Instructor TJ Walker emphasizes the importance of emotional preparation for job interviews: maintain a positive, upbeat attitude, avoid showing desperation or nervousness, and visualize a successful interview beforehand. He frames the interview as a two-way conversation where the candidate should act as a confident peer while respectfully assessing the employer.
Chapters
I apologize because parts of this section are going to sound a little cheesy. I do have to talk about some touchy feely things. Your emotional state. It's critically important that you have a positive, upbeat emotional state when you're going in a job interview. No one wants to be around a downer person, a depressed person. If you go into an interview and it's kind of like, oh, get me through this. It's not going to be a pleasant experience for you or the person who's interviewing you. They don't want to make you uncomfortable if they sense that you are incredibly uncomfortable. The humane thing to do is to end the interview as quickly as possible to get you out of your pain and discomfort. Well, how does that help you get your job offer? So you've got to have a positive attitude. I realize that just sounds cliche and hokey, but you've got to do something to at least convince other people you are having a good time here. Because if you have a frozen look on your face, a scared look on your face, a nervous look on your face, if you sound tensed up, like you're going to snap at any moment, people are going to be afraid to deal with you. They're going to be afraid to bring you into their organization. So I want you right now to think of this whole experience as a positive thing. You're going to meet a lot of people in your industry. You're going to have new experiences, possibly make new friends. Although that's not the main thing you need to be thinking of when you're meeting with someone in a job interview. But it's an interesting experience. You've got to look at this as partially fun. Even though you may really, really need a paycheck quickly, you can't exude that. Once people smell desperation, extreme need, they're less likely to want to give you the job. You have to act like there's nothing else in the world you'd rather be doing than. Than talking to this person right now about their organization. And here's the thing, I want you to do that again, it sounds a little hokey. I want you to visualize before you even go into that interview, everything going well, this interviewer liking you and offering you the job when you walk out. Now, it's probably not going to happen that way, but to get your mental frame the right way, it's extraordinarily valuable. So take just a moment before going to the next lecture. I want you. You don't have to close your eyes, but it might help Actually visualize your next interview going incredibly well. You're incredibly happy with it. The person interviewing you is happy, and they offer you a job at the end of the interview. We've got a lot of ground to cover in this course, but I want to just get you to focus on a few more big picture thoughts before we get more into the nitty gritty. Remember, a job interview is a conversation. It is a two way street. You are not a criminal being interrogated. You are there to find out about the company too. You're there to find out if you even want to work for them. So you have to treat yourself like a peer in some way. Now you want to be respectful. Certainly you can call them Mr. Or Mrs. Smith and be a little bit formal, but realize right now you're in an equal position. They don't know if you're willing to work for them. They don't know if you don't have 10 other offers at twice the salary they can afford. So you don't want to sort of crawl in meekly, humbly and a subservient way. You want to come in with confidence. You're happy to talk to them, you're happy to share your experiences with what you've done, why you think this might be a good fit. And it is a meeting and a chance to have a good conversation. Now it is speaking. It does test your oral skills, but it's not a speech, it's not a formal presentation, it's not a PowerPoint, it's not a test in a course. It's a conversation where you are trying to convince them that you have a unique skill set and that you would be a great fit for their organization and that you frankly, stand out as better than all the other applicants. Forgive me, because I have repeated that, but too many people forget this. They get obsessed over, well, what if I'm asked that question or what if I get this wrong? Focus on what's really important and you're going to do really well in job interviews.
