Why Are Interviews So Scary?
Have you ever felt jittery before an interview? Nervous or even
terried Have you ever wished you had answered a question differently or negotiated your salary more skillfully? Do you panic when you imagine the possibility of "failure"? Do you just want to make sure you get it right the first time?
Let's face it. Interviews are not like normal conversations. Being interviewed can be scary, even for ordinarily outgoing people. When you're sitting in the hot seat, the interviewer is an authority ?gure, and he or she has all or most of the power in the interview.
Guess what? Studies show that more than 60 percent of interviewers have never been trained in the task of interviewing. Most of these managers report that they feel "nervous, anxious, confused, stressed" and even "incompetent" when taking on the responsibility of conducting a job interview.
Now that you're reading Fearless Interviewing, take another look at who's being trained and who's not!
It's likely that you're actually going to be more prepared for the meeting than the interviewer.
Think again. Now who holds the power? By the end of this book, you'll ?nd that you too have control over what goes on at the interview, especially when you learn to harness your fear into
excitement, energy, and enthusiasm. To make this transformation you'll need to learn the techniques of fearless interviewing.
Here's how one of my clients, Christine, used fearless inter- viewing to turn her timidity into power.
Christine's Story
Christine came to see me for some career coaching after a series
of failed interviews. She told me that she had interviewed at several high profile financial firms for a position as a financial analyst. She had a B.A. in accounting and a master's in business administration, plus eight years' experience as a senior accountant and ?nancial analyst for a midsized company in Montana.
From my evaluation of the resume she sent me, neither her qualifications nor her education were the problem.
When Christine came to my office for an appointment, she told me that she had been out of work for several months and added emphatically that interviewing had been "torture" for her. She said that she felt timid at the interviews she had gone to and that she felt intensely uncomfortable about being asked questions that required her to call attention to herself and her skills.
Though perfectly well qualified for just about any ?nancial analyst position, Christine suffered from what is sometimes known in psychology as the imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome presents itself as the feeling that, even though we have accomplished something, we somehow feel that we don't deserve the recognition or prestige that goes with it.
According to Christine, "I've never had a problem talking about a friend's accomplishments, but when it comes to my own, I find it embarrassing." She reports, "I'm afraid that others will think I'm arrogant. I feel that if I boast about myself at an interview, the company might hire me and then find out I can't do the job at all."
At first, as Christine learned the techniques of fearless interviewing, she told me that she felt uncomfortable relating her strengths in such a straightforward manner. "It feels like bragging," she said. But as we worked together to reframe her notion of "bragging" into one of simply "reporting the facts," she began to relax and handle questions about herself more easily.
When Christine built her skills arsenal and constructed her Q statements (as you'll do in Chapters 2 and 3, she realized that her strengths were not just fabrications; they were real. Further- more, they could be proven by citing examples of what she had actually done in the real world!
Her accomplishments, she soon learned, were not exaggerations at all; they were simply statements of facts.
Christine's next interview was with a Fortune 500 ?nancial organization for a job as a ?nancial analyst. I heard from her about 2 weeks after the interview took place. She sent me a greeting card with the face of a sad, cute little puppy on the front of it. The inside of the card said, "Before, I felt like a scared puppy;
now I feel like a lion! Thank you for helping me land the job!" Just like Christine, many of us shy away from "tooting our
own horns."
But that's just what an interview is for. It's your opportunity to tell an employer what you've accomplished in the past and how you'll help them in the future.
When Christine was able to interview successfully for the ?nancial analyst position, nothing new or magical was added to her personality. She simply picked up the tools that we're going
to discuss in the coming chapters.
Most important, she learned to let the employer understand,
in clear and speci?c terms, that she could and would make a significant contribution to that firm.
This is the key to fearless interviewing: knowing your strengths, being able to provide concrete examples of those strengths, thereby building the lasting con?dence to present yourself and your skills in the best possible light.
In the next several chapters, you'll learn the following:
• What interviewers are really looking for
• How to charm your way into the interviewer's heart in the first 20 seconds of the interview
• How to express your strengths and skills with power and laserlike precision
• How to handle even the most difficult questions
• How to use body language in your favor
• How to leverage multiple job offers
• The most important questions to ask the employer
• How to be a master at negotiating your salary