People hire people that they like.

I can’t count the number of times a hiring manager and job candidate have clicked in an interview and you can tell when the hiring manager called me to let me know how the interview went, that they really like the person and want to hire them.

A few times, the hiring manager was talking about the person like they were already working for the company which is obviously a great sign. I can recall times when the hiring manager calls me after an interview that went really well and does everything but say “we’ve already hired this person.”

We all have different personalities but at the end of the day, all things being equal, a hiring manager will hire someone they like and get a good sense of. This may sound obvious but I think it bears repeating.

I remember one time when I was setting up an interview for a guy over the phone with the hiring manager. The hiring manager was interested to meet the guy but he wasn’t gushing over him or anything. He just wanted to interview the guy.

A few days later immediately after the interview had concluded, the hiring manager called me to let me know that he wanted to hire the guy. The first thing he told me was that upon entering the hiring manager’s office, the job searcher noticed a picture on his desk of the hiring manager playing the guitar and since the job searcher played the guitar too, he let the hiring manager know. They had a good talk about guitar playing, broke the ice and then talked about the job.

Did the job searcher get the job because he knew how to play the guitar just like the hiring manager?

I highly doubt it.

But he distinguished himself from others who were interviewing for the job, gave the hiring manager an indication that they had something in common, and that combined with his performance in the interview itself got him the job.

When I told the job searcher he was getting a job offer and that the guitar conversation was mentioned by the hiring manager, he apologized to me for mentioning it during the interview, thinking it was bad. I told him that it couldn’t have been bad, he got the job! In fact, I was letting him know that the hiring manager was happy to have had the conversation and got to see a different side of this person he was about to hire, a side he may not have otherwise seen.

Certainly, not all hiring managers want to get chatty and talk about personal stuff and some topics are certainly best left alone ie. politics, race, religion to name a few.

In a world where hundreds of applicants might be applying for the same job you are and maybe a dozen or so candidates might be interviewed, sometimes something small can give you a leg up on your competitors.

Maybe you see a diploma or college degree on the wall from the same school you attended.

Perhaps you speak the same second or third language as the hiring manager.

Maybe you read a publication that quoted the person you’re interviewing with and you slip in during the interview that you read the publication and saw their quote.

Maybe it’s a picture of the interviewer playing the guitar and you do, too.

Lot of little things can help distinguish you from others but in reality it might not be as unimportant as you think.

Oddly enough, while it’s the little things that can often win you a job, there are plenty of not-so-little things that can cost you jobs, too.