7 tricks to instantly appear competent

Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/flickr

People form impressions of your personality in a matter of seconds.

It's not necessarily fair, but it's reality.

Especially in a professional setting, one thing you'll want to immediately appear is competent: knowledgeable, skilled, and capable.

Fortunately, there are ways to make yourself seem competent as soon as you meet an interviewer, coworker, client, or boss (and sometimes even as soon as they see your photograph).

Here are seven easy, sneaky strategies for appearing as competent as possible:

1. Speak quickly

If you've got something to say, say it fast.

In one study, Brigham Young University researchers had 28 university students listen to recordings of six people whose voices had been manipulated to sound slower or faster than normal.

The student volunteers rated the speakers most competent when their voices had been sped up and least competent when their voices had been slowed down.

2. If you’re a woman, consider wearing makeup

Research suggests that wearing makeup can make women seem more competent.

In 2011, Nancy Etcoff at Harvard University led a study in which more than 250 adults looked at photographs of 25 women with different types of makeup. One-quarter of them wore no makeup; one quarter were made to look "natural" (some makeup); one quarter were made to look "professional" (a bit more makeup than the "natural" group); and one quarter were made look "glamorous" (the most makeup).

As it turns out, judges rated the "glamorous" women the most competent and the barefaced women the least competent.

3. Ask for advice...

You might fear that asking for help will make you look stupid.

But recent research from Harvard Business School suggests that asking for advice can instead make you seem more competent.

In one experiment, 170 university students worked on a series of computer tasks and were told they'd be matched with a partner who would complete the same tasks. (The partner was really a computer simulation.) When they'd finished the tasks, the "partner" either said, "I hope it went well" or "I hope it went well. Do you have any advice?"

As it turns out, students who'd been asked for advice rated their "partner" more competent than those who hadn't been asked for advice.

The researchers explain that when you ask for advice, you're validating the person's intelligence and experience, so they feel good about you in turn.