How to manage your nerves for a job interview: 5 tips

Our job future can be affected if we don't know how to manage our anxiety.

Job interviews are often stressful situations by their very nature.

In most cases, as candidates for a position, we do not go to them simply to test the waters and obtain information from a company that we find interesting, but even before the interview begins, we are already thinking about the possible alternative futures that await us if we are accepted. In other words, these are contexts that we perceive as if each one of them could radically change the course of our lives.

Now then... how do you control your nerves in a job interview? Although we cannot completely control our anxiety and stress levels, it is possible to indirectly influence them to reduce them.

Nerves in a job interview: what to do and how to control them

The expectations that we create before the job interviews make that our nervous system enters in state of alert when the moment approaches to enter the office in which the selectors will value us. Unconsciously, we try to be aware of everything going on around us to maximize our chances of success.

Clearly, a certain level of nervousness is a good thing, because it gets us thinking about something that is important to us, and thus makes it more likely that we won't leave anything out when planning how to approach it. However, if the level of stress and anxiety is very high, we are also more likely to get stuck trying to deal with too many things at once. O that, in general, we give the image of being unprepared to face a challenge..

The latter is especially relevant in the case of job interviews, where the superficial and more "automatic" assessment of people counts as a mechanism for discarding candidates. The idea that if we appear too weak and imperfect when interviewed by HR recruiters, this in turn makes us feel more nervous, thus creating the perfect breeding ground for the self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing that we may be overly anxious raises anxiety levels.

That's why combating nerves in a job interview is a challenge, given that not only do we have to present our candidacy in the most appealing way possible, but we also have to be careful not to get our emotions too involved... which is somewhat more difficult if we don't have many job offers to choose from. Having said that, and bearing in mind that each case is unique, let's see what are strategies we can adopt to cushion the effects of stress..

1. Get a good night's sleep

Although it may seem counterintuitive, not getting enough sleep makes us more likely to feel nervous and restless in situations where we feel we are not getting enough sleep. situations in which we feel we are not in control.. Yes, during most of the day we are sleepy and everything in us seems to work more slowly, but when situations arise that demand a lot from us, we feel less prepared to deal with them. As a result, our entire nervous system invests more energy in staying on general alert, even if that leads us to be more inaccurate in each of the specific tasks to be performed.

So, something as simple as getting a good, regular night's sleep is one way to reduce the chances of being overly nervous in a job interview.

2. Don't fantasize

There are many people who tend to fantasize a lot, imagining the best possible future from a key milestone that, in this case, may be the job interview itself. This is stimulating, but it also makes us prone to become obsessed with a selection process that need not be so decisive, nor does it need to require so much attention and care from us in order to go through it successfully..

In this case, the fear of frustration is what drives us to do everything we can to make that ideal life we have imagined become a reality. To prevent this type of problems, everything happens by trying to be realistic and combining the illusion for a potential new job with the fact of taking into account the more than probable imperfections of the position that we aspire to cover.

3. Prepare for the interview

Obviously, the better prepared we are for the interview, the more likely it is that we will feel prepared ourselves to go through this stage of the selection process leaving a good taste in the interviewers' mouths.

Therefore, the ideal is to make a list of objective needs to be covered in order to go to the interview in good conditions, prioritizing them in order of priority and importanceand to fulfill them before the indicated day arrives. For example: buy a suitable wardrobe if we do not already have one, think about what we will say when we are asked why we are interested in the position, know how to get to the offices where the interviews are held, do a little research on the company that has the vacancies, etc.

4. Leave with time

Going out with plenty of time before the job interview is highly recommended to control your nerves, as it allows us not to sweat and not to get tired and, with it, that we do not go through the unpleasant experience of arriving at the office looking exhausted and disheveled. In addition, this will allow us to perform the following tip.

5. Do relaxation exercises

If possible, do relaxation exercises in the waiting room. They should be very simple and basic, focused on breathing and Muscle relaxation, since you obviously cannot do things like stretching on the floor or adopting strange postures.Obviously, you can't do things like stretching on the floor or adopting strange postures. This way, just before you present yourself to the HR staff, your stress levels will be lower.