Not true. People don't make decisions like this purely rationally, calculating the perfect candidate based on cold facts. Stuff like looking sharp but at ease and being polite makes you look trustworthy, efficient, interested in the job and generally more likeable. Just don't over do this or let it look fake, that's the worst.

Every time I try to shake someone's hand and instead get a dead lump of wobbly meat I sincerely feel disgusted. It's one of the worst first impressions you can give.

This is really true, interviewers don't have very long to figure out who you are so immediate first impressions are very important!  If it was all based on pure fact they wouldn't need to interview you in person at all.

Every time I try to shake someone's hand and instead get a dead lump of wobbly meat I sincerely feel disgusted.

lol you're seriously a faggot if you judge someone so harshly based on something as trivial as a handshake

Make sure to maintain an erection at all times. It means you're in charge.

lol you're seriously a faggot if you judge someone so harshly based on something as trivial as a handshake

lol, man this is so funny.

lol, man this is so funny.

??!?? in what way? i honestly don't know what you mean. DietCoke is funny or what he said is funny? in a YOU TELL EM MAN - way or is it just a funny comment? oh wait now i see. yeah that is funny if you miss the clarification yeah

It's funny on a lot of levels, he thinks that having a strong first impression doesn't include a firm handshake which falls under communication.  I just find it funny to hear a comment like that after all the things I have heard and gone through in my life because it's not true. Body language is just how humans communicate, and that includes a handshake.

Having a poor hand shake will not end your career, but why would anyone pick someone who shows poor self-confidence for a position when you have a hand full candidates with equal or better resumes and  show they are confident about the job.

having a poor handshake to me...is like asking someone "hello, how are you" and they say "hi." it's not making me reach out for you at all.

Most communication and judgments about a person are not done by conversation, in fact conversation is usually used to confirm or correct the judgments you have already made about a through body language and behavior.

they wouldn't sit down and say "well he gave a limp handshake i don't like him" just like they wouldn't say "he had horrible breath" or "his wonky eye was distracting"

giving a bad handshake will give a bad impression!

A lot of people don't even realize that they're making this judgment though, you can't really fault people for it since it's purely in the back of their mind.  They get a poor handshake and it leaves them feeling off about the person, they aren't sitting there thinking UGH...POOR HANDSHAKE.  UGH.

Plus, depending on the job, that kind of confidence is absolutely important.  You did well in your job, but there are a lot of jobs where not having that confidence off the bat is going to lead to failure.

i don't know how a good handshake says confidence, i think my nervous handshakes are firmer and also more jittery. i think it shows enthusiasm and excitement though, a weak handshake is kinda like saying 'i can't even be bothered holding your hand'

No, what he said was you shouldn't judge someone as harshly as was being suggested by one piece of non-verbal communication. And he's right. You'd be an absolutely terrible interviewer if you held everybody to such an arbitrary standard.

If you had been my interviewer more than three years ago when I first applied for a job at a graphic design studio, I most likely would not have been hired because back then I had very little self-confidence. I hadn't had a serious job before and the company I went to was quite well-known and had high standards. Despite all that, eventually I ended up working on some really nice projects with them. And by working there I learned quite a lot about clients, projects, deadlines, coworkers, talking to people on the phone, planning, designing and programming, and probably loads more that I can't come up with right now. Looking back, it was more important an event to me than anything else. I've since quit working there to be a freelancer.

And to think I could have been rejected based on something so simple as a handshake. I must have been lucky that the owners of the company weren't stupid enough to believe that if you're not good at non-verbal communication you must OBVIOUSLY be a terrible employee.

You go on as if I said its the make or break deal. Even when I said it wasn't .... Their are tons of factors that go into that decision, your field, or your work, who else were they looking at, where you live.  If your work was amazing or at least better than all the other candidates, then their was no reason to give undeserved value to your subtle body language. This weights heavily on when the employer has a lot of options who are close in skill, he has to start to take into account little things.

No one is saying shy people don't hired, or weak body language is the key to a job. it's just what you can work on for an interview, chances are if you have an interview you already have a resume and work history, what else can you improve for an interview that's coming up in a week? I can't account for all the things that go against my experience and what I learned but I never said it was black and white in the first place. 

However to assume that people don't judge people by those factors is ignorant, yes some (whether it's a majority or a minority) people do judge harshly, so why even take the chance? No one is going to turn you down because you had a good handshake, you knew how to dress for the job, you were polite, you  had good posture or because you were out going.

Yeah I don't know about anyone else but if I was interviewing someone for a job then they'd get hired based on having all of the qualifications necessary for the job and not pissing me off during the 5-10 minute interviewing process. Of which I couldn't give a goddamn about anyones life story or how they shake hands or what kind of character they've got as long as I fill the position that needs filling and don't spot douchebag in them right off.

why in the fuck would I care otherwise?

let me ask you this:

when you do your job (keyword here is job) do you (a) ensure that everything is done to perfection and the upmost standard regardless of how long it takes for you to finish or how much extra effort you've got to spend on it potentially slowing everything else down to a halt or do you (b) do it so that it meets requirements and comes out ok so that you can KEEP DOING YOUR JOB and move to something else that requires attention?

if you answered b then you would not fucking care about someones gloopy face or limp wristed handshake

You act like it's so black and white.

What would YOU rather have, the guy who's fully qualified that looks you in the eye and gives you a firm handshake or the guy who's fully qualified and doesn't?  It's not something that GETS YOU THE JOB, it's just something that may put you just barely ahead of someone else with the same qualifications.  Stop acting like it's THE DEALBREAKER, that's completely retarded.  It's just a thing that makes a slight difference so why not just DO IT and put yourself ahead?

*pulls out credz* hey buddy halo effect

how many people here have had experience interviewing job applicants????