Brace Yourself!

Yes it’s looming up.

The moment of truth - a concentrated hour (if you are lucky to get that long) that may well change your life for the foreseeable future. Yes, the daunting final short-list interview is just a few days way.

So how are you feeling? No doubt a mixture of emotions - anticipation, excitement and optimism but maybe also accompanied by large doses of anxiety, trepidation and nervousness.

All entirely normal reactions - it is of course a big deal; a chance to show your capabilities to a potential new employer, a chance to stand-out and excel and, of course, a chance to secure a big step-change in your career.

So how do you make sure that in approaching this important moment in time you don’t let your nerves and anxieties get the better of you? How do you stay in control of yourself and the interview situation, and give yourself the very best chance of being the stand-out candidate, outperforming some other undoubtedly talented competing individuals?

In our experience of working with many individuals in seeking important new roles, there are a handful of very distinctive characteristics that, when approaching interview situations, differentiate between job hopefuls and job winners:

▶️ Build Your Self-Talk & Self-Image - start with a positive, upbeat view about a job interview so that rather than seeing it as a scary obstacle, you view it as a very positive opportunity to sell yourself in an adult to adult conversation. Always remind yourself that you have lots of talents and experiences and that you wouldn’t even be in the interview room if that wasn’t already obvious to others.

▶️ Be Open to Setback - adopt a realistic but confident attitude that all you can do is your very best and so if it doesn’t quite work out in your favour then it is not something you should beat yourself up about. Yes seek feedback about how you did, reflect on what you might have done differently but then move on. Life is too short for big regrets.

▶️ Be Fully Prepared - no time carefully invested in preparation for an important job interview is ever wasted. When on stage great performers can appear very fluent, articulate, self-assured and natural but their excellence of performance is only achieved through hours of meticulous preparation, practice and rehearsal. Serial job winners i.e. those that repeatedly secure their targeted jobs, are invariably extremely well prepared, they leave little to chance and they avoid the temptation just to wing it on the day.

▶️ Be Open to Help - whilst in the interview you are very much on your own, smart job seekers, rather like high performance athletes, seek the help of a coach i.e. someone to help them prepare, to give them feedback and to sharpen their interview technique. Of all the important crossroads in your life where you might most need a coach surely seeking to secure that career changing job ranks high in the list of situations worthy of your investment.

If you would like to find out more in confidence about how Brosna Consulting can help you to prepare for that upcoming significant job interview, please in the first instance email: tim@brosna-consulting.com