Maybe you have a first interview scheduled for a fabulous new job or you have to give a talk to a group of business associates. You want to appear confident and professional. What do you do? What are some of the best steps you can take to ensure the image you project is the one you need to be successful? Here are 10 sure-fire tips for standing out and appearing to be at the top of your game.

  1. Walk into a Room as if You Own It

    Make your entry and make it yours. You get one chance to enter a room and everything about you should be remarkable. Your appearance should be clean and pressed, your stride should be purposeful and direct, you eyes should be meeting the other eyes in the room. Practice this every time you enter a room. No fidgeting with clothing or hair, no looking anxiously around the room for a familiar face, no timidity allowed.

  2. Choose Your Words Carefully

    Don’t chatter about mindlessly. It gives the impression that you are young, immature and nervous. Listen to others speak, ask people questions and make your words count.

  3. Minimize but Maximize Your Words

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    Along with choosing your words carefully, you also need to maximize your words. For the words you do speak, make them quality words using correct pronunciation and grammar. Making your words count means that you know the words you use.

  4. Be Precise, Be Concise, But Never Be Rude

    Using the best word at the best time means that you are precise with language. There are many subtleties in English and the difference between using one word or another can tell people more about you than you realize. Mark Twain: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” However, being precise and concise does not mean that you are rude and that you brush people off. It’s quite the opposite. By not hogging up the conversation with your words, you’re better able to ask questions and listen to the words of others.

  5. Keep Your Eye Level On Level with the Horizon

    If you walk into a room and people immediately see your eyes avert to the floor, they will think that you are shy and awkward, not confident and capable. They want to see that you are comfortable around others and that you are not intimidated by others. Keep your eye level equal to the other eyes in the room. As you meet each pair of eyes, give them a smile and you’ll be well on the way to impressing everyone with your confidence.

  6. Posture Tells All: Stand Tall

    An alert reader (thanks, Ken!) reminded me of this one. Remember your mother’s admonishments of standing up straight and tall? Well, she knew what she was talking about. No slouching and no slumping if you want to be taken seriously. A confident person stands tall, with shoulders back and chin held up.

  7. Raise Your Hand With Authority

    Whenever it becomes necessary to raise your hand in a group setting, by all means raise your hand above your head. Everyone who holds a hand up and lets it hover around their chest area (so they can quickly back out if everyone else does) looks silly and shows someone who follows the crowd and can’t make a decision for themselves. Be assertive, know where you stand and if you choose to do so, raise your hand.

  8. Be Black and White when Others are Gray

    There are times when a leader needs to make decisions. If you’re applying for a management job, your interviewers may want to be confident that you will be able to step up and make those decisions when called to do so. While many people fall into the gray areas of a scale when asked questions, the way to stand out is to make sure you are at one end or the other – not floundering around in the middle. If you’re asked questions that begin with “on a scale of one to five, with one being agree and five being disagree…” make sure your answer is either one or five, not the middle degrees of two, three and four. Why? Decision-makers are those who can put themselves solidly at either end of the scale confidently, there’s no reasonable doubt in their ability to “agree” or “disagree.”