You Studied the Job, But Forgot the Room: Why Rapport Can Make or Break an Interview

I know a guy called Steve. Sharp, experienced, genuinely one of the nicest people you'd meet. Put him in an interview and something shifts. The room never gets to meet him.

He'd spent days preparing. Technical revision, career history locked, research done on everyone in the room. What he hadn't prepared for was the first five minutes. The bit before the questions started.

The interviewers had already formed a view of him by then. He didn't know that. He was still running through answers in his head while they were deciding whether they liked him.

Rapport isn't small talk. It's the thing the rest of the interview sits on. Miss it and you're playing catch-up for 45 minutes, usually without knowing it.

I've coached enough Steves to know this is one of the most consistent and most fixable gaps in interview preparation. The technical prep is never the problem.

How would you rate yourself with rapport building? Give me a 👍, 👎 or 🤔

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