Career Chat // Interview anxiety // Friday 24 June, 10am AEST

Good morning and welcome to today’s forum, thanks @NikNik for your intro …

So today we’ll be talking about interview nerves … and probably each one of us who has ever been for an interview will understand what we’re talking about here today!

Clammy hands, dry throat, pounding head maybe shortness of breath.

... and particularly for those of us with mental illness, the interview part may just be the our greatest source of anxiety …If only the interview didn’t cause me so much stress and anxiety I know I could do the job!!

Is that something that happens for you?

Do you experience stress and anxiety in interviews?

If so, what do you do about it … in the short term and in the long term?

Research shows that interview is absolutely normal.

ANU put out a study that identified four key causes of job interview anxiety:

1. Fear of not having control of the situation

2. Fear of not achieving desired outcomes

3. Fear of being evaluated by others

4. Communication anxiety

I’ll go each of those later and possible ways to handle anxiety in interviews.

In the meantime feel free to share ...

Research shows that intervew ANXIETY is normal skipped a word there in my first post lol...

I have an experience from the mental health point of view ...

My client was very nervous about returning to work, she was a great worker with an excellent history but had been an addict and out of the workforce for many years.

Now clean and determined to succeed she joined a women's group and was being coached on dressing and style by an Image consultant ...

The consultant upon finding out my client had an interview later that day decided to prepare her for the interview right there in the session ...after a few minutes my client panicked and left the room.

She told me later that the preparation had overwhelmed her so much she didn't end up going to the interview.

I believe it was due to the timing ... because i do think preparing works ... what do you think?

When you break it down, the clammy hands ... pounding head and shortness of breath ... maybe whirring thoughts in your head ... it apparently comes down to this ...

Anxiety, but it's been said that interview anxiety is different from other types of anxiety.

Interview anxiety has these four major components the ANU study revealed:

1. Fear of not having control of the situation

2. Fear of not achieving desired outcomes

3. Fear of being evaluated by others

4. Communication anxiety- which would affect those of us who are not English speaking even more obviously

They surmise that having greater self efficacy and self confidence would help with these 4 elements (it seems obvious) but just how to go about building said self efficacy and self confidence??

1. See a careers counsellor to develop your self confidence and address any barriers you believe you may have and perhaps deal with the negative thinking

2. Use of innovating technology - that is - interview simulators.

Has anyone ever used an interview simulator before?

And does it work well for thos of us with mental health issues?

Well I did some snooping around ...

And found a few different interview simulators largely available through Universities

There's The Interviewer used by Bradofr Uni, Intervisual, used by Brel Uni (UK) and InterviewStream at ANU, other universtiy career centres in Australia probably use these as developing their own would be too expensive ...

But they're worth noting.

The results showed are very positive due to the effect the technology has on those practicing their interviews. It seems they by receiving real feedback, the carees counsellor are observing an increase in self-efficacy and a reduction in job interview anxiety.

That's something!

The key is teh feedback - having feedback so you can go back and modify your answers/performance is apparently what creates a feeling of having greater control and being more in tune with how your performance might be evaluated ...

thus reducing anxiety.

I notice that the researchers show a weakness with the results that is - all the questions are in English! Presumably there would be different results with non-english speakers however, this could be helped by translators etc.

If you have a mental illness and feel like responding - can you answer whether an interview simulator (where you do a mock interview, answer questions and receive feedback) would be something you would like to try?

Just scanning through more research and I found another possible way to handle interview anxiety, from a study done in the UK ...

They tested students who were anxious and compared with non-anxious students where the difference was that the anxious people who tend to infer negative meanings from other people's comments or their surroundings ...

Well, they found that when having the anxious students read a paragraph about 'Joyce the confident woman' and imagining what she would do in an interview situation ...

The tendency to make negative assumptions (in regards to outcomes and being unfavourable evaluated) was reduced!

So they call it 'taking the perspective of a confident other' approach to change inferential processing. Which actually means taking the confident person's approach to stop you assuming/inferring what horrible things might happen!!

A career counsellor could help you over a period of time, to establish new thought patterns that were geared towards good old 'Joyce's' way of thinking rather than your own ...

In a new and potenially anxiety producing situation, do you ever ask yourself 'what would my friend (insert name of confident person) do in this situation?? I know i have ...

Is it worth considering? What do you think?

Thanks @Kurra I think that's a great way to reframe the situation... Definitely

and I know at least one person I think it's @NikNik who also says she turns it around to feel like she's interviewing them ...

I've been talking about long term interview strategies today and research (coaching and interview simulation) but at the actual interview this would be ideal.

awesome strategy, thank you!

do you have any other techniques?

cheers

You know I found some research that completely backs up @Kurra's strategy ...

studies show that if you focus on yourself and how you will be perceived etc you become more anxious and self-focus actually stops you from getting a realistic sense of how the interview is going ...

However if instead of thinking about how you're going or how you are feeling and instead focus on the questions being asked or anything outside yourself you do much better.

so clearly focusing on thinking the interview as 'an opportunity for a chat' or focusing mainly on the interview questions rather than the fact you're nervous, has been proven by studies to be a great idea.

So remember, outward focus is the best ... Plus a few deep and calming breaths too!!

Today we explored the anxiety felt during interview and discovered ...

• Interview anxiety is mainly about self efficacy and self confidence so make sure you prepare (using a coach or interview simulator!) to increase how good you feel about yourself and the interview (watch what you say to yourself!)

• Also when you're interviewing focus on what's happening around you like the questions and the opportunity for a chat or to interview them!

• Using the perspective of a confident person might help

• Using deep breathing to calm nerves or other tried and tested calming strategies

• A careers counsellor could be helpful for practicing interview skill

• Obtaining feedback regarding interviews is fundamental if you want to improve

hopefully theres something thing here that has helped ... Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions every little bit helps!

Thanks to @Kurra for your suggestions

until next week, stay warm

@renstar

Yes @Renstar That's exactly how I try to think about job interviews... It's like a date... it's not all about just trying to impress them, they need to impress me too!