What is the difference between Confidence and Cockiness? Is someone who is cocky confident? If so why is a confident person not cocky?
I interviewed a person the other day and the discussion when something like this.
Me: If you had to rate your sales ability on a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 being unbelievable, what would it be?
Candidate: 12!
Me: Wow, that’s pretty cocky of you given you have only had one sales role that you were in for 12 months and you have only made 3 sales.
Candidate: yeah, well I am good! You will not find anyone as good as me in this market.
Me: hmmm, you sound very cocky to me and I don’t want cocky people representing this company
Candidate: I am not cocky, I am just more confident than most and you will not go wrong with employing me!
Without going into the details I decided not to employ this person. Why, well I couldn’t imagine that type of attitude in front of a client. In fact, I couldn’t imagine it in front of a candidate. So what is the difference between the cocky and confidence?
Here is my version. Cocky is unjustified confidence. Hmmm what does that mean I hear you say. I have been in recruitment now for over 20 years and the people in the meeting had all been in recruitment for a lot longer than our candidate. If I rate myself a 7 as a sales person and the person sitting in front of me rates themselves as a 12, with no history or track record, then too me you are cocky because you have no platform or history to justify the rating, especially in front of people who had been in the industry for so long. If their audience consisted of people who had been in the industry for 5 minutes then they may be able to make such a claim.
How do you know if you your confidence is coming across as cockiness?
- If you ever think it maybe, then tone it down a couple of notches.
- Make sure you are positioning yourself well to your audience.
- If you think you maybe perceived as cocky, then preface it with, “this may sound cocky, but I would rate myself as a 12”. And then justify your answer. For example, “I know I have only been in sales for a short period of time, but I felt really at ease. It almost came naturally to me. I know I have a lot to learn but based on where I am now I think I have done a really good job.”
- Always act humble. Get your point across but don’t ram it down their throat.
Recruitment School is Australia’s leading Online Recruitment Training facility. Our aim is to provide brilliant training, at a realistic price, with added flexibility. To find out more click here to be taken to our courses page
If you would like to receive these posts automatically, then simply subscribe by completing the form below.
