Published: 4 February 2021
A job interview is a lot like a performance. You must be confident, think on your feet and quick to find the words you need to impress your audience.
That means you can prepare for your interview in the same way an actor would get ready for the stage.
1) Practice imagination
Grab the object nearest to you – that could be a pen, your phone, a potted plant etc. Now pretend it’s something else, anything at all. For example, your belt could be a dog leash, a snake or a skipping rope.
It might sound a little silly but giving your imagination some exercise can stimulate your brains creativity centre and help you break out of limited ways of thinking.
2) Practice listening
With a partner, pretend you’re talking to a stranger. Everyone must start their sentence using the last big idea the other said.
For example, person one might say ‘I’m excited for my trip to London. I haven’t been since I had a company there making toothpaste.’
Person two could start with, ‘I use toothpaste every day...’
This is about practising paying attention to what someone is saying to you. Knowing you must start your sentence with the last person was talking about forces you to listen.
3) Turn a negative into a positive
It’s very easy to only focus on the best parts of your job and your personality when getting ready for an interview.
But that’s not the best way to improve and move forward, and it won’t help if an interviewer asks you to tell them about a time you failed (a very common interview question).
Instead, take an honest look at the times you haven’t achieved something and work out what you could have done in that situation to improve.
In the long term, this will help you develop healthy work habits that focus on failure as a method of learning rather than some terrible thing you have no control over.
4) Get loose
Warm-up exercises are a great way to shake off the cobwebs and be less stiff in the interview.
Try this one: put your right arm out in front of you and wiggle it up and down for a count of eight. Repeat this for your left arm, then both legs.
Do the exercise seven more times, counting up to 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2 until you finally shake each limb just one time.
5) Pretend
Obviously, do not do this in the actual job interview. But pretending you know something can give you a huge confidence boost.
Record yourself talking on a random topic but make sure you choose something you know nothing about – like astrophysics or the life cycle of the fly.
You don’t have to make sense either, just speak like you are an expert.
The point is that when you come to the interview and you’re talking about something you are an expert in, you’ll be filled with confidence.
Interviews are all in the preparation. While this does mean researching the company and going through your CV, it’s equally important to get yourself mentally ready to.
Try out these tips and let us know how you get on.
If you need assistance with your next interview, please contact careers-london@sunderland.ac.uk. You can also learn about job skills visiting the Digital Literacy Skills section of the Library website.
For more information, visit the Careers and Employability page. You can read about employability skills on our news pages. Find out more by following #WeAreSunLon on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.