To get hired, look honest

Here's some research that could help you out in your interviews with firms this year:

Princeton University psychologist Alex Todorov has found that people respond intuitively to faces and come up with a snap judgment about a person's trustworthiness, likeability and character in a few milliseconds, far faster than our reasoning minds can come to a conclusion.

Since 2005, Todorov has conducted a number of studies on first impressions and found that individuals draw conclusions about another person's character within milliseconds. In one study, Todorov found that a politician's winning margin in an election correlated to how competent they tended to look.

In a recent study, 200 individuals were asked to look at 66 different faces for one of three time durations--100 milliseconds, 500 milliseconds or a full second--and then asked to judge the person's character. The study found that people didn't change their mind if given more time to observe. Instead, the longer viewing period just reconfirmed the snap judgment. Granted, first impressions can be overcome, but it takes work.

"The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn't stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance," said Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology in a prepared statement. "We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way."

Via CNET News.com

So forget those practiced answers or researching your interviewer's background -- apparently the best thing you can do in an interview is "look" like a good employee. This begs the question: How do you look like you're willing to work 100 hours a week?