personality traits, such as extroversion/introversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, simply by looking at pictures of the shoes they wore.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreOur unconscious behaviors have a language of their own, and their words arent always kind. These behaviors have likely become an integral part of who you are, and if you dont spend much time thi nking about them, now is a good time to start, because they could be sabotaging your career.How you treat waiters and receptionistsHow you treat support staff is so indicative of your makeup that it has become a common interview tactic. By gauging how you interact with support staff on your way in and out of the building, interviewers get a sense for how you treat people in general. Most people act the part when theyre speaking to the hiring manager or other important people, but some will pull a Jekyll and Hyde act the moment they walk out the door, treating others with disdain or indifference. Business lunches are another place this comes to light. No matter how nice you are to the people you have lunch with, its all for naught if those people witness you behaving badly toward others.How often you check your phoneTheres nothing more frustrating than someone pulling out their phone mid-conversation. Doing so conveys a lack of respect, attention, listening skills, and willpower. Unl ess its an emergency, its wise to keep your phone holstered. A study from Elon University confirms that pulling out your phone during a conversation lowers both the quality and quantity of face-to-face interactions.Repetitive, nervous habitsTouching your nails or face or picking at your skin typically indicates that youre nervous, overwhelmed, and not in control. Research from the University of Michigan suggests that these nervous habits are indicative of a perfectionistic personality, and that perfectionists are more likely to engage in these habits when theyre frustrated or bored.How long you take to ask questionsHave you ever had a conversation with someone where they talked about themselves the entire time? The amount of time someone allows to pass before they take an interest in you is a strong personality indicator. People who only talk about themselves tend to be loud, self-absorbed takers. People who only ask questions and share little about themselves are usually quiet, hum ble givers. Those who strike a nice balance of give-and-take are reciprocators and good conversationalists.Your handshakeIts common for people to associate a weak handshake with a lack of confidence and an overall lackadaisical attitude. A study at the University of Alabama showed that, although it isnt safe to draw assumptions about someones competence based on their handshake, you can accurately identify personality traits. Specifically, the study found that a firm handshake equates with being less shy, less neurotic, and more extroverted.TardinessShowing up late leads people to think that you lack respect and tend to procrastinate, as well as being lazy or disinterested. Contrary to these perceptions, a San Diego State University study by Jeff Conte revealed that tardiness is typically seen in people who multitask, or are high in relaxed, Type B personality traits. Contes study found that Type B individuals are often late because they experience time more slowly than the rest of us. Bottom line here is not to read too much into people showing up late. Its better to ask whats behind it than to make assumptions.HandwritingThere are all manner of false stereotypes attempting to relate your handwriting to your personality. For example, people believe that how hard you press down on the paper relates to how uptight you are, the slant of your writing indicates introversion or extroversion, and the neatness/sloppiness of your writing reveals organizational tendencies. The research is inconclusive at best when it comes to handwriting and personality. If you have an important letter to write, Id suggest sticking to the keyboard to keep things neutral.Eye contactThe key to eye contact is balance. While its important to maintain eye contact, doing so 100% of the time is perceived as aggressive and creepy. At the same time, if you only maintain eye contact for a small portion of the conversation, youll come across as disinterested, shy, or embarrassed. Studies show tha t maintaining eye contact for roughly 60% of a conversation strikes the right balance and makes you come across as interested, friendly, and trustworthy.Bringing it all togetherSometimes the little things in life make a big difference. Its good to be ready for them, so that you can make a strong impression.Travis Bradberry is the co-author ofEmotional Intelligence 2.0and the co-founder ofTalentSmart.Thiscolumnfirst appeared onLinkedIn.

Lessons Learned From My 10 Step Jobs Program

Lessons Learned From My 10 Step Jobs ProgramLessons Learned From My 10 Step Jobs ProgramLessons Learned From My 10 Step Jobs ProgramBy Kathryn Troutman, Federal Career CoachI recently taught my Ten Steps to a Federal Job studienplan at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Here are the top lessons learned from that classPart 1 Ten Steps to a Federal JobI introduced the Tough Love concept about using the USAJOBS Builder in this class. I have looked at thousands of resumes for federal jobs and I have just lost my patience with the functional format, long bullet lists and big, huge blocks of text. I am telling everyone who is sincerely interested in a federal job, to fill out the USAJOBS builder. No arguments.A favorite activity in the resume writing class is writing a short list of your hats you wear at work. A transitioning military member wrote his hats as Operations Manager, Supervisor, Logistics Manager, and Researcher. I added two more hats Database Manager and Customer Services. This list will become the future outline format resume that will be easy for HR to understand and will match a job announcement. He is ready to write his federal resume today for possible new career opportunities in the government in Oahu.Part 2 The Stars Are Lined Up For Military SpousesThis section was truly fascinating. I explained the interesting special hiring program for military spouses who are listed on their spouses PCS orders. This magic PCS order page can allow a spouse to get listed in a DOD job database that can result in getting hired above veterans and most others. The only jobseekers who can beat a spouse will be the priority placement program DOD employees who lost their jobs because of RIF. Getting into the database is challenging for several reasons Its hard to get the appointment with the HRO person to get registered on the database. Its hard to get a great score on the resume so that you can get great matches for DOD positions near your spouses base. But the Program S is intriguing and worth the complications.GREAT STORYA military spouse in the class volunteered her Program S Registration and story. Her registration reviewed her resume for 1720 job series and one option code of OAA, which is Office Automation. So, the scope of her resume score was very narrow. The total possible job series for a resume could be 5. The total possible Option Codes is 10. So, this young lady was taking advantage of less than 10% of the possible matches for her resume. She knows now that she can rewrite the resume, strengthen it, and go back to HRO and get a new and better score. This is a GREAT contribution to the class Ten Steps to a Federal Job Certification Program Join us in 2016This year, our program is better than ever, with new updated curriculum for a standardized approach to teaching federal job search information.In-Person DatesMarch 15 17, 2016 (Tues Thurs) Loyola College Graduate Center, Columbia, MDMay 24 26, 2016 (Tues Thurs) Fort Drum, NYJuly 26 28, 2016 (Tues Thurs) University of California, San Diego, CA Sep 13 15, 2016 (Tues Thurs) Loyola College Graduate Center, Columbia, MDWebinar DatesYou can also earn your certification by webinar.Next webinar series starts February 18Also upcoming dates starting the weeks of May 3 and August 9.Register nowMore information and registration

Asking the Right Questions to Make the Sale

Asking the Right Questions to Make the SaleAsking the Right Questions to Make the SaleIf you spend your sales appointments giving a lecture about your product and how great it is, you are using a presentation style that will cost you a lot of sales. A much mora effective approach is to ask questions that draw your prospect out. When you ask the right questions in the right way, you can end up getting your prospects to do all the selling for you. At the very least, youll learn a lot about what the prospect wants from your product, which means you can laser-focus your presentation on just those points that will sell most effectively. Asking Open-Ended Questions Asking your prospect a series of open-ended questions during your presentation serves three important purposes. First, it helps you to confirm whether or not the prospect is a good fit for your product. Second, it helps you to identify their hot-button benefits, which allows you to fine-tune your pitch. Third, by getting pro spects to talk about various benefits and what they think about them,you sneak the information past the prospects salesperson filter. Not every question listed here is a perfect fit for every prospect, but these examples will give you a good place to start. Ideally, once you ask a few questions, the prospect will launch into an in-depthspeech and you wont need to do any more prompting at all. Buying History By learning more about the prospects previous buying experiences, youll get a glimpse of how that persons mind works and what their buying routines are. A prospects buying history has a major impact on their opinion of salespeople and what they value most in a product. What experiences, good or bad, have you had with this product type (e.g., What experiences, good or bad, have you had with buying cars?)?When did you last buy a product type?What process have you used in the past to buy a product type?Has that process worked well for you? Why or why not?What have you already tr ied doing to fix the problem with your current product type?What have you purchased from us before?How did that purchase go? Purchase-Specific Questions unterstellung questions relate to the specific transaction you are hoping to initiate. Purchase questions help you identify hot-button needs and to design your pitch around them. What prompted you to meet with me today?What qualities do you look for in a product type?Which quality is most important to you?Why would you like to have a product type?What is your timeline for buying a product type?What is your budget?Who else is involved in the purchasing decision? Rapport-Building Questions These questions get your prospects talking about themselves and help you develop a relationship of trust. They can also help you identify the prospects likes and dislikes, which is valuable information. How long have you been with the company? (for B2B sales)Where did you buy that beautiful sofa? (B2C)How old are your children? How many do y ou have? (If you see a photo)What would you like this product type to do for you? Clarifying Questions If a prospect gives only a brief response to an important question, try drawing out more information. Tell me more about that.Can you give me an example?Can you be more specific?How did that affect you? Objection-Seeking Questions Until your prospect voices his objections, you cant do anything about them. If a prospect hasnt raised any objections then a little questioning can draw them out. What are your thoughts so far?Do you have any concerns? What are they?What other subjects should we discuss?Is there any reason we shouldnt move forward?