If you want to get lots of job offers, you need to be able to perform well in your interviews. That means you need to prepare well for them.
Because it doesn’t matter how good your skills are, if you aren’t able to communicate that in an interview and show the value you add then it’s going to be very hard to get offered the job.
In this video I’m going to walk you through a simple exercise you can do in preparation for your interview to have you feeling calm and confident in every interview.
Feel free to watch the video or read the transcript below.
Transcript
How To Prepare For Your Job Interviews To Feel Calm and Confident
Introduction
In today’s video, I’m going to talk to you about a very simple exercise you can do that will help you feel calm and confident in any interview you go to. And if you’re feeling calm and confident in an interview, you’re much more likely to get job offers. Because it doesn’t matter how good your skills are, if you cannot clearly communicate that in an interview and clearly show the value you’re going to add to the company, it’s going to be very hard to get a job offer. And I saw this time and time again in interviews when I worked in recruitment, people who couldn’t communicate properly what they had done and the hiring manager would pass them over for someone who maybe didn’t even have as strong skills but was able to communicate what they had done a lot better. So we don’t want that to happen to you. If you’ve worked this hard to get the interview, you want to make sure when you’re in the interview you are feeling amazing, you’re feeling confident, and you can really show up as your best self.
The Power of Visualization
So this very simple exercise and technique I’m talking about, it is visualizations. Now, I know for a lot of people when they hear the word visualization, they think, oh, that weird kooky wookie hippie stuff. But there is so much evidence backed research that actually shows the impact of visualizations on someone’s output. And actually, it’s a technique that so many athletes at the top of their game, they will use. They will visualize themselves doing whatever it is they’re doing. Maybe they’re a Formula One driver. They will visualize over and over again the track, the turns. So it’s in their system. It is literally like they have done that race over and over again. And it’s not just for drivers. It’s really across the board when it comes to athletes and also many other very successful people. It is actually a technique that they swear by. And I’m not going to go into all the science behind it, not in this video anyway. But if you wanted to learn more about it or read more about it, there are so many amazing articles, research papers out there. There’s a book I think is a really great book to read called Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. It’s quite an old book, but definitely a really interesting read.
Understanding Pre-Interview Stress
So before I talk you through the exercise and how it’s going to help you in the interview, just want to explain to you a little bit about what’s happening before the interview so you understand how the exercise works. So at a very primal level, our brain is primed to see anything that is unknown or potentially new as dangerous. So if you go to an interview, it is the unknown. You’re meeting people you don’t know, you’re in a situation you don’t know, you don’t know what questions they’re going to ask you. So your brain is actually primed to perceive this as potentially dangerous. So what happens when you perceive something as dangerous? You get stressed. And what happens when you’re stressed? You can’t think clearly, you can’t think calmly. So when someone asks you a question that normally you could answer very easily, suddenly you’re stumbling over your words and then it’s just a downhill spiral from there, isn’t it? Because you can’t stop thinking about that terrible answer you just gave. So at a very primal level, this is what’s happening and it can be very subconscious. Obviously, you’re not going into the interview thinking, oh, I’m going to die, but at a very primal level, your brain is thinking, danger, danger alert, which creates stress. And as I mentioned, then you can’t answer clearly. And then on the other side, you’re also putting a lot of pressure on yourself because you want to perform really well in the interview. Obviously you’re hoping to get invited for a second round or you’re hoping to get an offer. So there’s an immense amount of pressure you’re putting on yourself. So you’ve got these two things going up against each other, this danger and this stress and this pressure. And what’s happening is it’s just overloading your brain. So you can’t be calm, you can’t feel confident, you can’t really show up as your best self because there’s all this stuff that’s going on in your head. So we really need to help you overcome that so that you can just be calm and in the moment and be really confident in yourself.
How Visualization Works
So actually, when it comes to the brain, there’s very little difference to the brain between when you actually do something and when you imagine it happening to the brain, it doesn’t actually recognize much of a difference. So by doing visualizations, you’re actually tricking your brain into thinking, I’ve already done this, so it’s no longer thinking, danger, danger. This is a new situation, because if you do the visualization enough, your brain really will think, I’ve been here, I know what’s going on. This is an okay situation to be in, which means you’re going to be calm, which means you can be present in the moment. So the visualization works on that side. And it also works because you’re going to visualize yourself being confident. And when you visualize something enough, you actually start to act like that person. So if you visualize yourself always eating healthy food, always going for the apple instead of the crisps, one day when you have an apple and crisps in front of you, without even thinking, you’re just going to grab the apple because you visualize it so much in your head, you don’t even have to think about it. So that’s also the power of the visualization.
The Visualization Exercise
So let me talk you through the exercise, because if you haven’t done this before, maybe it’s very new to you. First things first. A visualization is not just thinking about a scenario. It is about feeling it, and it is about experiencing it. You want to actually create almost a mini movie in your head of your interview. It needs to be that detail oriented. This is not just sitting down being like, oh, yeah, I can see myself. Great questions. Oh, yeah, they offered me the job. No, it actually has to take over all the senses in your body. So when you do a visualization, you actually have to imagine, what would the clothes feel like on me? How does my voice sound when I’m speaking? How do my feet feel in the shoes? What am I feeling emotionally, you have to incorporate all of your senses because that is how we live, don’t we? In the real life, all of our senses are being used. So that’s how you kind of, like, trick your brain. You’ve got to incorporate the senses. So you want to do this twice a day leading up to your interview. The first few times you do it, it’s going to be really messy, and that’s okay. But the more you do it, the smoother it gets. So you want to make sure you’re in a quiet room with your phone turned off and no one disturbing you. Just start by taking a few deep breaths just to calm yourself down. So just do that a few times just to calm yourself down and just feel a bit grounded. And then close your eyes and picture yourself in the interview. If you have never been to the building before you start this process, go online and google what the building would look like. See if you can get some images of the offices and then you can actually use that in your visualization. I want you to look down and see what you’re wearing. What shoes are you wearing? What clothes are you wearing? Are you wearing a watch? And really feel the clothes on you? How do your feet feel in your shoes? How do you feel in the chair? What’s in front of you? Is there a desk? What’s on the desk? When you look up? Who’s in front of you? So before you even get to the part of seeing yourself confidently answering questions, I want you to get really clear on the room. Is there a window? Is there sunlight? What can you hear? Can you hear birds? Can you hear people walking around? Can you hear phones? Really take the time to get super, super clear again, as if it’s a movie. There can’t be any gaps and you want to be in that moment. Now, this can take a while because your mind will wander. You’ll get confused. It’s okay. Just keep bringing yourself back. When that is super clear, then you can start to picture yourself answering the questions confidently. Of course, you don’t know exactly what they’ll ask you, but you can take some of the most commonly asked interview questions. Think about questions that would be specific to your role. See yourself answering the questions as your most confident self. Because this visualization is not just about calming the brain down to trick it into thinking you’ve already done the interview. It’s about priming your brain to answer questions confidently. So imagine them asking you difficult questions and actually experience what it would feel like to answer them with confidence. Again, this can take a while. You might have to go over and over it again until you really feel the confidence. Remind yourself, how do I feel when I’m confident? How do I sit? How do I talk? What’s my eye contact like? And that’s the person you want to be in your visualization. Go through all the different stages. End your visualization with seeing them with smiles on their faces and inviting you for a next round.
Conclusion
That is the visualization. It’s really going through the interview, but it is not a process to be rushed. The first time you do this, you will need to take a bit of time to get as detail oriented as possible so that you really see and hear and feel everything in the interview and then picturing yourself so confident. And once you have that in place, it’s going to be a lot easier to do the visualization because now when you want to do the visualization, you already have that movie made. You can just close your eyes and go straight into it and spend five minutes living that every day, twice a day. So when it comes to the interview, your brain will realize, oh, this is not a dangerous situation, I’ve already been here. And you will also feel more confident because you have seen yourself as this confident person several times a day leading up to your interview. And that’s it. That is the exercise. And I always say it’s not complicated, it’s not rocket science. The difficulty with this is that you have to make yourself do it and you have to control your brain because our brains are wonderful at distracting us and thinking about this and going off there. So you’ve really got to pull yourself back so you focus on the visualization and that’s it. It really is as simple as that. So if you have an interview coming up, give this a go. Really give yourself the best opportunity to perform as your best self in that interview. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video. Let me know if it’s helped. And let me know if there’s anything else you want to know about visualizations because I’m always happy to share.