Soothing nerves before a job interview

January 31, 2023 7:51 PM

I have a job interview tomorrow for a great position, but I fear that I've already self-sabotaged by not preparing enough for it. Now I'm having massive anxiety, how can I calm down before my interview tomorrow morning?

It's no secret that I've asked a ton of questions about job interviews in the past, so I apologize. I did ask a similar question in August, but I believe this one is different enough.

I don't know what to say, I've squandered my time to prepare for this interview. I've researched the library a bit (I also know it better than maybe the average applicant because I had an internship there years ago), I had a practice interview with a mentor librarian on the weekend (it went ok, not great), and I did practice with my therapist yesterday. Beyond that I haven't done much formal prep beyond practicing answering questions like "tell me about yourself," etc. in my car while driving around. Now it's almost 9PM and I'm just thinking "oh fuck, I've wasted a week!" Which is true, I'll have to deal with the consequences of that tomorrow.

I was actually getting ready to do a bit more prep when I just became sooo agitated with everything. I can feel my heart rate increasing, my muscles feel tense, I feel ornery, etc. How I usually feel when I'm anxious. How can I calm down before I go to bed and manage to get some prep in when I feel this awful/stupid?

Something that's really bothering me is that I just feel like... there's no way I'm the best candidate. I worked on the "why should we hire you/why are you interested in this positon" question with my therapist last night (which I mentioned having trouble with prior to my last interview) and I just hate it. No matter how much I practice, it feels so stupid. My therapist told me not to think about the other candidates, they don't matter!!! But ugh, I'm getting obsessed with thinking about these people who are a) likely more qualified, b) better interviewers, and c) just better, than me.

I hate job interviews so much because I feel like I have to justify everything about my existence/be perfect. I feel like I'm always waiting for a "gotcha!" question from them or for the other shoe to drop. What's also adding to the anxiety is that this interview is an hour and a half long, why!!?! I can't stop thinking about all the questions they can ask in an hour and a half!! Every bad interview I've ever had is running through my head right now and I know that *this one* will soon join the gallery of terrible interviews I've had.

I need to calm down before I sleep. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

posted by VirginiaPlain to Work & Money (18 answers total)

The people doing the interviews really want to be done with the hiring process. They are rooting for you to succeed.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:04 PM on January 31, 2023 [21 favorites]

I really feel for you with this level of anxiety, and it sounds like you spend a lot of time trying really hard to think of everything and be prepared, but maybe in this case you could try giving yourself permission to wing it?

You didn't have time to do a gargantuan ammount of prep, but that's okay, you interned their years ago! You have everything you need! If there was something you didn't know the answer to, you can say that you'd ask your brilliant colleagues! Nobody wants a coworker who knows everything anyway, knowitalls are the worst!

Just take a deep breath, go in there and let yourself be. You can even confess that you get nervous at interviews! Break the ice, and ask if it's okay to ask them a question first. Ask them what their favorite part of their job is. Tell them you like their shoes if you do!

My point is, Try to have fun with it, Imagine that you're already coworkers, just being mutually excited about the library, and before you know it, you might be. Or you might not be, and that's okay too. Sometimes a "screw it, let's do it!" attitude will serve you better than your anxiety ever could.

If you need help getting to sleep tonight, try counting backwards from 1000.

GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN <3 YOU CAN DO IT <3 I BELIEVE IN YOU <3
posted by wowenthusiast at 8:21 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

Take a deep breath.
It's a conversation. Really and truly, this is a conversation.
The questions aren't there to stump you and there are no perfect answers.
They want to hear about you; about your experiences; and how you might handle things that happen on the job.
They want to hear how you would organize yourself or start a new program or work with a community that is new to you.
What intrigues you about what you found out about the job or the library? Let them know.
Tell Me No Lies is right, they are rooting for you to have a successful interview.

Wind down, and get ready for sleep.
Take a deep breath. You'll be fine.
posted by calgirl at 8:22 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

Being an appealing coworker—as much as you can control that—counts as much or more than being prepared. Prepare some questions you can ask them and have a main theme or two you want to hit in your answers, but don’t worry if you don’t have all your responses fully scripted.

Do you know why you want this job? I think you do, because right at the start you call this a “great position.” As long as you know that, you’ll be able to say something useful.

I do a LOT of hiring. By the time I’m interviewing, I’ve already decided they’re all qualified, and I desperately want one of them to be the one.

Your qualifications are all on paper and now they just want to meet you to make sure you’re into the job and they can imagine working with you every day. Of course your answers matter, but The Perfect answer isn’t going to land anyone the job if they’re not conveying interest, engagement, a decent personality.

What will help you feel less negative? I tend to sing loud and dance crazy to get my nerves out and my confidence up. I can imagine some people (maybe librarians?) need to get in a calm quiet space. Or counterintuitively, would a “fuck it, I don’t care” lowering of the stakes help you come across more confidently?

I have hired people who have blanked, rambled, asked for a minute, sidestepped the question, etc. I have rejected people who seemed overly coached and scripted, too mechanical and slick.

Stop beating yourself up for not preparing like it’s the bar exam! When it’s over you can go to the bakery or something.
posted by kapers at 8:34 PM on January 31, 2023 [13 favorites]

Congratulations on making it to the interview stage--that's huge! So many applicants don't get that far,so your resume/cover letter must have convinced them that you're worth pursuing. Yay, you!
There is no way on earth to prepare an answer for every possible question. It's impossible. Also, it goes both ways. You're also interviewing them to see if this will be a good fit for you .
I've been on both sides of this desk, and yes, interviewers want you to do well!
Remind yourself of your "whys"--why you feel it's a great position , why you'd be excited to get hired, what you can offer them.
By this time tomorrow it's all be over. I'd treat myself to something special when you're done. Good luck !
posted by bookmammal at 8:43 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

power pose for three minutes in the morning. set aside convincing your mind, and spend a very short time letting your body know you that you’ve got this.

(i’m not able to link you to convincing sources right now, but I’m also a librarian and would not lead you astray :)
posted by tamarack at 8:52 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve been on a lot of panels lately, I really agree with it being a conversation and that they’re excited to talk to you about you and the role! They’re looking for fit at this point. I honestly usually hire people who aren’t amazing at interviewing but show care and a tiny bit of (appropriate) vulnerability and curiosity in their answers. I had a person in my last round of hiring that sounded like they’d had an interview coach; I couldn’t get to know them during the interview because the answers were so practiced and they didn’t get the job. I’ve also reached out to my “runners up” often if I hear of another role within my org; it’s great you want this role, but also treat this as a chance to get to know other great people and new connections!
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 9:07 PM on January 31, 2023

A very minor tip that unexpectedly helped my anxiety while on the way to my last job interview was listening to extremely loud upbeat music on my way. I now have a playlist exclusively for this purpose, it consists at least partially of catchy dance music and for some reason when I hear it at a certain volume the urge to tap my foot or nod my head is strong and overcomes a lot of the anxiety. Example songs: "still feel" by half alive, "think about things" by Dadi freyr.

I also try to use box breathing to bring my heart rate down - I saw the effectiveness of this first hand recently when I was in hospital for a surgery. While prepping for surgery, they had the heart monitor on and I could hear my heart beat was very fast, and a few reps of box breathing reliably brought it down from around 100bps to ~75.

Also, I was recently involved on the other side of some interviews and everyone had some degree of visible anxiety, none of them were penalized at all by any of the interviewers for this.
posted by unid41 at 12:34 AM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Superhero poses have been debunked a lot, but here's the thing, they still work a lot! Absolutely, if you get the chance, step into s bathroom before your interview or before leaving the house, stand widefooted, raise your head, jut your chin, hands on hips and chest puffed out. Stand that way for s bit, channel your inner superhero, it feels a bit silly, but it also feels pretty good. Then treat your conversation as you would meeting, for example, a new partners relatives. Yourself, but the better version of yourself who doesn't pick their nose or fights.
posted by Iteki at 5:00 AM on February 1, 2023

Someone else hit on this upstream but remember that YOU are interviewing them too, so that 1.5 hours includes some time for you to ask them questions. I’ve interviewed a fair number of people and if they made it to the interview, they were already qualified, so I’m just checking “is this a person who will work well with our team?”

Anyway, back to you interviewing them: here are some great questions that I’ve gotten or used:
- what’s the biggest challenge that company X is facing in the next year?
- what tools do people use to organize their work, both individually and as a group? Does the org tend to prefer meetings or emails to work on problems?
- what was the most exciting thing you worked on in the past year?
- if you could change one thing about company x, what would it be?
- what is your least favorite job duty?
- what’s the best book you’ve read this year? (Uh, I love this but it looks like you’re interviewing at a library so probably it won’t be as helpful. I like to work with readers but it’s probably a good bet that most people there are readers. So maybe something like what’s the best podcast you’ve listened to in the past year? Or something similar - something YOU like and value, and will give you some info about the people you’ll be working with.) I sometimes preface this with “I like to get a better idea of my potential future colleagues as people, so I want to ask question about how you spend your time outside work, if that’s all right” - both so it’s not overly invasive and it doesn’t seem like you’re just chitchatting.”

For my direct manager:
- how do you as a manager address underperformance or excellent performance? Can you tell me about a time when a direct report needed correction, and how you handled that?
- how do you cultivate growth on your team?
- why is this position vacant? What’s the turnover rate for this team/department/org?
- I value work life balance. What’s the culture like here regarding that, and how does management ensure that staff are supported in maintaining their lives outside work and taking time off as needed?
- how is the overall direction of the company determined?
- what outside factors and entities affect the direction/growth of company X?

Feel free to use these directly or riff on them! And if you have a friend who can give you a pep talk, that could be helpful right now.
posted by punchtothehead at 5:21 AM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh, one last thing: jobs aren’t offered for a lot of reasons. I’ve had to interview people when the company is ABSOLUTELY gonna do an internal hire, which is awful - but those folks didn’t have much of a chance. We didn’t hire someone because funding for the position evaporated. If you don’t get this job, there are plenty of reasons why that aren’t at all related to you.

Best of luck, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!
posted by punchtothehead at 5:23 AM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I didn’t answer your question, I just realized. In the morning - can you have a solid breakfast and go for a gentle walk outside? Those two items can give me a solid base for the day and rebalance me some. And less caffeine than usual.
posted by punchtothehead at 5:25 AM on February 1, 2023

Stop preparing. Stop thinking about this at all (lol, I know, but fill your time with other things to think about instead).

Spend some time walking around your house with the confidence of a white man who got Cs in literature and history and graduated college anyway. Throw your shoulders back. Talk loud. Sit with a wide stance. Go to the grocery store and take a picture of the whole butter shelf and send it to a family member saying "they don't have the butter you like" even though the butter they like is right there. Say "cold/hot enough for ya?" to someone in the checkout line. Come home and cram everything in the front of the fridge. Go to the bathroom and pee on the floor a little, just for fun.

My point is, that so many people (you know which) are allowed to go through life feeling fully confident about things that they aren't fully competent at, and you deserve that too.

As an anecdote, a few weeks ago our recruiter asked me for help because they were interviewing for a sales role later that day, and when she asked the sales director if he would be explaining the commission plan to the candidate he said no, that he didn't know the plan. Our recruiter was chiding herself like she had done something wrong, because she felt like she didn't prepare him. Meanwhile I'm over here thinking how come this 50 year old man who has been a sales director for YEARS and not only makes commission himself but has MULTIPLE direct reports who make commission isn't conversational in the commission plan enough to sell it to a candidate???? It's literally his own personal experience PLUS it his his job to sell things!!!! And not only that, he felt absolutely zero shame saying so as soon as he was put on the spot (but notably zero shame to solve his ignorance at any point prior to that).

Long story short. You'll be fine.

p.s. I know my leading paragraph did get ridiculous but I do mean it about the walking around your house and sitting wide. It helps.
posted by phunniemee at 5:46 AM on February 1, 2023 [11 favorites]

It's fair to think of an interview as a conversation with a new acquaintance to see if you have things in common, and could work together to mutual benefit. That's not a final you cram for; your whole life has been the preparation. I'd look over my resume to refresh my memory about what I put on there, and otherwise just tell your story.

I would definitely listen to "Walking on Sunshine" on the way to the interview. I would definitely whistle in the parking lot. I'm still giggling at phunniemee's comment about the butter aisle, so maybe I'd read that again too :)
posted by adekllny at 6:16 AM on February 1, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks for the advice! The interview went okay, I think. I'm actually glad I didn't over prepare, it was pretty long, but there were so many questions they asked that I would have had no way to prepare for! So just "winging" those questions (based on real-life situations) was probably the best way to answer those questions. Even if I don't get the job, I guess it feels good to be back in the swing of things again!
posted by VirginiaPlain at 1:15 PM on February 1, 2023 [21 favorites]

Yes! Way to go!!
posted by punchtothehead at 7:40 PM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

yessssss!!! we knew you could do it!
Thanks for the update, it made me smile :)
posted by wowenthusiast at 7:55 PM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the update!
👍🏼
posted by calgirl at 10:42 PM on February 1, 2023