Simple Ways To Calm Down Before A Job Interview

Everyone gets nervous before job interviews. It’s a natural state of affairs. If you didn’t get nervous beforehand, there would likely be something wrong with you.

But just because you get nervous before a job interview that doesn’t mean that you have to let that effect the way you impress the job interviewer.

What I always advise people I’m working with is to do some pre-interview perp. This can make them feel better about the interview and eliminate much of the nervousness that normally accompanies a job interview.

Some of these are pretty obvious to anyone who has worked in recruiting and has done extensive job preparations before.

I’ve decided to leave out some of the obvious ones, because they should be self evident to any professional person.

I’ll briefly discuss them here just in case they might not be something that you’re aware of.

• Show up sober (it amazes me, but there are people who think it’s fine to drink or light up before a job interview because they think it relaxes them).
• Dress well- don’t show up in jeans and sneakers
• Be on time (anyone who shows up late to a job interview is not going to be hired)

Research The Company

Most people are afraid of the unknown. Walking into an interview without a good understanding of the role and the company would make anyone nervous. So, a great way to alleviate any nervousness is to research the company and, if possible, the person you’ll be interviewing with.

That means hitting LinkedIn and checking out the company profile, looking up the profile of the interviewer. This way you’ll be familiar with the firm and impress the interviewer as someone who’s proactive and interested in the company.

You can also reserarch the person or recruiter who is meeting with you. If you’re interviewing with a recruiter, then you might want to connect with them and message them on LinkedIn. This will help you determine if they are a response person.

My suggestion is to:

-review the company website so that you’re familiar with all that they do

-check out the company LinkedIn pages so that you can see if they are posting about any new planed projects

-read about them online in newspapers (but don’t mention any negative press)

Don’t Over Dress

Most interview advice focuses on telling people not to show up in jeans and sneakers. But what’s not so obvious is that overdressing is sometimes just as bad. You don’t want to show up dressed in black tie wearing a Rolex. That will likely convey the wrong image.

You don’t want to make your interviewer feel that they are underdressed. It’s also a classic case of not being able to read the room. If you’re someone who would show up to an interview dressed for a night at a gala, then what else would go wrong if you were hired?

Business attire is always preferred, even if your interview is not for a professional role. It will make you feel relaxed and less nervous if you wear something that’s universally accepted as a standard outfit for an interview. Dressing professionally conveys an sense of self confidence, which helps people feel at ease during the interview.

Have A Set of Questions Prepared

One of the reasons that you’re nervous before an interview is that you feel that you’re going to be on the spot. Most people view an interviews as an integration and not an interview. But that’s the wrong way to think of it.

If you spend some time preparing a set of questions beforehand that you will want to ask, then you can pivot the interview from a one way questing line to one that is more conversational.

It also looks good to come in and be inquisitive. Studies have shown that employers who talk to people who seem interested in the role are more likely to hire them or at least bring them back for a second interview.

The key thing here is to make sure you have some appropriate questions. You don’t want to ask random questions that have no pertinence to the company that you’re interviewing with.

You might ask detailed ones about the business or product. Ask some questions that pertain to the company culture or the customer lifecycle.

Some questions are a bit more tricky to ask. For example, if you come straight out and ask about salary and benefits and don’t ask anything about the role or the daily duties that you would be handling, then it will look a bit cold and calculating to the interviewer.

Remember, a company is hiring on a person to become part of their entire corporate life. They want someone who is competent, of course, but they also want someone who is interested in joining their company and becoming an integrated part of a team, not just a person looking to clock in and out and draw a paycheck—even though your salary is important and should be respected.

Since this is such a hot topic, I wantd to suggest some additional articles to review.

I’ll start by reccomending that you check out this article in Psycholoy Today. It specifically deals with handling the stress of a job interview and discusses some methods to resolve it. I like this article because it covers some of the non-traditional angles of the subject such as “clan” mindsed. This is important because many people overlook the entire area when consider where to work–clan is another way to think of a companies culture or people.

Another good article to review is this simple one from CNBC. This article focues on the “look good” aspect of interviewing. You’re going to want to make sure that you impress peopel with positive self talk and a good image. A lot of the details in this article cover how to know how to answer questions that tend to make people nervous: “why were you fired?” and other things like that. The author also is wise to make it a point that people should never be dishonest about their skills or what they know. That won’t ever work out.