Managing Interview Anxiety: Job Interview Skills

Journal Entries

About this document

image 2

At key moments in the Bodyswaps experience, useful notes are added to the learner’s virtual journal as a memory prompt that they can refer back to, as and when required.

In VR, learners access their journal by looking at their avatar’s left hand. On other devices, it can be accessed via a ‘burger menu’ in the top left corner of the screen.

This document collates the journal entries in relation to the individual activities for this course.

Introduction and self-reflection

Managing interview anxiety

Objective

Don’t let nerves and anxiety hold you back

Goals

Identify how interviews make you feel

Stand up for success

Breathe and visualise

Quieten your inner critic

Identifying how interviews make you feel

The confidence paradox

It’s a balancing act…

How you feel about an interview can influence how well you perform on the day.

Feeling confident will help you to succeed. But too much confidence can make you underestimate the importance of practising your interview technique.

The techniques in this session will help you to manage anxiety so that confidence can shine through. 

Guided meditation

Body and mind techniques

Stand up for success

Holding a power pose for 2 minutes builds confidence and reduces stress hormones, so that you can perform better under pressure.

Breathe and visualise

Doctors and counsellors recommend mindful breathing as a proven method for quieting the mind and controlling anxiety.

Quieten your inner critic

Common interview worries 

Put your worries into words

Verbalising your concerns produces therapeutic effects in the brain. Do you relate to any of these examples? 

  • Making a poor first impression
  • Saying the wrong thing
  • Feeling shy about talking to strangers
  • Not knowing if you are right for the job
  • Too humble to brag about achievements
  • Things you’re omitting or trying to hide on your CV

Reasons to be confident

Growing confidence

Think about all the ways you’ve made a positive difference to the world. For example:

  • Personal qualities like patience, kindness, honesty, creativity...
  • Problems you’ve solved
  • People you’ve helped
  • Things you’ve created
  • Goals you’ve achieved