Reader's question: What employers look for in interviews is what you might call personal chemistry ---- how you look and act, whether you exhibit self-confidence, how you would fit in with other members of the organization. Could you explain “personal chemistry”?

My comments:

In other words, rapport.

Basketball players, for example, talk about building “team chemistry”, the kind of camaraderie on court that enables players to play unselfishly as a well coordinated machine.

In other words, teamwork. With chemistry, players seem to tacitly understand each other, know where teammates are, what their strengths (or weaknesses for that matter) are, where they want to have the ball, etc so that they can seamlessly work together as one coherent piece instead of five players working as five independent individuals.

With personal chemistry in interviews, they’re talking about your ability to develop rapport with your potential employers quickly, thus giving them confidence that you are one for teamwork, able to “fit in with other (existing) members of the organization.”

Perhaps if you have played team basketball in college or high school, it helps.

Perhaps.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

Zhang Xin has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.