How To Project Confidence General

It’s difficult to project confidence – especially if you’re not a very confident person. In fact, the very requirement of project confidence can put unnecessary stress on certain people during times when they’d rather not have additional stress – such as during a job interview.

However, like the old adage goes, sometimes you just have to fake it until you make it. In that spirit, Building Better Opportunities have put together this short Knowledge Hub article designed to help you project an air of confidence – even when you’re not feeling very confident at all.

Our aim is to help you project confidence during interviews. However, you may also find them useful in your day to day life. A more confident outlook can have a massive positive impact on your mental health and wellbeing.

Maintain Eye Contact

The first tip for projecting confidence is to maintain eye contact whenever possible when you’re speaking to someone. This isn’t to say that you should always keep your eyes locked on another person’s or that you shouldn’t blink – because you really should blink. But rather, you want to give the person you’re speaking with the impression that you are looking at them.

Remember, communication is a two way street, and the image of confidence comes from the other person believing that they are being heard – that the person they’re speaking to is acknowledging them, listening to what they’re saying, and that the other person is taking in what they’re saying. A good place to start with this is maintaining eye contact.

Smile

To build upon the first tip, you want to make sure that you’re projecting a positive attitude when you speak to your interviewer. You may be feeling nervous, but it’s important that you not project that nervousness outwards. The reason for this is that people view positivity and confidence as conflated things – that one is indicative of the other.

As a result, it’s important that you present yourself as a positive person during the interview. The easiest way of doing this is to simply smile. Smiling naturally presents a warm and comforting presence that puts people at ease and helps them accept you more easily. Once they accept you, you’ll find it much easier to appear confident to the interviewer.

Project Your Voice

How many times have people told you to speak up? If you’re anything like the writer of this piece – and a lot of other people – it will be a lot. This is because loud speakers are often thought to be confident speakers. Being quiet, therefore, implies a lack of confidence.

Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you are projecting your voice appropriately when communicating with your interviewer and enunciating your speech so that your interviewer can hear everything you say.

With that said, though, it’s important that you not shout. You want to be clear but not loud. Ideally, the level you’re looking for should be loud enough that people can hear you from across the room but quiet enough so that you don’t have to strain your voice or shift your vocal chords. It can take some time to find the happy medium between these two, but once you’ve found this medium, you’ll find yourself using it in numerous situations.

Listen to What Other People Are Saying

As we previously mentioned, communication is a two-way street. It’s not just about projecting your voice at the other people – you’ve also got to listen and take in what they say, too. But not only do you have to listen, you also have to make the other person feel as if you are listening to them.

The way to do this is simple. It’s a technique called active listening.

To actively listen, all you have to do is carefully listen to what the other person is saying and respond appropriately. Where they make a statement, you can smile, nod and agree with an affirmative statement. Alternatively, if you don’t agree you can shake your head, wait for them to stop speaking, and then make your counter argument. It’s really that easy.

Keep Your Breathing Under Control

Our final piece of advice is to keep your breathing under control. If you feel yourself rushing in a conversation, simply take a breath and wait a second or two before continuing on. Not only will this help you maintain concentration and control, but it will also allow you to emphasise certain points. This will make you appear to be a very relaxed, confident speaker – which will make them believe you are a very confident person.

Conclusion

With these tips, you should be able to present confidently to any potential employer. For more information, get in contact with Building Better Opportunities today. Building Better Opportunities is a charity based in Staffordshire. We offer welfare advice and employment support in Stafford, Staffordshire, and the surrounding area.

For more information, take a look at our Knowledge Hub.