Job Interview Anxiety? What You Can Do to Calm Down and Impress Your Interviewers’ Socks Off

Job interviews are inherently stressful. Your livelihood depends on it, especially if you’re currently “in between jobs.” But you don’t have to be at the mercy of your anxiety and stress hormones. Read on to discover a few powerful techniques that will help you stay cool.

Of course, you’re not the only one who’s nervous about job interviews. Most people are. It’s “normal.” But that doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. After all, clammy hands and sweat pouring down your forehead are not designed to help you nab the job you want. So while a few butterflies are okay and can even be helpful, a full-blown panic attack is definitely not in order.

Just be sure not to overdo the calming stuff. If you’re so calm and laid back that the interviewer thinks you don’t really care either way, you’ve overdone the stress management. But that’s probably not a big danger as long as you lay off the Valium or other calming prescription medication. You want to be alert and interested, not medicated and zonked out.

So what can you do? Some of the things that help are just common sense. Get enough sleep. Go for a walk. Wear something that makes you feel confident — and comfortable. And do your homework.

The better you’re prepared, the more confident you’ll be, and the more confident you are, the less nervous you’ll be.

But there are a few bonus things you can do:

Deep breathing. Calming aromatherapy. Maybe a small dose of a “calming” herb, such as valerian. Be careful though. Don’t take valerian for the first time ever right before you go to your job interview. Why? Because you want to make sure you know how you react to it. You also want to make sure it doesn’t relax you to the point where you’re no longer safe to drive.

So try it at another time or a few first, just to get familiar with what it does – and doesn’t – do for you. Most people find that it takes away the jitters and makes you feel a lot calmer without having any other effects. And then, there’s an extremely powerful technique you can use that has no side effects at all. And that’s EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique. It’s a mind/body technique and works much like acupuncture, but without the needles. Instead, you tap on the meridian points.

And you can learn it quickly and do it anytime and anyplace. So you could tap for a few minutes right before the interview, and let yourself be surprised at how calm and confident you are.