Stay Positive And Smile
Since the interview process can feel intimidating, you may feel your nerves take over. Try to think positive and encouraging thoughts during and after answering difficult questions. Remaining positive can make you feel better about yourself throughout the interview, which can make your answers sound confident and bold. Try to smile and nod at the interviewer as they explain the role in greater detail.
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4. Identify your talking points.
Being nervous before an interview is normal, and its a sign that you care about the outcome! The best thing you can do to ease your anxiety is to be prepared. Print out any materials you may need, pick out your outfit and know your talking points ahead of time. If youre interviewing remotely, ensure you are comfortable with the tech being used. This will help you avoid any day-of worries. – Larry Dolinko, The Execu|Search Group
5. Practice storytelling.
Stay positive, and dont doubt your abilities. Be prepared, as a lack of preparedness can exacerbate your confidence and nerves. Practicing storytellingthe ability to tell someone about your experience will help you get comfortable. Stay calm and try slow, focused deep-breathing exercises. Warm up your voice, and practice tongue twisters to improve articulation. – Jacqlyn Nedvin, Autism Speaks Inc.
6. View yourself as the CEO of your career.
During your preparation, worry less about what people are going to ask and focus more on what you are going to share. Yes, it is a Catch-22. Ultimately, only you know and can tell your story. As the CEO of your career, you are the expert on the path you have taken throughout your journey. This shift in mindset empowers you to control the narrative and to view yourself as a subject-matter expert. – Megan McCann, McCann Partners
7. Ask those closest to you about your nervous habits.
8. Think about what you want the interviewer to feel.
Take A Few Moments To Breathe
If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed during the interview, take a moment to pause and breathe. If you feel stuck on a challenging question, take a deep breath before you answer and slowly work your way through developing a strong response. Make sure you’re answering the questions clearly and slowly so the interviewer can understand you.
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Accepting Your Anxiety Helps
A 2015 study found that strategies involving reappraisal and acceptance were more effective than suppression to regulate anxiety during a simulated job interview. This indicates that learning to accept you will be anxious, and reframing anxiety in your mind, will be more helpful than trying to ignore your anxiety.
Interview Nerves: How To Cope With Anxiety About Your Interview Or Assessment Centre
Download our Ultimate Assessment Day & Interview Guide 2021 here.
This article will tell you how to deal with interview nerves that awful feeling of anxiety that can affect us all at important moments in our career and life. Dont worry! As always weve got you covered theres tons of expert advice here and elsewhere in the Personal and Wellbeing section.
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Breathe Deep And Slow
When we are stressed our breathing patterns change: the breath gets shallower, the rate quickens, and our hearts start to race. Breathing techniques can help to reduce your heart rate and make you feel calmer.
There are many different breathing techniques out there, but one of the simplest centres on slow breathing: breathe in normally but focus on exhaling slowly and steadily until your lungs are completely empty. Extending your exhalation will naturally deepen your inhalation. Keep doing this for a few minutes until you feel more relaxed.
Final Thoughts On Overcoming Interview Anxiety
Theres no way to sugar coat it an interview is a high-stakes event, and you might have a lot riding on the outcome, especially if it is an ideal job for you.
So, it is to be expected that youll feel a little anxious and stressed out. The last thing you want to do is to beat yourself up for experiencing stress about your interview.
Instead, you should acknowledge your anxiety as a sign that you care about the job and that you want to prepare as best as possible for the interview. A can-do, positive mindset will allow you to take more control over the situation, so you can make the necessary preparations to increase your confidence and minimize your worries about underperforming.
Try some of the pre-interview preparation steps recommended in this article to calm the nerves. And if youd like an extra cognitive boost so you can remain calm and increase focus during the interview, be sure to check out PerformZens Calm Performance Formula.
Reference List:
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Nervous About A Job Interview 15 Smart Strategies To Conquer Your Anxiety
No matter how many job interviews youve gone through, its perfectly normal to get nervous beforehand. You might be unable to sleep the night before or feel your stomach tying up in knots as the meeting time draws closer. If nervousness about a job interview becomes overwhelming, it can hinder your performance.
Luckily, there are several things you can do to help alleviate your anxiety. Below, 15 members of Forbes Human Resources Council share smart strategies job candidates can tap into before an interview to calm down and get in the right mindset.
Members of Forbes Human Resources Council share helpful tips for calming your nerves before a job interview
1. Remind yourself that the employer thinks you belong there.
Whether face-to-face or virtual, its common to be nervous before an interview. One quick thing everyone can do right before an interview to help calm any nerves and get into the right mindset is to remember that the employer agreed to meet with you, so its clear the employer thinks that you already belong there. Now all you have to do is simply have a conversation with them to show theyre right. – Dr. Timothy J. Giardino, BMC Software
2. Learn everything you can about the company.
3. Go back over the details.
Turn Your Bundle Of Nerves Into A Bevy Of Offers
Lets face it: No one likes to be judged, but like it or not, that is exactly what a job interview is: a judgment zone. Its also your chance to show that youre the right person for the job, but if youre not confident that youve got what it takes, the interviewer wont be either.
If its any comfort, know that plenty of people are worried that their anxiety will sabotage their job-interview performance. According to a 2013 study by Harris Interactive and Everest College, 92% of U.S. adults are anxious about job interviews, and 17% of people ranked fear of being nervous as their top concern.
Luckily, you can cross nervous about being nervous off your list with these stress-relief exercises that will help to calm your job interview anxiety.
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Get Familiar With The Route To And From The Interview
To keep yourself from feeling nervous about getting there on time, practice traveling on the route to your interview destination. A day or two before, leave your location at the same time using the same type of transportation as on the day of the interview. This helps you gain an understanding of how long it may take you to travel to your interview. If you use a GPS app in your car or smartphone, be sure to enter your starting address and destination to help map your route in advance.
Use Your Stress As Adrenaline
Nervousness and adrenaline are highly correlatedthats why studies show that getting pumped up instead of calmed down before public speaking produces better results.
So if youre shaking and your bloods rushinggood. Go with it. As Muse writer and consultant , By reframing your nervous energy as excited energy, you can still feel amped upjust in a way that helps you perform better instead of a way that hinders you.
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Remember Youre Interviewing Them Too
One actionable tip that an interviewee can use is adopting the belief that the company also has to impress them, as finding the right fit in a new position is a two-way street. When the interviewee is exclusively focused on only the impression they need to make, rather than having the viewpoint of this being a potentially mutual endeavor, this can fuel anxiety because the stakes become internally higher. Rick Snyderman, M.Ed., LPC, CADC, CSAT, NCC
How To Overcome Nervousness During An Interview
Interviews can be very stressful to most people in many different situations and it may ultimately spoil your interview and decreases your chances to climb the ladder of success. Being afraid and uptight prior to or during the interview basically affects your confidence, speech, body language, and lastly your performance. Through this article, we would like to foresee that when it happens, what specifically is going in your head and lastly we would like to give some tips to our readers on how to curb this situation.
What is behind your nervousness in an interview?
It is a known exercise that you should breathe deeply and relaxed as it gives you time to think deeply. An interviewer will not appreciate your quick and irrelevant answers but sensible responses may click an interview. So simply take your time.Conclusion
In the end, we would like to tell you that interviews are really important to climb the ladder of success but remaining nervous in an interview does not give a positive response to the interviewer, so try to follow these simple things as given above in your interview in order to curb the nervousness inside you.
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If You Take Only One Tip From Our Entire Personal And Wellbeing Section It Should Be To Exercise For At Least 1 Hour Before Your Interview Or Assessment Event
This is huge. Get up early if you have to. Exercising not only burns off any negative energy you may be carrying but it also replaces that energy with a supply of endorphines .
Feeling relaxed and confident on the day hinges on the quality and amount of preparation you do. Interview nerves can be banished with the right groundwork.
Read our article How To Prepare For Your Interview Or Assessment Event and use the above tips to give yourself the best possible chance of succeeding.
Remember You Are Having A Conversation
While nervousness is understandable, reframing how you think about an interview may help to relieve stress. Remind yourself that a job interview is just a conversation, about yourself, between you and another person. All you have to do is answer the interviewers questions and be honest about who you are. Nothing else is required of you in an interview.
Related:5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before a Job Interview
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Two Good Books That Will Help You Prepare
1) Now youve been shortlisted: Your guide to being successful at interviews and assessment centres
This is a fabulous book by Denise Taylor thats packed with useful information and advice. You can find it here: |
2) Youre Hired! Psychometric Tests: Proven tactics to help you pass
This excellent book by James Meachin and Ceri Roderick is a good read and will give you a deeper understanding of psychometric testing, what to expect and how to succeed: |
Prepare Answers To Common Questions
Preparing answers to typical interview questions is a necessary step to dealing with job interview nerves. One of the major causes of anxiety before an interview is not knowing what questions, many of them are predictable. Be ready to answer questions like: tell me about yourself and where do you see yourself in five years?.
Go to the place of the interview beforehand
If you are prone to being nervous in a job interview, being late or having a stressful journey before the first interview can make the feeling worse. If you can, do a practice run to the place a few days before.
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Tip #5 Is To Get Your Job Interview Introduction Ready
At the start of your interview, the interviewer will say to you either INTRODUCE YOURSELF or TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF.
If you get your job interview introduction prepared, it really helps to calm your nerves and it sets you up with confidence for the rest of the interview.
Click the link here for the perfect job interview introduction!
How To Overcome Interview Nervousness
If even the thought of interviewing makes you nervous, it’s important to get that emotion under control. The interview is your opportunity to be at your best. If you allow nervousness to control your presentation , your image may be forever shrouded in the cloud of nervousness that will block the interviewer’s view of who you are.
Why do we get nervous? Because of the unknown. We are seeking approval, but we are unsure of ourselves and how we will be perceived. We are afraid we won’t get approval, which makes us nervous. And to compound the problem, our increasing nervousness makes it even more difficult to gain that approval, thereby compounding the basis for our fears. Uncontrolled, nervousness can destroy our ability to effectively interview.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The following is a simple technique you can apply to overcome your nervousness in any interviewing situation.
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Prepare For The Questions You May Face
Success in an interview doesnt depend on luck or bad luck. Preparing for the questions will not only help you succeed on the big day, but also to get rid of your interview nerves.
We are nervous when we arent confident, when we do not know what wed say if we got this or that question. If you struggle with interview questions, are new to the world of interviewing, or perhaps the pandemic cost you your job, and now you will interview for one after many years, have a look at our Interview Success Package 2.0. Multiple brilliant answers to 104 interview questionsbasically everything a hiring manager may ask you in a corporate job interview in 2020 and beyond, will help you get ready, and eventually overcome your nerves.
It can be the most important thing you do before the start of your interview
Be Your Best And Honest Self
Confidence comes the best when you are being honest. Most people get nervous when they are not sure of something or when they are lying on someones face. Therefore, to sound naturally confident, pretend less and be as honest as you can.
Let your talent speak and remove all the lies and blurry answers out of your mind. Using heavy words and articulating your answers to sound professional is good in small doses only. In the bigger picture, most interviewers judge a person by the authenticity in their answers.
Therefore, be yourself.
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Tip #1 Is To Remember That Interview Nerves Are Normal
Without nerves, you are less likely to perform to the best of your ability. Therefore, having some nerves at your job interview is actually a good thing, and the hiring manager expects you to have them! In fact, if you werent slightly nervous at your interview, we would question your desire to get hired.
Now, once you accept that some nerves are a good thing, it will help you to relax a little bit and perform to the best of your abilities.
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Ok I Get The Picture So What Can I Do About It
Most importantly of all, read our in-depth guide: How To Prepare For Your Interview Or Assessment Event.
Interview nerves and anxiety arise mainly through fear of the unknown and in the above article we tell you exactly what to expect and how to prepare your mind and body to ensure you feel relaxed and confident on the big day. It offers advice and tips including:
- Get into a regular & healthy sleeping pattern
- Exercise 3 times a week for a month prior to your interview
- Eat healthily
- Spend time outdoors & with family and friends
- Practise the exercises you will undertake on the day
- Ensure you do the right prep on the day
- Getting a great nights sleep on the eve of your interview or assessment
- Getting to your destination a hour earlier than is necessary
- Making sure you have water & snacks with you
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Do A Mental Dress Rehearsal
Most career experts will advise you to practice answering interview questions, but theres another kind of rehearsal that can prepare you in a different waythe rehearsal thats all in your mind.
Research shows that experiencing success increases our confidence, even if that experience is imagined, says Harley Sears, an Arkansas-based consulting hypnotist.
To get into a mental rehearsal, Sears recommends that you make yourself comfortable, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and allow your muscles to relax.
See yourself as calm, focused, and preparedconfidently answering any questions throughout the successful interview. Allow yourself to feel strong, confident, and proud while visualizing your successful interview.