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Do You Have Good Job-Search Manners?

You probably know to dress appropriately for the interview and to turn your cellphone off beforehand (or we hope you do!) but there are some finer points of etiquette that can make a real difference in the impression you make during your job search. Here are 10 ways to be sure you're minding your manners while applying and interviewing for jobs.

[See: 10 Things Your Mom Didn't Teach You About Job Searching.]

Be on time, but not too early. Most people know to show up for an interview on time -- but did you know that it's possible to show up too early? Showing up five or 10 minutes early is fine, but showing up earlier than that can actually come across as rude. Arriving very early means that your interviewer may feel obligated to stop whatever they're in the middle of to come out and greet you, and it's not that different from showing up early to a social gathering before the host is ready for you. Your appointment was scheduled for a specific time, and you should assume that's the time the employer really meant.

Be polite to everyone, not just the decision-makers. Some job candidates are warm and gracious to decision-makers like the hiring manager, but unfriendly or even rude to others they encounter during the hiring process. If you're cold or impatient with the receptionist or the person who calls to schedule your interview, the hiring manager is likely to hear about it and consider it a significant strike against you. On a similar note ...

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If you're interviewing with multiple people, make sure you address your answers to all of them. Some applicants will speak mainly to the interviewer who they think is most important, while practically ignoring the other people in the conversation. Not only is this rude, but it's also evidence of awful judgment, since it's highly likely that the other interviewers' input will carry weight (that's why they're in the interview, after all). Be sure you're looking at and making eye contact relatively equally with everyone in the interview.

Avoid the temptation to take Googling to an extreme. Sure, it's good to research the person you'll be interviewing with so that you can get a sense of their professional background. But stick to professional boundaries and avoid any personal information you might run across. If you mention to your interviewer that you like the restaurant they just reviewed on Yelp, or that you saw they vacationed in Spain last year, you're likely to creep them out.

[See: How to Follow Up on a Job Application Without Being Annoying.]

Don't let your eagerness for the job turn into pushiness. Calling over and over, leaving multiple voicemail messages or trying to get other people in the company to give you answers when you can't immediately reach the hiring manager will all come across as overly aggressive and pushy. It's true that job hunting can involve aggravating waits, and it can be tempting to contact an employer multiple times -- but the most likely outcome of that is annoying the hiring manager and harming your candidacy.

Pay attention to your interviewer's cues about time. If your interviewer tells you that they have set aside one hour and have a lot of questions to ask, take that into account as you talk. That means, for example, that you shouldn't spend 10 minutes answering the first question, since that would be 17 percent of the entire interview time! Similarly, pay attention to body language and other cues; if your interviewer looks impatient or bored or seems to be rushing you through an answer, take it as a sign that you need to be more concise.

Don't spend interview time asking questions that you can find the answer to on your own. Asking basic questions about the company that are answered on its website is a terrible use of precious interview time, and frustrating for your interviewer as well.

If you see an employer called you but didn't leave a message, don't try to track the caller down. Sometimes job candidates will see a missed call from an employer and will call the number back to say, "Someone called me from this number." If you reach the main switchboard when you do this, you're likely to end up dealing with an annoyed receptionist who won't know who called you and isn't likely to want to try to track them down. If the person who called needs to reach you, they will try again (or will leave a message). Speaking of leaving messages ...

[See: 8 Things That Are More Productive Than Staring at a Job Board.]

If you call and get their answering system, leave a message -- don't just keep calling over and over. Some candidates are so determined to reach the hiring manager on the spot that they don't leave messages and instead just keep calling and calling, hanging up each time they get the answering system. But many offices have caller ID and it's not going to look good if the hiring manager sees you've called seven times today. It's even worse if they're sitting right by their phone each time it rings, but not answering because they're on a deadline or speaking with someone else.

Say thank you. Writing a short, gracious thank-you note after an interview can help solidify the strong impression you hopefully made during the interview. These days, it doesn't need to be handwritten; email is fine, and often even preferable, since decisions on candidates may be made before a note sent through the postal mail makes its way to your interviewer's inbox.



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