By: Emilee Nielsen
At some point, you may ask the question, “was that a good interview?”. A bad interview for me is typically from overthinking then it typically snowballs down from there. I would tell myself not to be nervous, don’t overshare, make eye contact, and a bunch of other little tweaks I feel like I had to think about in order to have a perfect interview. I feel like it’s important to take a deep breath and focus on your main goal of the interview.
The first few interviews I have been a part of, I was so nervous and it caused me to stutter and overthink the entire time. So I tried to think of it in different ways to overcome this issue and realized I needed to go to these interviews with a different approach. The main thing that helped me was going into the interview thinking that it’s okay if it doesn’t go well or what’s the worst that’s going to happen. I think telling myself that gave me confidence to try hard but also know that it’s okay if it doesn’t go the way I expected it to go.
One interview experience I had that was very successful was when I was interested in a position at a tech company. The reason it went so well was because I got recommended to go in for the interview when the manager came to my other job and said I would be a great fit. This helped me be very confident and I felt great about how everything was going. My mindset at the time was that this is a meeting to talk about all the highlights of myself and what I am proud of.
After looking at the article on how to take the bias out of interviews, it reminded me of what I said up above about trying not to care as much. I don’t mean like showing up in sweatpants, because a good outfit is important, I just mean as far as something you can’t change about yourself. For example, trying not to get in my head before going to an interview because I have a big pimple on my face. In the article they said, “they are fraught with bias and irrelevant information. Instead, managers should invest in tools that have been shown to predict future performance.” Which is true and it is sad how some places are very judgy based on some of the small stuff that we can’t change about ourselves.
I think interviews get easier the more you have. It can seem very intimidating but it is important to slow down and be confident in yourself.