Smiling Too Much Can Kill Your Shot At Job, Study

Christopher Philip

Research by Northeastern University department of psychology has found that smiling too much on a job interview can ruin your shot at being hired.

“I think it is intuitive that you should smile to show you’re friendly,” Ruben, first author on the study said. “But when someone smiles throughout an interview, it can make them seem less competent or serious.”

The study found that smiling can have negative effects on applicant in all careers, but it was particularly harmful for more serious professions including reporting, managing and data entry. However the disadvantages of smiling decreased for more social fields including teaching, sales, or deejaying.

“Less is better than more, but if you never smile, you probably won’t make a very good impression,” Hall, one of the other study’s co-authors explained.

So how best to use a smile?

The authors found that it was best to smile at the beginning and end of the interviews and less during the middle.

This may be because we tend to focus more of the serious stuff in the middle of the interview and we should aim to be more serious at this time. In the beginning and end, we want to show that we’re personable, warm, but also eager and full of enthusiasm.

Besides the study, this seems rather intuitive. Smiling throughout, for most, would seem rather awkward and out of place.

Resources

Ruben, Molly A; Hall Judith, A and Mast, Marianne Schmid. Smiling in a Job Interview: When Less Is More. Journal of Social Psychology. 2019. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25309976