Job interviews can be terrifying. You want to impress your prospective employer with your poise and accomplishments. You want to prove to them that you're the right candidate for the role. And you want to ultimately get the best offer possible.
And while it's easy to let your nerves get the better of you, it does pay off to keep your cool while you're in the room. Longtime HR executive and former Disney recruiter Simon Taylor was always most impressed by candidates who "didn't come across desperate," he says. They had a quiet confidence and "almost came across like they had options."
That can be hard to convey — here's his advice for how to do it.
'Being long-winded' can backfire
One way to convey this kind of confidence is to be concise with your answers to interviewers' questions.
Whether they are asking about your background or your future goals, "being long-winded actually can come across as 'Oh, you're just trying to sell me,'" he says, as opposed to simply knowing that your past experience is enough.
Think of the most concise and streamlined way to respond to their questions and take "about a minute" to answer each, he says. If your interviewer wants to hear more, they'll ask.
'Go for a walk beforehand'
Coming in with that level of calm can also be about "getting your headspace in the right place," he says. Here are a few activities that could help before the interview starts:
- Write down some personal affirmations, whatever you most need to hear. This could be lines like, "I'm not desperate. I have options. I'm capable, I'm competent," says Taylor. Those kinds of statements have "been helpful for me to overcome nerves and get grounded," he says.
- Taylor also suggests putting in perspective the level of power the interviewers really have over you. "A lot of times I think we give the interviewer or the hiring manager or whatever too much power in our mind, and therefore we get nervous," he says. Remember that it's just a job and that you likely have other opportunities as well, even if you're not aware of them yet.
- You can also "go for a walk beforehand, work out," he says, anything that will expel energy and give you a natural high.
Choose the activity that will give you some inner peace and help to calm those nerves sometime in the hour before you go in. Big picture, remember, "you're assessing them and they're assessing you," says Taylor. "It's a mutual thing."
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