If your prospecting and sizing up of an employer indicate that he is very painstaking, suggest to him how particular you have been to prepare yourself in knowledge of his needs. If he is a man who weighs ideas carefully, suggest to him your qualities of judgment and decision. Perhaps he is characterized by a marked constructive imagination. Suggest that you, too, have imaginative power. Bring out conspicuously the particular elements of your qualifications that are most likely to suggest ideas akin to his own. Speak those phrases of the language of suggestion which he best understands, and that are most likely to impress him with the idea that you and he think alike.
Deceptive Suggestions
A caution is necessary here. In any suggestion that you make, convey neither more nor less than the actual truth regarding your capabilities. Avoid any possibility of deception.
I recall the case of a young man who quite won the heart of a dignified bank president whose tastes were very quiet. The young man studiously avoided the slightest appearance of flashiness in his dress and manner. He spoke in modulated tones. His movements were subdued. He had exactly the quiet pose that suited his prospective employer. The banker stressed his appreciation of the characteristics manifested by the applicant, and the young man "overdid it" by suggesting that he was always decorous in his manner.
The bank president had occasion to entertain a visiting financier who wanted to go to the ball game. A few seats away the young man whose application was being considered rooted boisterously for the home team, unconscious of the contradiction he presented to the suggestions he had made in the banker's private office. The new impression was made more disagreeable because the boisterous behavior suggested to the banker that the young man had not conveyed a true idea of himself previously. When he came next morning for the answer to his application, he received a cold "No."
The young man really was not boisterous except on the rare occasions when he let off steam, as at a ball game. If he had conveyed the truthful impression that he was nearly always quiet, and had taken pains to admit that occasionally he "let loose," but only in proper surroundings, he would not have killed his chances by the negative suggestion of untruthfulness.
Motive of Suggestion
After all it is your motive that determines the right or wrong use of suggestion in getting yourself wanted. If you keep carefully in mind a purpose to suggest less instead of more than the truth about your capabilities, you need not fear that you will offend by over-drawing the picture of your real self.
If your motive is wrong, it will lower the quality of your manhood. If you suggest a wrong motive to the other man, the effect is to lower his manhood qualities in considering you. It is particularly important not to stimulate a motive that may afterward operate to your detriment.
Over-Suggestion of Ability