Want a Job? Make Sure Employers Hear Your Voice

When seeking a job, it’s important to make yourself heard by potential employers (literally). Jesse Singal from NYMag writes on a new study released in Psychological Science that reports employers who hear a pitch rather than read it are more likely to perceive candidates as “competent, thoughtful, and intelligent.”

The researchers write of their results:

“When conveying one’s intellect, it is important for one’s voice, quite literally, to be heard.”

The study’s authors, Juliana Schroeder and Nicholas Epley of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, took a group of students and asked them to record and write elevator pitches for their ideal job. The participants were filmed. Researchers then showed the videos to professional recruiters and some people at the science museum in Chicago. Actors were also brought in to read the pitches in-person to these evaluators. In a separate experiment, hypothetical employers and recruiters also evaluated the student pitches based on reading or listening to them, as well. In each experiment, the hirers were asked to review and rate the student’s pitches.

The results indicated:

“Evaluators rated the candidates as more competent, thoughtful, and intelligent when they heard the pitch than when they read it and, as a result, liked the candidate more and were more interested in hiring the candidate.”

The researchers, however, point out that these tests in no way mirror a real-world hiring scenario perfectly. But it’s interesting to speculate on how important it is to match a voice to an email address when corresponding with someone. Something like hearing the sound of someone’s voice could drastically tip the scales of favor and possibly influence how someone views you.