Anxious in interviews? How to use it to your advantage

This is the Career Zone Podcast. Welcome. Each episode we discuss things that are on students' minds related to careers and employability, labour market information, CVs, recruitment processes and we chat to employers in alumni to find out what they're thinking about too. Hello, I'm Tess Reed, Career Consultant here at Exeter University, specialising in careers in law. And here with me is Dr Laura Dean, President of the British Psychological Society representing over 60,000 members across research, practice and policy. And Laura has also recently been appointed Principal Occupational Psychologist in the Cabinet Office, where she is leading the Design and Delivery of Evidence-Based Assessment and Psychometric Solutions right across the UK Civil Service. So Laura, as I think your current job roles show, you are a real superstar in the field of psychology in the UK. But the great news is that you're also a really relatable person to talk to. So we're really privileged to have you here with us today to share your expertise for the benefit of our students. And I know we're going to have a really interesting conversation today. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to have the conversation. Wonderful. So there's so much that we could talk about. I wondered if we could start by addressing head on the title of this podcast, which is to say, "Using anxiety in interviews to your advantage." When I heard you give a talk recently, you were discussing how really normal it is to feel anxious in interviews. And how this anxiety is likely to make the body have physical reactions to this emotional state. But you talked about how we should see this as data, not danger. And so what this means for how we can reframe what our bodies are telling us to our advantage. So I wonder if you could say a bit more about this, please. So I think on a very basic level, we're not brilliant at judging what our body is doing. We have to interpret, we have to make a story out of the things that our bodies telling us. And we see that with very small children. So small children fall over. And if you pick them up quickly and you laugh with them, they laugh and it's funny. If you don't, they start crying. Because they're interpreting all those things going on in their body. And when we're in anxiety inducing situation, we have a racing heart. We have butterflies in our tummy. These sorts of things, you can interpret it as panic, but you can also just interpret it as readiness. And if you interpret it as readiness, then that's going to help you in that interview situation. Because anxiety is normal, it means that you care about the outcome. And you want to enter the interview situation or the assessment situation caring about the outcome. Your body's preparing you for that. It's getting you ready, psyching you up. And the mistake that sometimes people make is they interpret that sort of physical activation of their body. As if it's failing, you're already, as if something's going wrong, but no, we actually want this to happen. So we need to recognize that this is physiological arousal, really can support our performance there. Treat the sensation as information. Treat it as data. Don't assume this is something that's going wrong. It's going right if you're having these feelings. Great. I love that. So I guess, I guess part of it is the sort of adrenaline spike that people feel. And you know, that sort of fight or flight tendency. And there's often a tendency to feel, well, if you have the adrenaline spike, does that mean that it's a fight or flight situation? But in a job interview situation, it doesn't quite mean that. And we need perhaps need to re-understand what these physical responses are actually meaning for us. Absolutely. And also if we can try and align what our brain thinks should be happening with what we're feeling inside our body, this can help. So things like if you're just sat and you feel your heart rate rise, that's an unexpected thing for you to happen. So your body or your brain is interpreting that in a particular way. But if you know you're going to go into an interview, you have a little wander around for a few minutes. So your brain's more naturally ready for that. Yeah, we're expecting to have a little bit of a raised heart rate here. The problem is is when we start to fight it, when we start to go in and this shouldn't be happening because what happens then is we can't change those physiological symptoms. They're good for us. We want them to be there. And if we're not accepting them, what happened is we start to divert our cognitive resources to worrying about what's happening in our body. And when we do that, we're wasting those cognitive resources, that energy that our thought process is, when we should really be focusing on what's going on in front of us and what we're being asked to do. So we shouldn't be trying to eliminate the anxiety. We should be learning to function with that anxiety. You can be anxious, you can still perform well. It's more likely that you will not be successful. If you're trying to fight that situation, if you're trying to fight that feeling, then if you just go, okay, here it is. And one of the things that we can do here is firstly just accept that we're human. This is a human response and be kind to ourselves in that way and plan for being human, plan for those things happening. So saying things to yourself like, if my mind goes blank our paws and summarise the question, or if I start to spiral a little bit, I've got this glass of water here and I'll take the time to have a drink and that will give me chance to ground myself more. But you need to practice doing that in order to be able to do it in the moment because otherwise you're in the moment, your mind goes blank. Then you think, my mind's gone blank now, what do I do rather than, oh, my mind's gone blank. So what I do now is paws and summarise the question, this is the next thing that I do. So I guess that feeds into what I hear you saying about accepting anxiety, forgiving it and also making plans for it. And for whatever the anxiety is that you experience and that you feel and whatever are the physiological responses to that anxiety for you. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that you can do is make sure you've built strategies ahead of time so you know what relaxes you, you know what suits you and the loads of examples of things people have put out there, there's loads of, you know, fidget toys you can buy and things that other people have found to be regulating for them. But you need to find the individual strategy for you. You need to know what, you know, settles your nervous system there. There are some sort of top tips on this, things like pushing your feet into the ground can be very effective because that alters the flow of information through your body. But it doesn't work for everybody. And if it doesn't work for you, then you'll start worrying, this doesn't work for me. There's something extra wrong with me because this technique doesn't work. So finding the thing that works for you before you get into that situation is really important. Put yourself into a pressurized situation and then see, don't wait until the interview to discover, you know, what helps you regulate like that. Think about all the things that you can do. I'm very happy to say some of the things that I do and what I've changed over the years. So I used to, I was terrible for having a necklace and picking it up and sort of moving it across my chin. And I recognise, actually, this is not good look. I'm sort of being visibly anxious in this way. So now I just very gently sort of tap my fingers together backwards and forwards. And it's very, you know, regulatory for me because it gives a particular sensation. It's something I do when I'm calm as well. So my body doesn't associate it with being stressed. And that works for me. You might have something completely different that works for you, but it's finding the thing that works for you and practising it ahead of time, not just thinking in the moment. Well, what did other people find useful? What was that article I read some while ago that I can't remember? I love that. We've got sort of two aspects there that I think is really interesting, which is, you know, in terms of finding the things that is going to suit you in a high pressure situation. There's both practising it in a high-stakes situation. And I think that's an incredibly interesting insight to think, well, it's one thing to practise something when it's not a stressful situation, but it's not going to be the same for you as in a stressful situation. So you want to practise it in a high-stakes environment. So be interested to explore what that might mean for students, how they could do that. And they also love what you said that the physical movement that suits you is something that you also do when you're calm, and so therefore your body doesn't necessarily associate it with stress. So I think those two sides of that same coin are really, really interesting. And again, he's finding a thing that works for you. The confidence that you can handle that pressure comes from being in that situation, from being familiar with pressure, recognising what it is. There really is no substitute for exposing yourself to pressure. There is some key psychological literature around habituation to stressful situations, also about having a sense of self-efficacy. So self-efficacy is about your feeling that you can. do things and the more you've done something, the more you're then able to do it, because you feel more able to do it. So practicing, you know, doing those mock interviews, not just that, you know, speaking out in a seminar, debating with other people, you know, talking to people, recording yourselves, doing all these things that might sound, you know, stressful to you to begin with, but the more you do than the more you get used to them, one of the things that I see people do is they try to prepare for interviews by saying, I'll say something like, or I will talk about, but not actually, they're not practicing that, the atmosphere and the feelings that they would get, and I would go all the way, I would do the absolutely putting on your uncomfortable scratchy suits, because that feels different, that's a different sensation on the day, you've got to get used to it, sitting up straight in the way in which you, you know, you will be doing in that scenario, laying on your bed and thinking about, oh, I'll answer something like this, that's a step in the process, but that's only the first step, you then have to take that and actually answer the questions in that high state. It is trainable, you can train pressure tolerance, and that's what we want to do really, you know, you don't become calm, become calm by avoiding pressure, you become calm when you survive and live with pressure repeatedly, because you know that you can do it there, so it's about becoming familiar with that situation. That's great, thank you. One of the things I really liked that I heard you speak about was in an interview how you can name your nervousness, even in that interview, and you can name it and frame it as a positive thing by saying, sorry if I'd be a nervous, but I'm really so excited to be here, or I really want this job, or whatever, or you're the perfect company for me, or whatever it is. So yeah, would you say a bit more about that? Absolutely, so yes, I think we misunderstand in this situation that we're talking to human beings as well, and they can recognise that you're nervous, they're likely to be nervous too, it's actually quite stressful to be on the other side and doing that interview because you know how high stakes is for the individual and how high stakes it is for you as a company as well if you're going to choose the right person. And so there is that sort of mutual situation there, so they will be empathetic to that, but naming it and saying it's because I really, I really want this job, you are definitely my company of choice, helps to frame it in a very positive way. And it also then gives you a moment as to stop, it's not just about oh, getting a sympathy though, it doesn't work like that, it's about showing that you are mature and articulate enough enough, and that you have the emotional intelligence to recognise these symptoms in yourself and control them because that is something that's going to be needed in the workplace, especially somewhere as high stakes as law is. Yes, and one thing that I think that lots of students will be really conscious of these days and indeed lots of people is how many more job applications everybody seems to be getting for any given job, and so how very competitive the job market feels. And I know that you speak a lot about regarding rejection as normal and as a part of life, and it's not just that we come back from it, but it's about how we frame it to ourselves and that we can frame it as feedback. And I think that's a really great insight. Oh, and if you could speak a little about that. Yeah, so from an evolutionary perspective, rejection is a really strong thing to happen towards, you know, if you live in a small group and you're rejected by that group, it has dire implications for your ability to survive, if you have to stay in that group. And therefore we've evolved a physical system that is not tolerant of rejection because it means so much towards at that level. And yet we live in a society where we get a lot of rejection and the user that AI and job applications mean that people are able to apply to far more vacancies than they could in the past. You know, you might have had a one in 20 chance in the past, you might have a one in 200 chance now. And that doesn't mean that you have a one in 200 chance of getting a job, just that you might apply for a lot more jobs now than you ever have done in the past, but you're experiencing, you know, a lot more rejection that now if you focus only on the outcome of each application cycle, if you go, I only have success if I've been offered a job here, you're really leaving yourself very vulnerable because that creates, you know, sort of fragility in you because you are not going to be successful in most of those applications. Nobody's going to be successful in most of those applications. And so what we need to do is focus more on a sort of process based definition of being successful. So, you know, not did I get the offer but did I articulate as clearly as I could have done? Did I stay engaged? Did I recover when I asked a difficult question? Because those are all things you can walk out of an interview with and say, yeah, actually, I did that or even I did that better than last time, you know, I managed to frame that answer much better than I did last time because that's going to help you to learn from the experience. You're not going to have be closed off because it's so negative you're closing off in the experience. You're able to reflect on what it is, so you're going to be able to improve next time and you're not going to have that knocked to your confidence as well. You can succeed on your own terms, you can succeed behaviorally even when, you know, you don't get the outcome that you wanted, it's still possible to have those wins within that situation. Succeed behaviorally, I think that's a really interesting way of thinking about it. Thank you for that. Something else that I've heard you talk about is what you said about how people can identify stereotypes about themselves, label these stereotypes and therefore as pressures to live up to, but how you can reframe this. What if you can say a bit more about that? Yeah, so stereotype threat is quite a well researched topic in selection psychology. Essentially, what stereotype threat shows is that when somebody is aware of a stereotype about themselves or the group that they're in, that that can distract their cognitive resources from being able to operate the way they want. So really obvious examples are negative stereotypes for example around there's quite a good study about white people playing basketball, drawing on negative steps and actually performing worse when that stereotype has been activated in them about women doing maths and performing worse, but equally that it can operate the other way if they have a stereotype that is positive for them. So an opposite example is that there's a stereotype around Chinese people being particularly good at maths and so they're holding that when they go into a maths exam. Now what that does is it creates a sort of self-consciousness in the way in which you're behaving and what you're doing is rather than sort of listening to a question and answering a question, you're holding that sort of weight of representation, you're sort of having to present myself in a good way. If you can name something, if you can name that pressure as a stereotype, it becomes an external thing and not about you, you can set that aside there. So if you're able to say this is stereotype pressure that's happening to me, I can refocus on the task in front of me and it's not your job to disprove stereotypes, it's not up to you to do that and I think again in media we have quite a lot of films and TV shows that will show here's somebody who's here's a girl that's brilliant at maths and she shows everybody but it's not her job to show everybody, it's her job to do the best that she can do in that test in that day and when she's thinking about that other element to it, it's distracting from what she can do there. So you know, recognising what that is, naming it, setting it to one side, that's not my job to deal with it, my job is answer the question in front of me. Great, thank you. Would you have a couple of sort of top tips for students and I'm thinking if I was a student and I was going for a job interview tomorrow and I'm worried that my anxiety is going to really play havoc with that process but I don't perhaps have time or the calmness of spirit right now to sort of explore all the best avenues to see me and so forth. Have you got thoughts about what somebody should do could do well in that situation? Yeah, I mean the things that these are easier said than don't I think often but having slept well or having eaten, you know, those sorts of things that are going to make you depleted. Being thirsty, we know massively impacts your ability to think quickly. So those are things that you, you know, you can deal with reasonably well. Having a little walk around before you go into an interview can make a difference because this is about your heart rate matches the activity that you've been doing. your brain isn't going, or suddenly there's this spike, it sort of recognises that as a more normal behaviour. But I think the biggest thing that people can do if they're worried about being very anxious is to go in and not intend to be successful. So not that they intend to be rejected in that scenario, but actually focus on one thing. What I intend to do is answer each of the questions that have been given to me. That's all I'm going to try to do today, because that gives you an immediate task, it gives you something you can do in the moment, and then you're not spiraling thinking about what ifs one way or another about some further, you know, outcome that's not within your control, because there's so many other people there, and you might be absolutely brilliant that day. You might have all of the experience and the skills in the world that are needed for that, but somebody else might too. So, you know, it's just, you know, this is one, this is practice, I'm going to do another, I'm going to do another. I think that's great advice. It reminds me of when you're watching top tennis players play a match, and often they've got very different styles and different strengths and weaknesses, and it's often tempting to think, well, perhaps this person is definitely going to win because they're better at this type of surface or something like that. And what you always hear the commentators saying is that this person needs to play their own game. They need to play their game, and perhaps that's an analogy that's helpful in the interview, you just do you to the best that you can do you at that moment, and try not to let other distractions get in your way. Absolutely. Thank you. Right. Well, thank you every so much, Laura, that was really enlightening, and I'm sure it's going to be really valuable to our students. So, for anybody who wants to explore possibilities in the sector, I really recommend that they check out your LinkedIn profile where you often post quite interesting things. And any student here who's heard this podcast is very welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. You'll see my post about this podcast and about other resources I quite often share there. And furthermore, for current XT University students or recent graduates please do know that you can book a one-to-one guidance session with me through the relevant university platform to discuss anything to do with your career. And I look forward to supporting you in your choices and your career journey. So, Laura, I'm going to close by saying thank you very much for giving us your valuable time today. It's been such pleasure. Thank you. This was the CareerZone podcast brought to you by the University of XTek career zone. Check out iTunes and Spotify to keep up with all of our regular releases. And if you'd like us to cover something else in another episode, just send us a message, #CareZonePodcast at UAECareZone or at UAE CornwallCareZone on Instagram. And we'll follow up in one of the next episodes. [BLANK_AUDIO]