In a few seconds, people can make a judgement of new teachers that is the same one they make after the end of the semester. With a brief, audio-less videoclip of a person's face, viewers guess-- more than chance-- whether the person is gay or straight. And these Trained Professional Handshake Raters will see if these people are going to have a good interview, and even though, consciously, they rely on their training and its quantitative measures, they're bound to be influenced by their meeting.

And anyways, interviewers look for a good firm handshake ANYWAYS as a way of judging character. People who prepare for their interviews know this and are prepared to give a good handshake. I know that this study only looks at hireability anyways, but if you wanna look at fitness for the job, a handshake tells you nothing. Likewise, some interviewers who believe in mystical-magical color psychology will look favorably on people with red ties, just because they read somewhere that red means confident, and the well-prepared interviewee will take advantage of this.

Studies like this usually have several participants who, for whatever reason, have data that is unusable, or otherwise cause their results to be discounted. It could be, for example, that the students showed up for the handshake analysis, but couldn't make it to the job interviews and so, they were not counted in the data.

You can easily get to be CEO with this technique.

See? All that time wasted in business school should have been filled with crushology studies. Sign up at my Crushology school TODAY an take your first steps on the road to psychotitude.

I hope they did some controls (I'm sure they did) - concluding that hirability follows from handshake is just bad science. Correlation does not mean causality. That is one reason you always try to disprove H0 first.

Indeed, it's got to be that people more likely to interview well will naturally have better handshakes due to confidence and comfort in themselves.

Whether or not you actually are, a firm handshake gives the impression being confident. It's as important as looking the person in the eye when you say hello.

A firm handshake from a woman may not be perceived in the same positive light

What is a 'trained handshaker'?

I've been told that I "interview well" whatever that is - and I do have a pretty good handshake. Ergo, the two *must* be related

So, here's my tip for you poor handshakers: a good handshake does not mean you have to grip and squeeze till the other person's hand goes white from lack of circulation. Nor is it a limp handshake (where the other person doesn't even grip your hand).

Grip the other person's hand, firmly (softer if you're shaking hands with a woman or an older person), shake twice lightly, then disengage. Maintain eye contact at all times, smile, and say "nice to meet you."

How firm? Test it on your own hand (shake your left hand) - if it hurts, then it's too hard

I've seen some people that were sure pretty full of it.

Of course you probably also had a few body-builders in there to...

D-oh!!!

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Type "never trust a man who" in quotes into google and read all the ridiculous results.

As long as we have people who make money rating handshakes, we'll have people being hired for all the stupidest reasons.