There’s so much interview advice out there that is great in theory but falls apart in practice. It’s great to prepare the words to say and well worth investing your time to do this. You also need the mindset to enable you to use those words to their best effect though. So you can show you as you really are in a work context, the confident you in your role and not the uncomfortable sweating, ‘lost for words’ version of you with a thumping heart.

I’ve worked with many clients over the years whose problems with interviews are linked to early belief-forming experiences about being in the spotlight. Our brains are great pattern matchers and can file interviews under the category marked ‘painful public performance’ because of this.

Our brains are anticipating all the time to keep us safe and if it senses an interview is one of those experiences which could be like that embarrassing experience in the past, it will activate a stress response to get you out of there. You’re can be lost for words when your brain triggers its ‘fight or flight’ system which prioritises you having to run away or fight rather than thinking and speaking. So it diverts blood away from your brain and over to your arms and legs. Great for wrestling or running but rubbish for delivering your carefully honed interview answers!

What’s even worse is that some can have one bad interview experience which makes them think they are no good at interviews and develop a self-limiting belief and start to tell themselves… ‘I’m not good at interviews’… ‘I won’t be taken seriously for a job like this’ …. ‘I won’t be able to think on the spot’.

So many people can be helped to get a job with their mind and interview preparation aligned in a more positive way. For my clients this usually involves a combination Cognitive Hypnotherapy to help them uncouple where their mind got the idea they couldn’t perform well speaking in public and to build a new set of beliefs. I build on this with coaching to help people understand interview questions and practice answering them together. I have over 20 years of recruitment experience which comes into its own for this work.

There are so many ways to reprogramme how your mind reacts to interviews. For some it may be what your mind is making up about the people who are asking you questions. The overwhelming majority of interviewers are really keen for you to do well. A lot just don’t look like it and can be sat their stony-faced and passive. More often than not, what’s really going in is that they are trying their best to be objective and fair to all the people they are interviewing so they don’t want to give anything away. A fair few of them will be nervous too - far too many managers have never been trained how to interview. What your mind runs away with telling you though is that they don’t like you. You can train your mind to make them the most fascinating people you’ve ever met and to want to charm them.

Interviews are all about connection and the impression you’re making and there’s a lot that can get in the way of this. How is your mind helping or hindering you? Are you appearing as professional as you need to be? Or do you need to build rapport and appear more approachable. There are all kinds of signals people give off without saying anything at all. Connection as human beings is a lot more intangible than you imagine and it starts in your head. Some do it with ease naturally but a lot don’t but there’s always the possibility to learn and improve and working with someone who can reflect back what’s going on with the connection between you. This is just another thing to be worked on and adapted. How you present is very rarely fixed and a lot can be changed in a relatively short space of time.

Vocal delivery is another dimension and that depends on mind and body working well. So many people spend ages writing ideal interview answers without ever saying them outside their head until the day. Added to this, stress and poor breathing can mean speaking in a way which makes you sound small, squeaky or weak. Luckily, with help your mind can work in better ways to help you feel calmer and more confident.

So if you’re one of those people who hasn’t been able to been able to show yourself at your best in an interview, I hope this gives you hope that there is scope for improvement. I love helping people to come out of their interviews feeling like you’ve done the best they could. I truly believe most people can do this. You may just need a bit of help persuading your mind to help you get there.