Use Deep Thinking to Improve Your Interview

Introduction

As my graduation approaches, I have been feeling more and more anxious about my future jobs. Apart from the worry of leaving the university, the fear of future job interviews also bothers me a lot. I had many failed interviews before under the big competition in China, a country with a huge population. Even though I got lots of experience, which is failed experience, I lost a big part of my self confidence and have even doubted my skills. However, I believe overcoming the fear is one of the biggest challenge in our entire life. This will make us a more confident and stronger person.

My chosen interview is an audio producer in Score Draw Music, which is one of the studios I want to work in. After three years of studying music and sound design in the university as well as the high grades and comments I got from my lecturers, I totally believe I now have enough knowledge and ability to do what I want.

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle is one of the most popular reflective models to help figure out what we learned from our experience through six stages: Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion and Action Plan. [1] This will be a great help for me to learn from the simulated interview.

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Description

The simulated interview lasted around seven minutes. The interviewers mainly focused on questions about why I want to get the job, what benefits do I have and what contribution I can do for them. I answered them with my real thoughts and what I prepared days before. But whenever they asked me what kind of person I think I am, I got stuck in my own thoughts. I responded hesitantly with an uncertain answer and realized I should not lose focus of the interview like that. As soon as the interviewers moved to the next topic, I just pretended that nothing happened and continued on with the interview.

Feelings

I could feel the nervous atmosphere as I waited outside of the room with other interviewees. To help myself stay calm, I took deep breaths as well as cleared my mind instead of checking what I need to say on phone. I tried not to take the interview too seriously, and imagined it’s just a friend meeting that they are curious why I want to apply for the job. To be honest, this method helped me relax a lot and made me feel comfortable during the whole interview.

Evaluation

This simulated interview led to a wonderful result. I talked to the interviewers like I was talking to my friends that they could clearly feel my sincerity and my enthusiasm for the job, which made me full of confidence. [2] Anyway, there are also some mistakes I made. For example, I answered some of the questions too short as well as not responding to the interviewers questions in the most informative way, which is still something I need to improve.

Analysis

I would say I handled the stress pretty well by pretending the interview is a conversation between friends, which made me forget about the negative thoughts. [3] I also used the STAR method to retell my experiences from the past, which told the interviewers a clear story with a situation, task, action and result. [4] Despite all these, whenever I faced to the questions that I wasn’t prepared for, it took me longer to respond. I found it difficult to concentrate and to think of an appropriate answer at that point. This resulted in my answers being too short or not informative enough.

Conclusion

Self presentation skills are incredibly important in order to make a good first impression to other people. This simulated interview has granted me the opportunity to refine my self presentation skills greatly. Be positive and friendly, and imagine the conversation in the interview is just like chatting with friends, so that you can stay clam and let people know about you. In addition, never respond to a question with a short answer, otherwise people may perceive this as being under prepared. think about the question further, and find out what exactly the interviewers want to know from you.

Action Plan

After the simulated interview, I realized that if I want to get the job I like, I need to work harder for real interviews. Not only do I need to stay relaxed during the interview, but also respond to the questions with different angles to show people that I am a thoughtful person. To be an insightful thinker, I will focus myself to use my brain more and ask myself why do things happen the way they do. In future interviews, before I respond to a question, I will reflect on my answers and refine as well as simplify them to make people understand me well. [5] In conclusion, I will be thankful to every opportunities that I get, because they are all going to be my precious experiences.

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Rerferences

[1] Jasper, Melanie. Beginning Reflective Practice. Cengage Learning, 2013.

[2] 10 Skills You Need to Ace Your next Interview | Indeed.com. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/interview-skill.

[3] “How to Pass a Job Interview Successfully.” – Career Centre – HSE University, https://gsb.hse.ru/en/careercentre/career/interview.

[4] “How to Prepare Your Interview Answers I Indeed Career Quick Tips.” YouTube, 12 Aug. 2022, https://youtu.be/fIDYB7ICYA4.

[5] Farnam Street. “The Feynman Technique: The Best Way to Learn Anything.” Farnam Street, 26 Oct. 2021, https://fs.blog/feynman-technique/.