Mirroring
Mirroring is the simple repetition of 1-3 words. Typically, the last 1-3 words someone says but as you start to master you can pick 1-3 words anywhere from the conversation. The other person feels listened to and tends to connect the thoughts in their head. Part of the message you are sending to the other person is I have heard what you are saying word for word and I prove it because I repeated it back to you but it’s not enough. When they hear this they will continue speaking and they will add words to explain more.
Mirroring, by definition, is the behavior in which one person unconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. Mirroring often occurs in social situations, particularly in the company of close friends or family. The concept often affects other individuals’ notions about the individual that is exhibiting mirroring behaviors, which can lead to the individual building rapport with others.
Mirroring can be an excellent technique to build rapport and trust in a conversation along with gathering more information.
Now in sales and recruiting, this is critical, because you’re hearing new information all the time. You’re hearing words and you’re hearing phrases that may not be new to you. But these words and phrases can mean a lot of different things to different people that share them.
Let’s Practice – Try the mirroring technique:
It’s crucial to get as much information out of the other side as possible. By “mirroring” them and simply repeating three to five keywords in their last sentence, people are forced by nature to repeat themselves in a way that gives more information and clarifies their points.
An example:
Person 1: To get someone to tip their hand and clarify, simply repeat the last three to five keywords in their sentence.
Person 2: You repeat the last keywords?
Person 1: Yeah, pretty crazy right? What that does is it causes me to explain my point again from a different angle, revealing more information that could be extremely valuable and it helps you decipher my true desired outcomes and motivations.
Screening a Candidate example:
Recruiter: Walk me through your experience as a Network Engineer
Candidate: I work on primarily Windows and most of my day is spent in Routing / Switching.
Recruiter: (Insert Mirroring) Most of your time is in Routing / Switching?
Candidate: Yes, I work on a lot of Cisco devices and I utilize routing protocols such as BGP & OSPF. I also help with some of the F5 load balancers but would love to work more with Firewalls in Security.
In this example above, the Recruiter is simply trying to learn more about the Candidates routing / switching experience, so they repeated that phrase and were able to get a more in-depth answer.
Videos that talk more about this in depth:
What’s Better than a Yes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z38nNtsKSE
Negotiation Skills – Chris Voss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8oTmfx1c9Q
The Art of Negotiation: