AI stops here: What AI can’t teach you about body language in interviews

You really want to do well at an upcoming job interview, so you use ChatGPT to prepare. You ask the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to generate some role-specific questions and practice your answers until you feel confident. On the morning of the interview, you feel ready for anything.

But a few hours later, your nerves have completely taken over. You shuffle into the interview room with hunched shoulders and mumble a greeting to the hiring manager. When the interview starts, you’re relieved to remember most of your prepared answers, but you struggle to make eye contact and fidget nervously in your seat. Your answers sound good, but your body language doesn’t match the confidence you wanted to convey.

Body language is an often overlooked part of interview preparation, but it shouldn’t be. In an interview, you’re not only being evaluated on what you say, but also on how you say it. Interviewers assess your confidence through nonverbal cues, including your facial expressions, eye contact, and posture.

Practicing your nonverbal communication can go a long way toward connecting with an interviewer and landing your next role. But if you only use ChatGPT or other AI tools to prepare, your delivery may feel off when you interview with a real person.

How ChatGPT can help you practice nonverbal communication

Body language matters in a job interview. Your presence—from your handshake to your smile to the way you sit—can immediately influence how a hiring manager perceives you. “From the moment you walk into the room or appear on a screen for a Zoom interview, your body language is under scrutiny,” Zakkery Gage, owner and chief career officer of Promoted, wrote on LinkedIn. “First impressions are formed within seconds, and they can be hard to change.”

In fact, these nonverbal cues may even matter more than the responses you give. Some experts estimate as much as 93% of communication is nonverbal.

With so much riding on nonverbal communication, it’s essential to prepare for this part of an interview. Some AI tools, like ChatGPT and Gemini, can provide helpful insights into mastering nonverbal communication, while others even use video to evaluate your body language and provide feedback. Specifically, AI technology can help you:

• Save time. When you’re crunched for time before an interview, ask ChatGPT for a list of best practices for portraying confident body language.

• Prepare for video interviews. When you’re not physically in a room with an interviewer, your presence needs to come through on the small screen. An AI chatbot can offer advice on where to look and how to position yourself during a video interview.

• Practice your delivery. You can ask ChatGPT to role play an interview with you. While it can’t offer visual feedback, you can practice using body language to strengthen your answers. Other AI tools can go a step further to analyze your body language and offer feedback.

• Calm your nerves. Sometimes, you just need some positive reinforcement before the big day. AI tools can offer encouragement and tips for calming your nerves and projecting confidence through body language.

ChatGPT prompts for body language

If you want to make body language a core part of your interview prep, use these prompts for some guidance:

• If I feel nervous in an interview, what can I do to appear confident and in control?

• What are the signs of confident body language, and how can I practice them?

• What are the best tips for making a good first impression at the beginning of a job interview?

• What are the most common body language mistakes that people make in an interview, and how can I avoid them?

• When I’m answering a question, what facial expressions or gestures should I make to appear convincing and persuasive?

Limitations of using AI tools to practice body language

AI technology can offer practical advice about body language, but it has limitations for applying these practices in real-world settings. Nonverbal communication is incredibly nuanced and dependent on various factors, like context and emotion, which AI tools don’t fully understand.

If you only use ChatGPT or another AI tool to practice your body language before an interview, you may encounter these problems:

Potential bias

AI systems are built on existing data, which often reflect ingrained societal biases. Based on this data, AI tools may show preferences for certain nonverbal communication styles over others. This potential bias makes it difficult to account for factors that can significantly impact nonverbal communication, such as cultural differences and neurodiversity.

If you use AI tools to understand how you should act during an interview, you may get narrow advice that doesn’t apply to every situation. These blind spots may only become apparent when you’re in the interview room—and by then, it’s too late.

No emotional intelligence

The ability to communicate nonverbally requires emotional intelligence, which AI technology can’t replicate. Your experiences shape how you communicate and respond to another person’s nonverbal cues. For example, you can probably tell when a person’s smile doesn’t seem sincere because you’ve experienced a similar situation before.

AI technology doesn’t have the same emotional intelligence as humans. Carol Kinsey Goman, an author, speaker, and executive coach specializing in body language, says a lack of empathy makes current AI technology insufficient for interpreting body language. 

“Human beings decipher emotions not only by observing body language but also by drawing on their personal experiences, innate empathy, and basic understanding of human psychology,” Goman shared on LinkedIn. “AI, on the other hand, can only analyze data and recognize specific patterns associated with emotions, as it lacks the underlying emotional comprehension that is essential for a deeper understanding of body language.”

Lack of context

When it comes to nonverbal communication, context is everything. The same gesture or facial expression can convey different thoughts and emotions, depending on the situation. AI tools have trouble making these distinctions because they don’t understand subtle nuances in the same way humans can.

Using only an AI tool for your interview preparation means you miss opportunities to observe these small distinctions in real conversations. Without this practice, you may struggle to interpret an interviewer’s nonverbal cues and adjust your own communication style accordingly.

Incorrect analysis

There’s some evidence that AI tools trained to analyze body language return inconsistent or inaccurate results. In 2020, a makeup artist in the United Kingdom ultimately lost her job because an AI interview screening program gave her a low score for body language. The AI screening company later pulled the facial analysis component from its software, according to the BBC.

Examples like this show AI technology doesn’t always get it right on matters related to body language and other parts of nonverbal communication. Relying on these tools to practice or evaluate your body language may lead you down the wrong path.

Why the human touch matters for practicing body language in interview preparation

You can prepare interview answers and practice your responses with AI tools, but body language is a different story. Nonverbal communication is deeply rooted in human experiences. If you want to master the art of nonverbal communication, you need to practice with real people who can intuitively understand the difference between a genuine smile and nervous laughter.

Practicing with a career coach or mentor can allow you to work on your nonverbal communication and get human-centered feedback. Another person can tell you directly whether your posture looks sloppy or if your gestures seem distracting. These conversations also give you a chance to interpret and respond to another person’s nonverbal cues in real time.

AI technology can give you the framework for improving your body language, but it can’t show you how to use these best practices to connect intentionally with another person. It’s a skill you can only perfect by practicing with real people.

How to combine AI with real practice

While AI tools can help you prepare for your next interview, you shouldn’t rely only on this technology. Follow these tips for supplementing AI technology with real practice.

• Learn best practices. Use ChatGPT to compile some best practices for showing confident body language. Keep this information handy as you practice for your upcoming interview.

• Record yourself speaking. If you use AI tools to practice your interview responses, record yourself on video or watch yourself in a mirror. Pay attention to your posture, gestures, and facial expressions. Consider whether your body language strengthens your message or detracts from it. 

• Practice with a friend or coach. Doing a mock interview with a real person can provide even more insights into your body language. Ask a friend for feedback about your delivery or work with a career coach on ways to improve your nonverbal communication.

• Prepare calming strategies. It’s normal to feel nervous at an interview, no matter how much you’ve prepared. Before the big day, ask ChatGPT for some calming strategies you can use to overcome anxiety, such as deep breathing exercises or visualization techniques.

• Focus on specific skills. If you know you struggle with certain parts of nonverbal communication, such as making eye contact, ask ChatGPT for some extra help in those areas. Use the information it provides to practice working on those specific skills.

Own the interview room with help from career coaches

Body language plays a huge role in job interviews, but AI technology can’t fully grasp the context and emotion of human nonverbal communication. While ChatGPT and other tools can offer advice, they can’t replace the benefits of practicing nonverbal communication with a real person.

If you’re struggling to portray confidence in interviews, working with a career coach can help you learn to calm your nerves. TopResume’s GetHiredNow service can match you with a career expert who will coach you on your interview presence and delivery, from posture to facial expressions to eye contact. On average, job seekers are three times more likely to get hired after working with one of our career coaches.

Want to own the room at your next interview? Book a free consultation to learn more about GetHiredNow and discover if it’s the right move for your career.