Interview stress and anxiety can be a deal-breaker for your chances to be hired for a certain job position and it happens often. You can prepare a lot before the interview but by the moment you walk into the place, you start feeling like the end is near.
Anxiety and stress when waiting for an interview happens to most of us and it affects us in many ways.
According to Healthline, interviewing for a job is never easy. But for people who suffer from anxiety disorders, interviewing for a job is more than stressful. In fact, it can be completely debilitating, preventing some of them from showing up for an interview at all.
Celine Ange Izere who works as a marketing manager in a retail company says that the best thing to do is to make the interviewee feel at ease and comfortable, and as someone who does interviews often she recommends it to be the first thing to do.
"I have seen people on the verge of crying in interviews and I understand them, some walk into a boardroom full of professional faces and strict composures that scares them a lot. I prefer making the interviewee feel like they are not in an interrogatory room and that they can freely express themselves because it also helps them feel confident enough to talk about themselves,” she says.
Dan Mugabo an independent career coach says that a lot of factors influence anxiety and interview stress. For example, many people tend to do intense preparation, thinking it as the best way to win the interview.
"A lot of people believe that preparing is cramming all the answers to the expected questions that will be asked, but relying on the crammed answers can often throw you under the bus, you are at a risk of forgetting them and making yourself ridiculous.”
How to manage the stress and anxiety
According to IVY EXEC, a career advice page, there novel and effective ways to tame the beast of anxiety when it matters most:
Reframe your mind-set
If a situation centres around you, your success, aspirations, your anxiety will be magnified. So don’t make the job search about you! Think of yourself instead as an advocate on behalf of your loved ones. If you have a family, consider how this job will directly impact the well-being of your spouse and children. Keep them at the forefront of your mind, and do your best in service to them. This approach brings out the best version of yourself during interviews, and it will also help you control your anxiety.
Separate success from external outcomes
Interviewing with a potential employer is like looking at an iceberg; in most cases, you only see a fraction of what’s going on beneath the surface. You might do an impeccable job of pursuing a role and lose out due to circumstances that are entirely beyond your control. Any number of factors can derail you. So it’s a fool’s errand to define success in terms of moving onto the next stage or receiving an offer.
Escalate the exposure
An important upcoming interview might make you nervous. But how would you feel if you had 10 interviews scheduled within the next week? Would you still be as nervous by the third or fourth or eighth go-around? Of course not, this is the amazing power of exposing yourself to the things that scare you. If you struggle with maintaining eye contact, practice doing better during your daily interactions, like getting coffee in the morning.
A few tips from Robert Walters Group a British recruitment company that focuses on placing professionals into permanent, contract, and temporary positions:
Practice makes perfect
Research is vital, but what really helps is running through your answers to interview questions aloud a few times, first with your notes and then without. The more familiar you are with the material you have prepared, the less nervous you’ll feel.
Know the way
Another element of preparation is being confident about the journey to the interview. Find out all you can about where exactly the interview will take place, and plan your travel well in advance so you don’t have to worry about it on the day.