Having technical expertise is great. But working on your confidence for interviews is equally important. The body language reveals a lot about you to the interviewer.
What is the meaning of confidence? Confidence is the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something.
It is natural to feel nervous and become anxious before appearing in the interview. The problem arises when this lack of confidence leaves you shaky while answering the interviewer. You feel awkward and the same reflects in your behavior. Despite preparing well for the interview and being the right person for the job, the opportunity slips out of your hands. The five tips discussed in this GoApti post will help you tremendously in the confidence-building exercises undertake.
1. Know your value.
“Know the value you bring to the table. If you aren’t aware of your strengths, what will you be confident about?”
- Knowing your value is all about having a strong personal brand. Remind yourself of the reasons/abilities that got you invited for the interview in the first place.
“I have the right technical expertise, experience, or the potential to help this organization through this job position,” you tell yourself. Witness the build-up of confidence for interview preparation as you take pride in your capabilities! - If you are having issues identifying your value, ask yourself, “What have I done to improve a situation in the past that can be repeated in this new opportunity?”
- Think of all the positive things that you’ve done at work and use them to create a story around your self-worth.
2. Use the power of persuasion.
- To show yourself as the ideal candidate for a new job opportunity or to get a promotion in the corporate world, use the power of persuasion.
- You first need to understand what it is that you want, but you should also know how to convince and persuade others to help you get it.
- The basic building blocks of persuasion are context and timing. Never approach that same hiring manager out in the middle of the grocery store and ask them to hire you on the spot.
- You shouldn’t try to convince them in such a setting because it’s the wrong place and the wrong time in the context of an interview.
- Master the art of convincing! Practice your conviction sessions with friends and acquaintances. And you have to do it subtly. Trying too hard to persuade may present you as arrogant. So be cautious.
3. Frame your answers appropriately.
“One of the most important interview tips and tricks is to justify your answers with relevant examples or statistics. Hence frame your answers such that they aren’t shallow statements.”
- Don’t dive into the answer right away; take a step back and set it up. You develop the skeleton before answering the question.
- This is particularly applicable to behavioral questions where the interviewer is expecting you to narrate a situation or conflicts that you overcame and how you handled it. If you don’t mentally frame your response, you will end up with an incoherent story that deviates from your intended response.
- For example, the interviewer asks, “Tell me about a difficult situation and how you handled it.” A lot of people become superficial and jump right into “this is how I resolved it”. This kind of response lacks the feel and the story that could have kept the interviewer engaged. Thus, a situation that was difficult for you becomes an ordinary occurrence for them.
- Describe the situation or the task at hand in the simplest manner possible, add in the pain-points, elaborate on your thought process at that time, and then talk about how your actions resolved the problem. This should give an idea of how to frame a response.
Read More: How do you work under pressure?
4. Be ready with a bundle of stories and incidents.
“You cannot fall short on content. Have some experiences worth sharing to have a meaningful and interesting conversation with the interviewer.”
- You never know what is going to be asked in an interview. If you go with a blank mind and the expectation that you’ll think of the answers spontaneously, be ready for some embarrassment.
- Tt’s important to have multiple examples, stories, and accomplishments that you can leverage as and when required. Bucket your answers according to the category; one story for your technical expertise, another one that demonstrates your leadership, and a third narrative that speaks for your strong communication skills.
- This activity takes time. Work on this tip for building confidence days before your interview.
5. Visualize.
“You need to introspect. Picture yourself appearing for the interview. Visualize the flow of the interview; it helps build confidence for interviews of any kind.”
- Visualize the interview? Take some time out, even if it’s just for five minutes, and close your eyes. Have a preview of the interview play in your mind.
- You picture the interviewer listening to you with enthusiasm, having a meaningful discussion with you, and so on. And trust us, you’ll be brimming with confidence in no time.
- Athletes use this tip all the time. They do this so that they can see themselves winning. It creates a sense of belief that the result will be as they imagine it.
Are you aware of interview tips and tricks that will help candidates? How do you build confidence before interviews? Do comment.
