This is understandable in one sense, because your boss is likely to spend as much time with you as with his or her spouse. Compatibility is essential.
Tips on being more likable to any interviewer:
- Leave the obituary face at home. Most people are understandably tense before an interview. Don't let this tension reflect itself in a frown or stern look. It makes you unlikable and threatening. Look at the interview as an opportunity to meet a new and likable friend.
- Be positive. Almost everyone dislikes negative people, and almost everyone likes positive people. For this reason, don't say anything negative about anybody or anything in your interview. Try to be as positive as you can about all things that you talk about.
- Almost all people like confident people, and dislike weak, self-doubting, suspicious, confused people.
- Almost everyone likes someone with a pleasant manner, a ready smile and a good sense of humor. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should tell ethnic jokes or do your Richard Nixon imitation.
- All people like goal-oriented people, and dislike those without focus or direction.
- Almost all people like other people who are honest and straightforward and dislike people who seem to be otherwise.
- Almost all people like others who show a genuine interest in them and enhance their sense of importance, respect and self-esteem. They dislike those, sometimes intensely, who in any way slight their sense of self-respect.
- Most important of all, people like others who like them, and dislike others who project feelings of suspicion or dislike. TIP: Make a genuine effort in your interview, as early on as possible, to find something you genuinely like about your interviewer. Don't be afraid to compliment the office decor, the building or anything else that can be complimented. Any sincere compliment or genuinely-felt liking of something about the interviewer will come across and the interviewer will like you in return.
- Almost all people like others who are good-natured and open, and dislike those who come across as suspicious and wary.
- Almost everyone likes other people who are down-to-earth, and dislike those who are haughty. Of course, you may not be haughty, but your behavior may make it seem so. For example, if you let the interviewer carry the burden of doing all the talking, of treating him or her as if they are the host and you are the honored guest, you may well seem aloof and unfriendly.
- Almost all people like others who are interesting, and dislike those who are boring. To be more interesting, talk about what you find interesting, as long as it's relevant to the conversation at hand.
- Almost all people like others who take responsibility and don't blame others.
