For my last interview, I used ChatGPT to help me train for it.
I uploaded the job announcement, description to ChatGPT, then asked it to be the hiring manager for that job and to ask me popular interview questions, and questions specifically related to the posted announcement.
It can take multiple prompting to get the flow right etc., but it gave me a chance to study and practice for the actual interview.
It seemed to have worked, as I had a job offer by the end of the week.
I can confirm, it worked well for me too. I didn't have to do much prompt engineering, I just asked "Hello, can you please help me prepare for an interview?" and then "I have a job description - can you ask me interview questions based on this?"
Vitamin d3, maybe magnesium and room temperature water, 30 minutes to an hour before the interview (time to pee). Maybe it’s placebo, but it makes me feel way less anxious in many stressful (mentally) situations.
I like to do several things before an interview. For me, the best way to minimize the anxiety is to feel prepared. I will research the company a little and try to come up with at least 3 questions I want to ask them. Asking the right questions and gauging their responses lets me feel like I have some control, and it usually reveals possible red flags.
On the drive to the interview, I will put on some of my favorite songs and karaoke that shit. It releases endorphins that helps my confidence and forces me to breath and oxygenate my blood. I tend to in the first few minutes of an interview breath pretty shallow, then when they ask me the first questions I feel out of breath and that makes the anxiety worse. While I am sitting in the lobby waiting, I breath deeply and slowly while going over my questions in my head. That way I am not death spiraling in my head and reinforcing the idea that I have some control in the situation.
Feeling prepared is really key. Something that really helped me is also preparing some phrases to fall back on if you feel like you're spiraling.
For example, if you feel like a question puts you on your heels a bit, you can give yourself some breathing room by saying, "Let me think on that for a second." It can help you alleviate that "oh god, I'm not talking and they're not talking and I'm taking too long to answer, maybe I should just blurt something out but I don't want to say the wrong thing" anxiety. You come across as contemplative and it helps keep some of those intrusive thoughts out of your mind while you put a more thoughtful answer together.
If it is severe (heart pounding in your ears, can't think straight, tremors, etc) talk to your doctor. You might benefit from propanolol, a beta blocker (heart rate medication) that is also used in low doses for performance anxiety.
Please do NOT seek this out and take it without consulting a physician. Absolutely do not take it if you are also using cocaine at all.
You do know anxiety itself carries a heart attack risk, right? A person without anxiety taking propanolol might increase the risk, but for someone with crippling anxiety I'd wager it might be a net benefit.
Propanolol (and other beta blockers) ... blocks a type of` receptor found on cells call beta adrenergic receptors. In the heart, beta blockers work to help with rate control.
Cocaine activates beta and alpha adrenergic receptors. Activating alpha adrenergic receptors can cause vasoconstriction.
Combining them, you get unopposed alpha activity, leading to coronary artery constriction, and a significant increase in risk of heart attack.
Your mileage may vary. If anyone tries this route, make sure to try it a couple times in lower stress situations, ideally with at least one person who knows you well so they can help evaluate if it's making you act oddly.
I've tried propranolol and it tended to make me chattier, which was a step in the wrong direction since I typically try to talk through my anxiety.
Thank you for this. I know anxiety is "normal" in these situations, but at the same time, it's clear that people are talking about a pretty wide range of experiences when they talk about anxiety. At the extreme end, it's tough to even hold a casual conversation, let alone answer complex questions and demonstrate skills to an interviewer. It's not something everyone can manage with logic and self-talk.
Propranolol ROCKS. I know my shit. I'm actually good at interviews... except for the crippling adrenaline rush. It's deep down in my lizard brain and I cannot control it. I'm sure it kept my ancestors alive when they were running from sabre tooth tigers, but it's not much good today. Propranolol just switches off the adrenaline rush like a light switch. It's uncanny. And amazing. I tried everything, and this was the only thing which worked. I regret that it look me so long to find it.
Note: don't take it for every meeting. Save it for the big ones. Test in the range of 10-20mg. Takes about an hour for full effect. I find the effects can last 4-6 hours afterwards. I get two side effects: an upset stomach and I feel tired in the evening. I take an imodium to solve the former, and a good night's rest for the latter.
Having some interview notes helps, even if you never check them it makes you feel better to have them there. Having a pen and paper to take notes about what your interviewer is saying also helps me, even though I may never check the notes again and the relevance of what I noted is arguable. Another trick I've learned is to ask them questions. Come up with a list of questions that you believe are relevant to the positions or the company, and try to ask some of them, when appropriate. The last one that comes to mind is to dress sharply, even if the dress code and the position don't need you to. In my current job, I come to work every day in generic pants and a graphic T-shirt, but I still wore my suit to the interview. Often being hygienic and dressing well lend to a sense of confidence.
It sounds kinda cringe, but I actually have found spoken mantras to be really helpful. Like, you actually have to say out loud that you are good enough for the position, that you know what your doing, that you are capable of nailing this interview, and whatever else you find personally helpful.
It sounds dumb, but it totally works and puts me in a much better place mentally before an interview.
As others have said, practice some answers, again out loud. Get comfortable saying the words. Don’t memorize lines, cause that ends up coming off a little robotic, but just try out some different ways of answering common questions.
As for general interview advice, I try to ask as many or more questions than they ask me. This way, I can kind of steer the conversation where I want it to go. I find this is the easiest way to get to a conversational cadence, which is where I want to be because I know the subject really well and I actually am pretty passionate about it.
I'm not a confident person, except in job interviews. Then my confidence just bursts out of me and that's my recommendation (as much as it may not seem like one if you're not confident).
But there's no good reason NOT to be confident. You're clearly qualified, or you wouldn't have the interview in the first place. They're interested and more importantly they needYOU or you wouldn't be here. There is literally no answer you don't know, because the most correct answer to a question you literally don't know is just that.
"I don't know/have that answer/have a solution, but I will find out."
It's so much easier when you realize that the above isn't just an acceptable answer, it's a good answer. It's the best answer you can possibly give. When I am evaluating someone there are two things I personally look for above all else. First, personality. Can I stand to be locked in a room with you for the majority of 8 hours? Cause I can teach you anything you don't know for this position, but I can't teach you a new personality. Second, which ties into this point, is if you find yourself in an unfamiliar position, how are you going to handle it? Do you stop at the first roadblock and then ask for help? Will you attempt to work beyond what you know and try things to see if you can discover solutions you're not familiar with? Or do you rush headlong and refuse to accept it's beyond your abilities and make a bigger mess than there was initially?
Speak loudly and clearly. Make eye contact with everyone. That room is yours. You are literally the most important in the room in that moment. They wouldn't waste their time otherwise. They know you're nervous, you're meeting people whose sole job in that moment is to judge you. Everyone has some inherit fear in such a scenario. So how do you handle pressure?
Finally, embrace it. You can learn about yourself as much as they can. This is a challenge and a perfect opportunity to learn from.
As someone who naturally freezes when they are put on the spot, what I've found really helpful is to think of the questions they're going to ask, write or type up my answers, and practice sitting and answering the questions out loud a ton of times for each question.
The repetition helps because the first few times are going to be super awkward and it helps to get that out of the way. Then as you get more comfortable you start noticing where you might stumble over something that sounds great written but is harder for you to articulate in real life if you aren't used to speaking that way. Practice changing the words around or using words that feel more natural to you.
By the time the interview happens I remind myself that it's definitely normal and expected to be nervous during an interview (who actually enjoys them?) so just roll with it if it shows. And if I don't get the job, this interview will at the very least be great practice for the next one!
Take deep breaths. Mostly, remember that you are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you. Having a crappy job is just as demoralizing as having no job.
I hope the interview went well! Sometimes the result is not even the most important thing as is the experience of getting to do interviews.
One of the things that i try to keep in my head, always, is that it is a two-way street. Of course, you want the job based on the information you have, but is that still the case when you are actually talking to people?
Of course you can fail at something they throw at you, that is always possible, and sometimes a person is not (yet) good enough for a certain position. There is absolutely no shame in that. People learn and grow, and interviewing is part of that.
And in the end, it's okay to be nervous, all part of that game which you will get out of a little bit better, more prepared and experienced than before you went in.
It did. It would be a pretty easy job and a major step down from my last job, but that's what I'm looking for since I'm about to start a grad school program. We'll see what they think.
It's completely normal for you to feel anxious before something like a job interview. It's also normal to feel a bit scared of the possibility of moving jobs.
You're going out of your comfort zone - the comfort zone being your job or whatever is going on in your life. And when you do get out of your comfort zone, you will be uneasy and unsure, and that's just part of the process, and it's okay.
No matter what happens, you took that initial step and got yourself a job interview. Many others don't even take that step - employed or not. Be proud of yourself of that, and learn to understand and enjoy the process rather than thinking "I will be happy at X part of the process".
Once you crack this, people will think you are a monk with how peaceful and happy you are :D
I just assume I'm not going to get it so there's no real pressure since I've already failed, so I just have a chat with them about myself. Works surprisingly well for me.
Have stories ready, and try to use the STAR method of explaining them. You can search for 'STAR method' on your favorite search engine and you'll find plenty of articles about it, but here's a quick summary:
The STAR method is a popular technique used in job interviews. It provides a structured framework for answering questions by focusing on four key elements: Situation, Task, Action, and Result. By describing the situation you encountered, explaining the task at hand, detailing the actions you took, and sharing the outcome or results, you can provide a concise and effective response that showcases your skills and experiences. This method helps interviewers gain a clear understanding of your capabilities and problem-solving abilities.
Aside from that, I always remind myself that I'm interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me. I don't want to work at a shitty company with shitty people, so I'm going to try and find out as much about their culture as possible.
Along with that, if they ask a question that "stumps" you, it's usually ok to come back to that one later. You may think of a good example while talking about a different scenario.
If you need a few seconds to think, repeat the question back or ask them to repeat. Good luck!
And it's worth emphasizing that you're also interviewing them. Absolutely because you want to make sure you actually want to work there, but from an anxiety perspective, it gets them talking and that takes pressure off of you. To me, the hardest part of interviewing is the feeling that I have to put on a performance and the less time I spend feeling like I have to be "on," the better.
And to that former point, if there are things that they're doing or along that are making you anxious, that's something to take into account. I had one interview where I was asked a lot of weird, irrelevant questions to "test" my personality. It felt like they came straight from some bullshit, pseudoscientific article about how to vet job candidates. That's not the kind of workplace I want to be in.
I literally just got out of an interview (I was the interviewer). I was nervous as well before it because I also need to convince the applicant to join my team. If I sell my team’s work as boring and my company’s vision as uninspiring, there’s a chance I could lose this candidate.
With that said, the two other interviewers and I were very impressed with the candidate. We wanted her to succeed and when we felt as though she didn’t answer the questions we asked fully, we followed up and gave her the space to impress.
Interviews are not one-sided. We want to make sure they’re a good fit for us just as much as we are a good fit for them. If you made it to the interview stage, the interviewers are already impressed enough with your profile and they just want confirmation that they’re making a good choice with you.
Yeah this matches my usual interview advice. If you're feeling nervous about the interview, try to turn it around in your head. Pretend you are interviewing THEM. Assume they're going to want you, what do you want to know about them that's going to make you say yes to them.
I know it doesn't always work that way, personal pressures and needs can make it hard to flip that script, but I really think if you approach an interview believing it to be an equal stakes conversation rather than one side having all the power, it goes a lot better.
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