We’ve all spent time on a hard-backed chair wiping sweaty palms and silently rehearsing our answers while waiting for that interview.

We’ve updated our resume and re-written it to make it appear more relevant.

We’ve tidied ourselves up and some of us may even admit to having a haircut.

Well, take heart! Because it seems that the person lurking behind that closed door is just about as nervous and untrained in interviewing skills as you are!

Managers who spend time conducting interviews have admitted that their interview skills are just “good” and almost half of them admitted to have never received any formal interview training.

These are just two of the surprising results of last month’s Beilby Rewards survey.

If you suspect your interviewer has balanced his/her chair on a set of telephone books to achieve what they believe to be a psychological advantage over you – then you’re probably right.

To the question “Do you believe you successfully sell your company to potential candidates at interviews?” – the response was an overwhelming 92% in the affirmative.

However, when asked to rate their own skills as interviewers, more than 85% of employers indicated they were no better than average - hardly surprising, given than 50% said they had never received any formal interview training.

Another interesting result was that the majority of the survey respondents who stated that a candidate’s performance during the interview influenced them most regarding the candidate’s suitability for the job (54.5%), compared with other factors like recommendations from others (12.8%), a professional resume (1.9%) or references (3.6%). This suggests that hiring decisions are still largely by emotional responses and gut feel, rather than objective assessment.

What does all this mean? If you’re a candidate and have done your homework, you have every right to feel confident. If you’re an interviewer – throw away the phone books and reach for the reference books.