4 Interviewing Hacks from a Clinical Therapist - CareerAlley

4 Interviewing Hacks from a Clinical Therapist - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Matthew Burke is a social worker and therapist in northern New Jersey. He edits The Counseling Career Guide for students and career changers who are interested in a career as a counselor. As a trained therapist with tons of experience, I can say with complete certainty: job interviews make people crazy. Over the years, Ive helped people work through personal trauma, relationship difficulties, and addiction. Ive heard hundreds of people express their fears about every aspect of life, and Im always amazed at the amount of fear and anxiety people experience when preparing for a job interview. From a psychological standpoint, the anxiety makes sense: the personal interactions that comprise a job interview are unnerving. If you are applying for a job, you are being judged. You will be meeting a representative of the company, who will scrutinize everything you say and everything you do. Not fun. So, over the last few years, Ive developed a few strategies to help my clients find a greater level of success in their job interviews and to feel a lot more comfortable and confident as they do so. The first strategy may be the most important: Be Nice To Yourself! One of the most popular forms of therapeutic intervention is called cognitive behavioral therapy. It gets pretty complicated, but the main idea is simple: how a person interprets a situation determines the way s/he feels and acts. So, as you think about your upcoming interview, be nice to yourself! When you think about your situation, do so in a way that bolsters your confidence. Are you a new college graduate without any experience? No, youre a fresh-faced go-getter whos going to soak up new knowledge and dive into your new work culture. Are you middle-aged person who just got laid off from your last job? No, youre a mid-life career changer whos ready for the next adventure. Interpreting your situation in a positive light can give you the confidence you need to boldly step towards whatever is next. Heres the best rule of thumb on how to explain your circumstances to yourself, especially if you tend to beat yourself up: imagine what you would say to a friend if s/he needed a pep talk going to an interview. Then say that to yourself. Practice Makes Perfect. It sounds cliched, but its true: you get good at what you practice. Scientists have even found that focused repetition of any task changes the neurological structure of the brain, so that repeated tasks become more automatic over time. Think about it: if you had a new interview every day for a year, youd probably get pretty good at interviews, right? The good news is, every employer on earth is going to ask some of the same silly questions: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Why are you interviewing for this position? What drew you to our company? and so on. Intuit the questions your interviewer will ask, and then practice your answers at home. With time, youll get very good at answering them and itll be one less thing you need to worry about during your interview. Visualize How Youd Like the Interview to Go. Some of the worlds most successful people report that the key to their achievement is seeing their success. Olympic athletes use the technique regularly, and public figures such as Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tiger Woods have spoken publicly about how they clearly imagine their goals before attaining them. So how should you visualize your interview? First, close your eyes and relax. Then picture yourself interacting confidently with your interviewer, reacting calmly to difficult questions, and addressing all the ideas that show youre a great candidate. Andthis is the most important elementtry to experience the feeling that a successful interview would bring: it can satisfaction, pride, or maybe even relief. You are, in fact, creating a sense memory of a positive interview, and your body will remember the sensation. Its not a magic pill, and its very likely youll still be nervous before the meeting, but visualization is an excellent form of mental preparation. Use Social Proof. Without a doubt, the most effective advantage you can bring to an interview is a pre-approved stamp. The statistics show that two-thirds of all new hires get their job through networking. Thats incredible! That means, get on the phone and use your network! But, for many people, that two-thirds number is a disincentive. That means the odds are against me! If youre going into an interview and you havent gotten the interview through someone who works at the company, send your interviewer letter of recommendations from your previous employers and any community figures you interact with. The power of the principal is amazing: one study even showed that job candidates who were seen having a positive and friendly interaction with the secretary were more likely to be hired. Use social proof to your advantage! Finally, interviews are tough! And, as company loyalty dwindlesmany workers will hold many positions in many companies over the course of their careerits more likely that youll experience the interview process more and more often. Use the psychological principals above to land the job you deserve. This is a Guest post. If you would like to submit a guest post to CareerAlley, please follow these guest post guidelines. Good luck in your search.Joey Trebif (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();