The HeadStrong Job Interview: Be Totally Conscious

Someone offered me some great advice about 18 years ago.  It was about a week prior to my wedding day.  I swallowed the advice whole and remain glad for doing so.

The advice? “Be totally conscious on your wedding day”.

Sounds a little mystical, I guess.  But, it really was the best advice I received then. Because big moments in life and work fly by if you are not careful.  And some of these events we really want to remember.  Others we really want to analyze and understand.

And I try to apply this advice everywhere I go in life.

Especially for big events that I need to remember and live as fully as possible.  So it makes sense that I would help you apply it to the job search.  And to the job interview.

And as I think about it, there’s a good reverse application to a lot of the prior ideas I’ve shared about the job interview process.

You’ll find some of these in the new HeadStrong book coming out later this month and now available for pre-order!

Do you think you can be ultra-conscious in your next job interview?  Especially in the first five minutes of the job interview when you leave that early impression?

How to do it:

• Be smart and get well prepared for the job interview.  And then let go.  Allow yourself to relax.  Leave any of your notes in the car.  Trust that you are ready.

• Use your eyes and your ears to absorb the environment.  Do this as you wait in the lobby, walk to each interview room and enter the interviewer’s office.  There are clues to find if you stay alert.

• Take regular deep breaths along the way.  They’ll look like a strategic pause or thought process.  And they’ll act to settle your nerves and allow more data to be filtered.

• Smile.  A smile says “confident”, “comfortable” and “relaxed”.  Whether you are those things isn’t the point.  It sends a message internally and externally.

• Ask questions.  This shows your interest as well as a discriminating mind.  You are not out looking for any job.  You are looking for the right one.

• Be prepared for various job interview styles.  Recognize them for what they are and react in a confident way.

For example: “OK, this guy is pretty serious.  He wants specifics and a clear demonstration of my ability to do the job.  Do that well and then ask a few questions to see if you really want to work for him”.

The point is that you can feel anxiety and stress.  And you can let all that tighten you up leaving you with interview regrets about what you left in the room.

Or you can see the moment for what it is.  A interview for a job that is either perfect, a poor fit or somewhere in between.  And your role here is to figure that out.

Something you will do much better if you are relaxed and thinking progressively.

What are your methods to relax and be “in the moment” during a job interview?

More From TimsStrategy

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• The Medicine Ball Job Interview Strategy

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