Dreading Your Job Interview? How To Conquer Your Fear and Show Up Authentically
Taryn Greig of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Melville School of Business explains why we fear job interviews, and how to conquer that fear and express our authentic selves:
As the interview approaches, our palms begin to sweat, our mouth goes dry, our heart races, our hands tremble and our minds go blank as we think only of the danger ahead. Sensing an external threat, real or perceived, our brain and body begin preparing us for fight, flight or freeze.
Are we doomed, then, to succumb to our evolutionary programming and botch every job interview we land? Of course not. Instead, being mindful of our brain and body’s response to what is unquestionably a stressful undertaking, we can acknowledge the challenge ahead and choose a different response.
This kind of mindful awareness sounds helpful in theory, but how can we apply it in the face of a stressful experience? Like any other skill, we must practise it before using it under pressure.
Research suggests that a regular mindfulness meditation practice can help. For instance, in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), study participants are asked to describe their qualifications for a job in front of a panel of straight-faced interviewers, before being asked to do complicated mental math. One study using the TSST demonstrated that the more hours a study participant practised meditation, the more quickly their blood pressure recovered from a surge during the test. Cultivating a regular meditation practice can help us manage our stress response in the face of all kinds of challenging events, including job interviews.