ou should be careful in doing things that are
likable_.

[Sidenote: Speak the Prospect's Language]

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_.

[Sidenote: 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 u