Nerves are a good sign…or are they?
As I stand outside the door before going into my mock interview, I only ask myself one question – “Why did I agree to go first?” At the time it seemed like a good idea, go first, and get it over and done with, how hard could it be? I continued to think this right up until the moment the door closed on the select few of us who agreed to go first were left in the hallway. Suddenly, my palms became a little sweaty and I felt that all too familiar feeling of butterflies in my stomach. I had prepared my answers the night before to possible questions I might be asked, I began trying to go over the answers in my head but as time passed, they began to slip further away as I felt nerves creeping up on me. The job I picked for mock interview was a TV Development Researcher at Below the Radar TV, a job I felt confident I could do based on the description. Before I knew it Frank emerged from the room and told us it was time to go in, I remember thinking “Just breathe and try your best, you’ll be ok”
The model I will using to help me reflect on my mock interview experience is Gibb’s Reflective Model (2016), I will also be using the STAR method (2022) to reflect on my interview answers.
Anxiety and nerves are something I struggle with on a daily basis, whether it be working up the courage to order and coffee or simply getting nervous to speak on the phone, so naturally, job interviews are my own idea of a personal hell. This was a mock interview conducted by my peers and I still felt the nerves, however, in my research before the mock interviews I found a interesting coping technique for nerves before and interview – “Get excited: reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement, suggests that it’s surprisingly easy to convince yourself that you are excited when you are in fact anxious.” (Royal College of Nursing) I found myself trying to get into the ‘excited’ mindset, rather than being nervous for an interview I was excited to get an opportunity to share my knowledge and skills.
Throughout the mock interview I tried to implement the STAR technique to each of my answers (Situation, Task, Action, and Result). I found myself going through each of the points in my head as I gave my answers, which surprisingly also helped calm my nerves as I felt a sense of ease in having set points to follow. I believe that I was able to use this guideline to provide effective interview answers.
What I found most helpful about these mock interviews is the feedback I received from my peers. It was obvious some also picked up on my nerves for the interview, stating “your eyes looked down a lot at the beginning, you’ve lovely things to say and you’re very talented so be confident about yourself and your abilities.” This comment is the one that stuck out to me the most out of the peer evaluation as I felt as though its spoke to my biggest downfall, and, what seems to be (unfortunately for me) the key to success- confidence. In my research for this mock interview, I found some statistics on the importance of body language in job interview,
Spoken words account for 7% of how others see us.
Tone of voice accounts for 38% of how others see us.
Body language accounts for 55% of how others see us.
(Mehrabian, 2023)
Confidence and body language appear to go hand in hand, and while I may not have the true confidence within myself just yet, I plan to implement a ‘fake it to you make it approach when it come to body language during interviews in the future. Remembering to keep eye contact and my voice at a good level will be something I work on and practice in the future.
I did receive some good feedback from my peers for the mock interview, with one person stating “Great interview overall, presentation was fab and Emma seemed very comfortable with her interview. This comment helped boost my confidence and it gave me reassurance that I was able to apply those nerve calming techniques and STAR method to my answers well.
Overall, I believe that this mock interview experience was very beneficial for myself in understanding my strengths and weaknesses during an interview process. While the process itself may have been nerve racking at the time the peer evaluation was extremely useful in understanding how I can improve myself for future job interviews (which will be happening in the not-so-distant future…scary). Going forward I plan on developing my body language and eye contact to be able to portray myself in the best light during interviews, allowing me to effectively convey the skills and knowledge I have learnt during my time at university and during work placement.
Works Cited
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