5 Strategies To Manage Interview Stress And Anxiety

Interviews are an important part of our academic as well as professional journeys. Be it for college, internship, or job interviews, we all have to face them. Often, we get last-minute jitters which can increase our anxiety levels and make us feel stressed out. This can severely impact our performance during the interview. This article outlines 5 methods to cope with interview-related stress and anxiety.

Tips and Techniques to deal with interview related stress and anxiety

1. Positive self-affirmations - Tell yourself that you are prepared and that you are going to give a good interview. Research shows that positive self-affirmations can help boost your confidence and improve performance.
   

2. Visualization - Prior to your interview, close your eyes and imagine (visualize) yourself in the interview room, giving your interview. Imagine that you are confident and are giving the interview really well.
   

3. Relaxation - On the morning of the interview day or just prior to your interview, you can use guided relaxation techniques to help calm yourself. There are many such techniques available online for free. One technique that is highly effective is by the Heartfulness Institute. (Link)
   

4. Music - Listen to relaxing or motivational music. Identify the music that works for you and use it to reduce stress and feel comfortable when you are anxious. This (link) is an example of such a playlist. However, you need to identify the music that suits you.
   

5. Mindset - Actively counter any negative thoughts with optimistic and encouraging thoughts.

Another important aspect of tackling anxiety is to build confidence with your interviewing skills. This article (6 Ways To Build Confidence For Interviews) shares multiple techniques for the same.

While all the above techniques can help you reduce interview stress, certain topics or questions may arise during your interview that you may find difficult to engage with. In such cases, you can use techniques to redirect an interviewer towards topics you want to talk about. Read this article (Interview Tactics: The Hook) to understand such techniques.

As a final point, remember to not be late for your interview, as being late can significantly contribute to your stress and anxiety.

You can utilize these techniques to help you not just with your interviews but in other situations as well. With practice, you can learn to use these techniques and see effective results in your interview performance and other domains of life.

All the best for your upcoming interviews.

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Here are some additional links that you may want to visit:

1. How to prepare for any interview | The 7 key components.

2. "Tell Me About Yourself"

3. What to do if I don’t know the answer?

4. Tackling HR Questions in Interviews

5. Interview Tactics: The Hook

6. Interview Tips: What are your strengths and weaknesses

Further Reading:

1. How to build a professional CV to get shortlisted

2. How to land an internship