Correction Interviews

Interview Body Language and Nonverbal Communication

Corrected by Emir Baycan · on Pass4Sure · 11 July 2026 · View published page ↗

Needs stronger evidenceFactually incorrect

The exact change

Before

maintain eye contact for about 50-70% of the time when speaking and around 70-80% when listening. / "The hiring decision is often made in the first 90 seconds, and everything after that is post-hoc rationalization... First impressions are powerful and they are driven by nonverbal signals more than content." - Organizational psychologist, citing interview decision research / Ambady and Rosenthal found that judges' ratings of brief 30-second video clips of teaching behavior predicted end-of-semester student evaluations / "The number of video interviews where the candidate looked at their own image instead of the camera during the entire interview is striking..." - Hiring Manager, large enterprise software company

After

aim to maintain eye contact for roughly half to two-thirds of the time when speaking, and somewhat more than that when listening. / Much of a hiring decision is effectively made in the opening minutes of an interview, with the rest of the conversation often functioning as confirmation of that early impression. / Ambady and Rosenthal found that judges' ratings of brief 'thin slice' clips of teaching behavior, some just a few seconds long, predicted end-of-semester student evaluations / Candidates who look at their own image instead of the camera during the entire interview are not uncommon...

Suggested change

Softened the eye-contact percentages to qualitative guidance; de-attributed both anonymous quotes to plain unattributed prose; corrected the description of the Ambady & Rosenthal methodology to accurately reflect the real thin-slice clip lengths used.

Why this is better

Softened unverified-precision eye-contact percentages to qualitative guidance, de-attributed two anonymous unverified quotes (including an unverified '90 seconds' figure) to plain prose, and corrected the description of Ambady & Rosenthal (1993) which actually used multiple 'thin slice' clips as short as 2-6 seconds across several experiments, not a single continuous 30-second clip.

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