How remembering names can help your job hunting prospects
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When you’re in the midst of a job hunt, you never really know what will make the difference between being hired and coming in second place. When there are many qualified candidates, employers often rely on subtle, nuanced reasons to choose one candidate over another. Maybe one applicant seemed to have strong observational skills or one candidate seemed a better fit for the team than another.



One way to help you stand out from a crowd? Demonstrating the ability to learn people’s names. “Name recall will boost your image, earn you respect and differentiate you,” explains Nicholas Aretakis, author of No More Ramen: The 20-Something’s Real World Survival Guide. Dale Carnegie focuses on this important principle in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. In it, he says, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”



In his blog, Lee Silverstein, organizational development and training specialist, highlights how important it is to make an effort to remember names in a story about his first day of a new job. A member of his new team couldn’t believe he already knew her name. He reminded readers, “How often have you heard the excuse ‘I’m not good with names?’…What the person is really saying is, ‘I don’t have the listening skills, or the patience, to remember people’s names.’ Remembering someone’s name shows you care.”



You can read the rest of this post on my U.S. News & World Report column, but before you click over, take a look at this video Lee shares on his blog…It’s a funny example of “what NOT to do” when remembering names!