You’re all set for your interview. You’ve read plenty of job interview tips. You know how to dress to impress, your resume and cover letter are flawless, and you’ve got your references ready.

Perfect. But, there are few other things you should be aware of, which could affect your chances of getting hired. In fact, a new study reveals how interviewers make decisions about the candidates they interview.

The study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology in April, notes three not-so-obvious factors in a job interview that could give you a competitive advantage or disadvantage in being the employer’s chosen candidate.

Here they are, along with some job interview tips to help you leverage them to your advantage:

You’ve been sending out resumes like rapid fire and have probably done plenty of preparing for a job interview. You’ve gathered your references, list of accomplishments, and sorted out ways you’ll answer any crazy interview questions.

But, there’s another thing to consider when preparing for a job interview. Employers have had some memorable interview experiences, both good and bad. And they don’t always cue the candidate when their chances of being hired are going south.

If you want to leave a good impression at your job interview, be aware of what information the employer is looking for and what you shouldn’t bother saying. They often won’t tell you directly.

Here are a few things you might never hear an interviewer say, but you can bet they’ve thought:

Your job interview is coming to an end, and you really nailed this one. You’ve built rapport with the interviewer, given strong answers to everything you were asked, and kept cool under pressure. But just when you think it’s in the bag, the interviewer looks at you and asks, “Do you have any questions?”

Sure, you prepared interview questions about the company and position, but the conversation went so smoothly that the interviewer has already answered them. Now what?

Don’t panic, there’s always more to learn about a job opportunity. You’ll just need to think outside of the box. Ask these creative questions to impress the employer and learn more about the job:

Graduation season is in full swing. As a hiring manager, that means you’ll have a whole new crop of recent graduates looking to impress you with their resumes. But it also means you’ll have a whole new crop of talented candidates your organization needs to impress or risk losing to the competition.

In the past, large organizations have had the advantage when it comes to recruiting top talent, but data from the recently released Accenture Strategy 2015 U.S. College Graduate Employment Study suggests recent graduates are looking for something entirely different. Today, only 15 percent of recent graduates are interested in working for a large organization, while 45 percent express interest in working at a mid-size or small company. Clearly, smaller is better for 2015 graduates.

So, what do you do if you’re a hiring manager or HR professional at a large organization? You need to make your organization feel smaller during the hiring process, so recent graduates don’t feel like they’ll be just another rung in the corporate ladder.

Here are 3 strategies that will help you compete for the most talented recent graduates on the job market:

When you realize the career you chose as an undergrad isn’t really the right one for you, the thought of going back to school can be comforting. After all, wouldn’t getting a graduate degree help refocus your career? With the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting a decline in hiring rates, the idea of going back to school might seem like a no-brainer, but reality is never that simple.

If you’re thinking about putting your career on hold to get an advanced degree, consider these five things before making your decision:

Have you been laying pavers of opportunity? Take a look at your social contacts and think hard about your professional ambitions because when you’re trying to advance in your career, it’s all about who you know.

A new friend could get your resume in the door of a company you’ve been following. An old classmate could tell you about an open position at the firm where he works, well before it’s posted publicly.

Networking is the lifeblood of your career. In fact, 40 percent of job seekers surveyed by Jobvite in 2014 found their job through personal connections.

Before you amp up your game, consider what makes for successful networking. The best networkers aren’t just advantaged extroverts, with a lot of social opportunities. They are strategic and carry themselves with a specific mindset.

Adopt these 10 qualities, and you could follow the path to success just by making connections:

Interview tomorrow? You’ve got it covered. You’ll just wing it, answering questions like you’ve done before…except for one problem: “winging it” won’t work anymore.

Today’s workforce is highly competitive. In fact, 85 percent of employers plan to receive more, or at least the same amount, of applications this year as last year, according to Snagajob’s 2015 Summer Hiring survey.

If you don’t take the time to prepare, you could end up committing some of today’s worst interview faux pas by answering questions poorly and completely ruin your chances at being hired.

Here are some examples of what a hiring manager thinks when you respond to interview questions in the following ways:

By now, you probably know that having an extraordinary resume is the key to drawing attention to yourself in the sea of applicants.

It’s daunting, for sure, to try to optimize your job search strategy when the market takes a hard turn. But developing an excellent resume will go a long way in helping you stand out from the competition to secure an interview. 

Here are some of the top resume trends for 2021 to help you get noticed:

You’ve lost the will to carry on in your current job. Not a moment goes by without you thinking about the day you’ll quit — how you’ll compose your letter of resignation, what you’ll say, the sweet satisfaction you’ll have walking out the office door for the last time.

But then, another emotion eclipses all of that benign confidence: fear.

You’re afraid quitting will result in months of unemployment, forcing you to take a temp job below your skill level. Most of all, you’re afraid of looking like a quitter and explaining to every hiring manager you interviewed with why you left.

Trust Your Gut

Scientists have found that our stomachs are superb at detecting threatening situations. New research, published in Science Daily in May 2014, shows the vagus nerve, which communicates information from our stomachs to our brains, heightens our awareness to stimuli such as light and sound. It triggers an instinctual response or “gut reaction.”

So the expression, “trust your gut,” isn’t too far off. What do your instincts tell you? Is leaving a bad employment situation worth a possible shaky career transition? Having the freedom to pursue a career in something you’re passionate about might be.

If you’ve thought it through and decided you want to quit, you can reduce the risk of realizing your worst fears if you have a concrete transition plan in place. Here are a few tips for developing a solid career transition plan, before you pull the trigger on your current job: 

You’re scrambling through old work samples, trying to remember all of those milestones you reached last October. Let me guess, you’re about to embark on the job search again.

It’s been awhile since you’ve been in-between careers. You might have to shake the dust off your old resume. And if you’re online portfolio hasn’t been touched since college, you have a lot of work to do to catch your online image up, to showcase your new, more experienced self.

You could be saving precious time and sending out resumes seamlessly right now if you had done one very important thing — many of us forget to do: keep a running list of your accomplishments.