They are right up there with exams, blind dates and forced public speaking when it comes to making the majority of our hearts beat faster and our palms sweat heavier.
So what can we do to help us control the heebie-jeebies and to perform to the best of our abilities?
There is an old Irish saying that says, ‘whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.’ I believe this to be doubly true on the days when we have an interview for a position we really want.
Therefore like Lord Baden Powell (the founder of the boy scouts) advised: be prepared. If we control the elements that we can control then when we arrive to the interview we know we have done our part and can take pride in ourselves for that.
Nothing shouts stress like not being able to find the location of your interview on the day in question and if you do arrive fifteen minutes late without having rang ahead, well, your chances of being hired are slim to none.
So plan your route as though it were a North-Pole expedition and leave a huge time margin. Once you have arrived early it’s generally considered a good idea not to enter the building too far ahead of your scheduled time as this may put undue pressure on the interviewers to see you beforehand. Instead walk nearby or have a coffee as you visualise yourself knocking it out of the park when the moment of truth arrives.
Know and have prepared what you are going to wear the night before. Suit laid out, shirt ironed, shoes polished. The whole idea is to make the day of the interview run as smoothly as possible.
Know the company you are interviewing for. Know their culture and their core values. Know their sources of revenue and their greatest competitors. Have rehearsed responses to the standard interview questions and, even better, a fundamental understanding of what you want to say about yourself in relation to the job at hand. Have questions prepared to ask them that you genuinely want the answers to.
Knowing that you have prepared as best you could will give you a powerful mental edge and minimise any interview anxieties you may be prone to.
Another powerful antidote to allowing pre-interview anxieties get the best of you is to acknowledge the nerves you are feeling and to see them as a natural physical reaction to a high-stress situation. Don’t fight them or become frustrated by them. Accept them, acknowledge them and realise that they are there to keep your faculties running at a hundred per cent.
One of the most direct and powerful ways of controlling our nerves is to use our breath. Shallow rapid breathing communicates to the rest of our body that we are in a high-risk situation. So counteract that by consciously breathing deeper and more slowly. If you like you can add a vocal; such as, telling yourself to relax as you exhale. There are many breathing techniques you can follow and a lot of advice available online if you wish to learn more.
Few of us who have not studied the subject are aware of the effects body language can have on ourselves and those around us. Adopting a powerful pose with our back straight, our hands on our hips and looking around as though we were observing what lies in our domain can send a powerful message to our subconscious that we are in control. For more on this check out this Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy.
Searching for a job or taking the next step on the ladder can be an all-consuming activity at times. Sometimes an opportunity just seems so perfect that we think it is made for us. However this type of thinking reduces a complex world into the base opposites of success and failure.
The reality is that there will be other chances, there will be other jobs like this one no matter how much you can’t see that right now. All or nothing thinking will do nothing to improve your performance and will definitely increase your anxiety levels on the day.
Anxiety can have an isolating effect causing us to shut ourselves off from those around us. Try counteracting this by accepting that the preparation you have done is adequate and instead of re-running possible answers in your head turn your attentions outwards. This can be particularly effective when meeting the people at the building. Be interested in them. Enjoy the human contact and the release it provides from your own thought processes. Let your natural personality shine. You never know one of the people you meet may just have a kind word to say about you to the decision makers into the bargain.
When we are suffering from nerves most people tend to talk quicker and this can make us appear nervous and difficult to understand. Therefore consciously slowing our speech a little can send a message to our brains that we are in control as well as helping us to transmit an air of authority.
Remember to listen.
Along with purposely deciding to control our speech, being an active listener keeps us grounded. It sends a strong message to our subconscious that we are in control and intend to channel our adrenalin to maximise our performance. It is also the primary act of effective communication. So breathe deeply and listen actively.
I will finish with a story an actor friend told me about a trick he uses to control his nerves as he stands backstage. During the course of his preparation to play the character he looks for a small item he believes the character would have had; for example, a photograph of his wife, a poem or some other symbolic item. Moments before going on he rubs this item to take himself out of his head and, as he feels, into the body of the character. This story struck me as indicative of the variety of individual ways people have of controlling their nerves and of how we shouldn’t hesitate to adopt our own (see this Guardian article).
In the end if it works for you: it works.
Written for CareerJunction by Mark Dempsey.
