Overcoming Self-Doubt before job interviews

Job interviews can make you feel vulnerable even to the most confident person.

No matter how well you’ve prepared, every job interview implies new challenges and questions. Particular circumstances add pressure, like being unemployed, applying for a different industry or job, changing careers, searching for an entry-level job or aspiring to a leadership position. These combined elements can add stress and nervousness throughout the job search process.

?As a career mentor, when I help clients prepare for job interviews, they are expected to express the feeling of self-doubt, undeserving the position, or inadequacy for the job. They are qualified and sometimes overqualified; they have the skills, but they still lack confidence.

When migrants are from non-English speaking countries, the stress is amplified despite their qualifications and experience.

Self-doubt is something we all deal with at one point or another. It’s a normal human reaction when facing new experiences we haven’t done before.

Self-doubt means that you’re holding yourself back. It comes from fear of making a mistake.

Fortunately, there are ways to cope with self-doubt. I am sharing below 2 strategies for dealing with it that will help you in your next job interview.

?1.??????Expect self-doubt and the brain’s involuntary reactions but understand the goal of the interview process.

?When you are excited about a job and the interview process, you are vulnerable and exposed to uncertainty because you are getting out of your comfort zone. The amygdala is the centre of your emotional responses that helps to activate the fight-or-flight response when you feel that kind of fear.

When you doubt yourself, the amygdala triggers the stress hormones as if a tiger was chasing you. Your brain doesn’t recognise if you are in real or imaginary danger.

?In addition, the basal ganglia, which is responsible for regulating habits, gets activated as you consistently respond by acting (or not acting) on your intentions.

When you feel self-doubt and allow it to hold you back from acting, you reinforce the habit of hesitation.

The limbic system reacts so quickly that the fear response washes over us before we even have a chance to respond. Through our conscious attention, the higher-order thinking and decision-making part of our brain – the frontal cortex, can be activated to distract or cut the root of the fear at its source.

People think that an interview process is to master technical details. I’ve often seen clients prepare their job interviews with data, numbers, and facts to show they are subject matter experts. Recruiters can tell you from your resume and application if you meet their technical requirements. You were given an interview because you do have what it takes to succeed in the role.

In the interview, they want to know how is working with you and if you fit in the organisational culture, and they want to see your social and soft skills. Of course, you need to comply with the job’s selection criteria, knowledge, and qualifications.

Still, your goal in a job interview is to help the interviewers envision you as a team member.

?In sum, becoming self-aware of the fear response is a decisive first step, then using the same frontal cortex power to visualise or think in more pleasant thoughts or moments and choose a new response. Researchers suggest not to try to calm down or accept the feelings. The suggestion is to decide to think differently and change the self-doubt thoughts. Be prepared for these thoughts, knowing that they’ll inevitably arise. Then you will be able to deal with them in calmly manner.

Every time we choose to act despite self-doubt, we activate new neural pathways and strengthen the habit of confidence. Over time, we train our minds to become our greatest allies.

?2.??????Practice, practice and practice

The more you do it, the better you get at it with every skill.

• Find a career coach
• Ask assertive friends and family to practice mock interviews
• Search for interview questionnaires and practice the answers using different methods. I recommend the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action and Result).
• Improve your communication, articulation and body posture by practising in front of a mirror.
• Write down your essential points and create a mind map you can use during the job interview
• Think of every rejection or unsuccessful application as a new opportunity for your practice. The next one may be your big “yes”
• Control what is in your hands to avoid extra stress, such as knowing the route and arriving on time.
• Practice switching the bad habit of self-doubt by learning strategies to redirect your attention from “I’m not good enough”, answering with examples of how you overcame challenges in the past and how your actions helped your team succeed or achieve goals.
• Search for the company and its values and culture if possible (usually the organisation’s website) and try to understand its needs. Reread the job advertisement to see the position’s requirements by putting yourself in their shoes.
• Prepare a short story of how you have solved similar problems and how you will use those transferable skills and learning advantages in your favour and benefit the new team.

In other words, no matter what obstacles and doubts cross your mind and path, remember that you’re the driver, and you're in charge, you know best how to make it to your destination. You don’t need help from the doubter. Be positive and confident in your abilities, even in something new, which is precisely the mindset you need for interview success.