How to Be Confident in an Interview

Introduction

Hello! It’s Kristine here with the Express to Impress podcast. This week, we’ll look at how to be confident in an interview. This topic fascinates me, and I could talk about it for hours. But today, we’ll just cover the most important things you need to feel and show confidence in an interview.

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If you have an interview coming up, I invite you to visit my website for my free five-step job interview preparation checklist. This checklist has already helped thousands of people worldwide get jobs they love. To sign up, visit my website at express-to-impress.com.

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Now, let’s begin!

 

Why is it Important to be Confident in an Interview

Why is it important to be confident in an interview? On the one hand, when we feel confident, we can talk about our experiences and abilities with more ease. And, on the other hand, employers expect and reward it. I want my clients to feel confident during interviews so they can show others what they are capable of. But to be honest, I don’t like that it’s expected in interviews, especially in Western culture.

Eastern cultures place high importance on humility, respect, and self-improvement. In the West, we are attracted and inspired by confidence and self-esteem, and employers often erroneously equate it with competence. Not surprisingly, there is a problem with overconfidence in the West in interviews and the workplace. Sometimes blatant overconfidence hurts a job candidate. People may believe they are insincere and wouldn’t work well with others.

But sometimes, overconfident people are rewarded.  For example, a study by a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and others published in 2020 found that overconfident people can succeed even if they lack competence. Further, they found that overconfident people are typically from higher social classes.

This bias towards confident, even overconfident individuals benefits higher social classes and men. Why men? Research shows that men are far more comfortable with self-promotion than women. For example, a 2021 paper by a professor at Harvard Business School and a teacher at Wharton, finds “women subjectively describe their performance less favorably to potential employers than equally performing men.”

This episode is for people who want to display normal levels of confidence. I will give you tangible ways to feel confident and demonstrate it in interviews. But let’s first take a look at a story.

 

Story

Wanting to feel confident in interviews is the number one reason people work with me. A non-native English-speaking client that I’ll call Fen was struggling with confidence. Fen felt she was qualified for the job and could do it well. Still, she wanted help structuring and delivering her answers to meet the interviewers’ expectations.

Fen did a lot of things right before her interview. For example, before our first session, she shared a list of highly relevant interview questions. She also invested the time needed to make significant improvements. Fen spent four hours working with me. I mostly helped Fen organize her answers and keep them under 90 seconds. Sometimes, I helped her find a better story that put her in a better light or tell a story differently to show that she had acted decisively and learned from the experience. I took notes for her in Google Docs so she could revisit the simplified answers, and she recorded all of our sessions for later review.

Ultimately, she made it to the final round but didn’t get the job offer. Yet, Fen received highly positive feedback from the employer and wasn’t discouraged one bit. She felt more confident and immediately went after another, more exciting job, and we worked together for another four hours.

Soon, I got an email with great news!  Fen got an offer for her dream job! She said she had felt a lot more confident and performed better in the interview because we worked together. She also spoke in a more organized way and felt great.

Fen had all the motivation and skills needed to perform well in the job she wanted. And by getting interview training, she felt confident in her job interviews, which allowed the employer to see she was a great candidate.

 

Tips on How to Be Confident in an Interview

I have many tips and insights to share from psychology, my interview coach training, and personal experiences that will help you be more confident in job interviews.

 

Identify What’s Holding You Back From Feeling and Acting Confident

If you want the interviewer to believe you can do the job well, you first have to believe it yourself. Otherwise, there’s no way you will sell yourself effectively and convince the interviewer you’re the person for the job. So, a great place to start is to identify fears and insecurities that hold you back from feeling and acting confident in interviews.

Once you pinpoint your insecurities, I challenge you to develop a plan for how you will address each of them. You can do this on your own or with an interview coach.

It’s often easier to comfort a worried friend, so imagine you have a friend with your fears. What would you say to them? If their English wasn’t perfect, would you tell them that people with imperfect English get jobs in English all the time? Suppose your friend had an employment gap on the resume. Would you tell them that it’s extremely common, especially during the COVID pandemic? Would you remind them of what they accomplished while they were unemployed? Perhaps they earned a certificate or put in a lot of hours volunteering. If your friend was worried they didn’t meet every single job requirement, what would you tell them? Perhaps the employer must think they’re qualified because they only select a few people to interview?

I encourage you to write down your fears. Then next to each fear, write advice that you would give a friend with those same insecurities. Then, put the document in a place you can frequently read as you prepare for your interview. Finally, if your interview will take place remotely, keep it nearby and turn to it for encouragement during the interview.

 

Rapid-fire Confidence Tips

There isn’t time to explain each tip I have for feeling and demonstrating confidence in an interview in this episode. So, here are some rapid-fire tips to feel and project confidence. Also, keep in mind that my expertise is in interviewing in American companies, so some of these tips may not be appropriate in all cultures.

 

• Explain that you can get along with all types of people.
• For a pre-interview confidence boost, follow a pre-interview routine that ensures you arrive relaxed and happy.
• Share ideas on how the company could improve or what you would like to do and accomplish in the role.
• Prepare diligently for every interview: learn about the company, the job, and your interviewer and prepare for common interview questions with plenty of examples, stories, and accomplishments.
• Arrange mock interviews to find out your weaknesses and improve them.
• Be ready with polite phrases for common situations (This is especially important for English Language Learners). E.g., Small talk, what to say if you need time to think of an answer, acknowledge your interviewer has sneezed, ask for clarification, or have lost your train of thought.
• Say what you want and need from an employer.
• Ask relevant, intelligent questions to understand the company’s issues and why they want someone to fill the role.
• To be confident in an online interview like a Zoom interview or Skype interview, get comfortable with the technology and seeing yourself on camera. Figure out how to hide or minimize your image on the screen if it’s distracting.
• Don’t talk about regrets in your career; share what you’ve learned and when you’ve taken action to advance your skills and your career.
• Maintain eye contact with your interviewer.
• Give your interviewer a strong handshake.
• Place your hands in a steeple position for at least part of the interview, with your fingertips touching the other hand’s fingertips.
• Stand or sit up straight but not stiff and rigid; take up space and lean into the conversation.
• Wear professional clothes.
• Articulate your words and thoughts clearly and carefully, speak with inflection, and embrace a normal conversational pace with pauses.

Now you know some tips for how to be confident in a job interview! But keep in mind these tips are just the tip of the iceberg. I go into much more detail when working with clients one-on-one to help them overcome their particular struggles.

 

Let’s Work Together!

I love helping talented professionals convince employers they are the right person for the job. People perform best in interviews when they arrive educated about the interview process and have had opportunities to practice answering interview questions. So, every one of my interview clients gets access to my 90-minute online video course, “How to Succeed in a Job Interview.”  During our time together, I help clients identify questions and answers, and of course, deliver their answers powerfully.

Here’s a review from a satisfied client who got a job offer at a top consulting firm.

Our training sessions were very useful! Kristine helped me to improve my answers. Also, she advised me on an interesting book that related to my situation.

To see pictures and more testimonials from my clients, visit my website at express-to-impress.com. 

If you have an interview coming up, I would love to work with you and help you achieve interview success. You can schedule a free consultation or book a mock interview with me on my website.

 

Tune in Next Week

That’s all for today! Thank you so much for listening to the Express to Impress podcast. I invite you to tune in next time to learn definitions for the idioms and phrases covered in this episode. If you found this episode helpful, please remember to share it with a friend! See you next time. Bye!

 

Music By Lucas Knutter