The all-new etiquette for entering the world of work
Etiquette is moving with the times by fine‑tuning social skills for the career ladder. Anna Tyzack discovers more
Seven seconds. This is how long it takes someone to form a first impression of you. To demonstrate how little time this is, Katherine Lewis, a Debrett’s etiquette tutor, has asked me to walk across the room and introduce myself to her. I haven’t even said my name by the time she stops me – my seven seconds is up. “We’re survival animals and we first judge each other not on what we say but on our body language and the way we look, walk, stand and even the way we breathe because it affects the tone of our voice,” she says.
At the new Debrett’s Professional Finishing School, graduates will practise this exercise over and over again for two hours until they can walk into a room confidently, exuding charisma and warmth. “If you can make a good first impression in an interview then the door is open,” explains Katherine, 36, who read natural sciences at Cambridge and has a masters in performance theory. “People listen to what you say if they like the look of you.”
With her thick black eye liner, dark trouser suit and under cut, Katherine looks nothing like the duchess I’d imagined would be tutoring me through the taster session. But Debrett’s, she insists, isn’t as fusty and posh as people think. “It moves with the times but the fundamentals of etiquette – inclusion, respect, interest in other people, achievement not entitlement – are essential for succeeding in the workplace.”
That desire for perfect etiquette is as prevalent as ever. This weekend, the likes of Ava Philippe, the 16-year-old daughter of Reese Witherspoon, were pictured waltzing at the 25th annual Bal des Debutantes in Paris.
Debrett’s finishing school, which is run over two days at The Lanesborough hotel, is designed to help school and university leavers aged 17 to 25 on to the career ladder by fine-tuning their social skills and manners. It’s part Lucie Clayton, part business coaching, with workshops on handshaking and eye contact, posture and body language, appropriate office dress, interview techniques and CVS. Netiquette is also a major component: how to write an email; conduct a Skype interview and compose a Linkedin profile.
It sounds old-fashioned, but good manners are as relevant now as they’ve always been, insists Katherine. They make you likeable, which in turn makes you employable. “Manners are not rules but traditional ways of doing things, with a logical reason behind them – they’re social empathy.” Unsurprisingly, given the £2,985 cost of the course, which includes an overnight stay at The Lanesborough, most of the fresh-faced graduates on the course have been educated privately. Shouldn’t they already know how to behave? Even the most highly regarded public schools and universities fall down when it comes to teaching young people how to get on to the career ladder, Katherine says. “Too many graduates go into interviews and just say the things that they think people want to hear,” she explains. “They either come across as overly cocksure or as lacking in self-belief. There should be an A-level in being yourself.”
I’d been half expecting to be walking across the room with books on my head – Lucie Clayton style – but instead I find myself standing in front of a mirror wearing an anonymous theatre mask. Masks, according to Katherine, are a much more effective way of highlighting negative body language: slumped shoulders, for example, a cocked head or crossed ankles. They also demonstrate how important it is to speak with energy in your voice and to make eye contact and smile. “No one smiles these days but your facial expressions engage people and help them to trust you.”
At first, the graduates she coaches are shy and awkward, repeating by rote the contents of their CV. Katherine, who was once nicknamed Wednesday Addams, after the Addams Family’s stand-offish daughter, assures them that self-confidence can be learnt. “I feel sorry for them because they have adult brains and bodies but no experience,” she says. “Our job is to show them they’re a unique person and, even though they haven’t had a job before, they have amazing transferable skills – it’s a softer version of the American ‘You’re a brand’.”
By firing questions at them that they can’t prepare for, and forbidding them from referring to their CVS, she encourages them to let their personalities shine through. By the end of day two, they will be introducing themselves with poise and talking about their achievements with confidence, but not arrogance. They will have a firm handshake, steady eye-contact that never strays lower than the nose or higher then the forehead, and will have navigated a five-course business lunch at Céleste, The Lanesborough’s Michelin-starred restaurant. “We teach them that it doesn’t matter if they don’t know what they want to do with their lives yet, it’s about being brave enough to create opportunities,” she says.
They will also know how to behave in an international business context, which Katherine, who once mistakenly invited an ex-boyfriend into a Facetime conference with colleagues in the Philippines and
Sitting pretty: two finishing school students read Molière together
America, learnt the hard way. The dress code for the course is “business dress”; Katherine says it’s amazing how wrong some of the graduates get it. Shoes are a major stumbling block for young men – too clumpy or too pointy – and girls often make the mistake of hiding behind a statement coat or dress.
“We suggest Reiss and Zara for their capsule collection of office wear, and then buying an investment coat in the January sales,” she says. “There’s no point turning up at an interview looking smart with an old coat thrown over the top as this might be the first thing your interviewer sees.”
Katherine even coaches students through cringe-making situations such as a social kiss – don’t instigate it, ever, in a business environment, she
warns. If you do find yourself on the receiving end, she suggests controlling the procedure by holding the assailant’s elbows.
Or you could try what Katherine calls the “stiff handshake” – proffering a tensed arm, which prevents them from leaning in. This is the nuclear option, though, to be used only in extreme situations.
For a female graduate, this tip alone is surely worth every penny of the course fees.
‘We judge each other on body language; how we walk, talk and breathe’