Success in an interview does not come without Preparation
The success of getting a job offer lies in having written a fantastic CV and performing well in the interview — I have always told myself.
My experience in completing the interview assessment told me that I was not ready to perform at my best in future job interviews.
Before, I had always thought that interviews required little to no preparation. So, my strategy for interviews had always been “think about my answers during the process”. I have done interviews for university applications and different student led roles, and I have always succeeded with this mindset and strategy…
… So I thought “why should I change?”
I briefly re-read the CV; briefly thought about my response to questions that I had anticipated; that was all of the preparation I did. I went into the interview feeling pretty confident that I would no doubt achieve a good grade. (Oh how naive I was)
My response to the first question started out strong. However, time soon ran out, and I ended my response abruptly…
…Fear and panic quickly rushed to my mind.
I could not think properly about my response to the next question. I tried to compose myself by deep breathing but it did not work. From here onwards, my response to the remaining questions only became less and less comprehensive. I started to constantly lose track of my speech and began to manifest nervous behaviour, which only made my performance worse.
This has never happened to me before. In a face-to-face interview, there is usually no time constraint for answering each question. So, I was used to developing my answers slowly during the conversation.
Upon receiving my grade, I reflected on how little preparation I had done for this assignment. With our increasing reliance on online technologies, I understood the need to familiarise myself with the new digital format of interviewing:
- I needed to begin practice with answering questions in a shorter time limit.
- Moreover, I needed to get familiar with looking into the camera; be more aware of how I position myself in front of the camera; make sure that my body language does not become distracting.
Furthermore, this experience taught me to always be more prepared for a task and be ready to adapt — just because a strategy has always worked before, it does not mean it will work in the future.
Therefore, in the future, I will make sure that I invest adequate amount of time and effort into planning and preparation for career-related tasks, and I will adopt a mindset that allows me to be flexible with different strategies.
In case a similar situation occurs again, I will not allow the negative emotions to dominate my cognition and affect my performance; I will instead think about the best possible outcomes as a result of my performance (i.e., try to stay positive).