201: Diagnosing & treating 'Interview Mode' Syndrome: from robotic to real

[Music] If we've been your job search besties and helped you in some way, there's a cool way you can support the show. Shout us a virtual coffee. As an independent podcast, we couldn't do what we do without your support. Head to bimeyacoffee.com/interviewboss. If you keep us caffeinated, we'll keep the content coming. [Music] But people kind of feel like they need to dance around it and be like, "Well, there was some mismatched alignment with this." And it's like, just say the boss had a mental breakdown in here. Took his clothes off and ran down the hallway. I'm maybe not, but you know. Hey everyone and welcome back to interview boss. My name is Emma. I'm a radio journalist who's teamed up with my sister to give you advice, inspiration and support when you're looking for a new job. Sarah is a HR and recruitment professional and together we're excited to give you all the tips, tricks and behind-the-scenes knowledge to help you in your career. Hey, Emma and welcome back out incredible listeners all around the world. Regardless of where you are, it's time for our favourite part of the podcast. And our favourite part is really receiving these. And then our second favourite part is doing the shout-outs. It's the shoot your short shout-out. So we are celebrating you guys who've written into us. You've given us an update on your situation or something that's worked. This week we're shouting out to Aireani who bought us 10 coffees. Oh my god, that is insanely generous. Thank you for supporting the show. She said, "Dear Sarah and Emma, my Kiwi friend introduced me to your podcast a few months ago." Side note, for the next six months, Sarah is living in New Zealand. So shout out to the Kiwis. I've been saying this to my partner and this is just something that I definitely agree with. I have never met a Kiwi that I haven't liked. They're all so wonderful. Like, just, I love New Zealand. It's great. Back to the shoot your short shout-out. She said, "I've been job hunting for a while and was recently invited to interview for a job that would result in me changing fields, which is exciting but also filled me with doubt and made me think whether or not I could really do the job. Preparing for the interview, I found so many of your episodes super useful. I spent a long time writing my best bits, but the advice you gave about the tell me about yourself question, about presentations and so many other things has also been invaluable. Most importantly, writing the best bits gave me an overview of my career and seeing in writing all the skills I've acquired, I realized that my transferable skills guaranteed that I could do the job if I were to get it. This boosted my confidence massively. Overall, I've never felt so prepared going into an interview before. I had the interview yesterday and was told I'll find out the outcome next week. No matter what happens, I know that I represented myself as well as I could have. Enjoy your coffees and thank you so much for your amazing podcast. I've told so many friends about it, so keep it going. A reany from Cardiff Wales. And can we just shout out to A reany, who obviously has a Welsh or an Irish or something name and put in brackets the phonetic spelling? No, I did that. You did that. I did that. Oh! I just looked it up on chat GPT and I put the pronunciation in brackets for us to pronounce right. Oh my gosh, well thank you Emma, that's very clever. You're welcome. A reany, I really hope that we got that right or that chat GPT got that right, pronouncing your Welsh name. Yeah, blame the bot if we didn't. And also if you really want your name to be pronounced properly, maybe you could add phonetic spelling. With her accent, I feel like it would be A reany, I'd say you'd say it. That's Scottish! That's just how I feel. I could not even attempt a Welsh accent. I feel like, yeah, I don't understand all the nuances between English Welsh and the too similar for me to be able to do. I can do generic English and that's about it. Well thank you A reany, I love that the episode helps you so, so much. And I particularly love your attitude of knowing that, hey, I don't even have the result yet, but that's something that you can't control. What you can control is, do you do well enough to represent yourself in all the skills you have? And it sounds like you nailed that. So whether they choose you or they choose someone else or whatever, you now have that skill of going, I can go for whatever job and I know I can give myself the best shot. That's what we are all about and I love that so much. If you want results like A reany and you need a little bit of help to get there, you can check out Sarah's one-on-one interview coaching sessions. She no longer has an official day job. She is a full-time interview boss podcaster, so she has a lot of availability. Also, if that's not for you, interview academy might be more suited if you need on-demand access right now and you need broad help from start to finish. Coaching is more ideal if you have a specific part of preparation that you're stuck on and you can find out all about the options at interviewboss.com.au/coaching. Now, if you liked that episode, use one of our tips or inspired by us to do something or you want to share your results, kindly follow us on Instagram and then you can slide into our DMs. And maybe we'll do an episode about your story, your results, your question, whatever it is that could help someone else. Now, this episode is not necessarily one that has been requested, but as with a lot of our episodes, it's something that's come up from a lot of my coaching calls that I've done and something that I find that people kind of struggle with. And I've been trying to articulate it for a while. This is another one of those things that I've always been saying to people, but I haven't really had a good way to explain it in order for it to make it into an episode. Yes, you've been chewing on this a little while and you finally found the words to articulate it and everyone needs to hear it. So, tell us. And I thought for this episode, I would have a little bit of fun with it. So, here we go. I'm going to give you the definition of a new phrase that I have made up. It's called "Interview Mode" and it's a syndrome that people suffer with. And if you're listening to this, maybe you suffer with "Interview Mode" the syndrome as well. Will this be listed on WebMD? Maybe. Maybe I'll have to add an entry. Maybe if there's like a urban dictionary version of WebMD, maybe we'll put it on there. But this is the definition of "Interview Mode". I've written this and had a little bit of fun with it. It's a widespread syndrome found in job seekers. The syndrome only manifests under interview conditions. Symptoms include sudden amnesia of your achievements and your job functions. Overuse of jargon and a preoccupation with a professional tone and word choice. Patients typically present as robotic, passionless or oddly wooden, despite being articulate, friendly and engaging in normal life. It can affect anyone, but the cases are more often severe when the patient is exposed to a dream job or when you're interviewing in a second language. The condition is spontaneous, but in some cases it might be triggered by listening to bad job interview advice. Okay, I've got a few follow-up questions, Doc. Okay, great. Are you suffering from "Interview Mode" the syndrome? Is this contagious? I think it might be. Particularly with the listening to bad job interview advice, if you were practicing interviewing with a friend or something and they had this syndrome and they were interview mode, they sounded really like professional, wooden and robotic. And maybe both of you didn't really know much about interviews or kind of how they work from the other side or whatever. You might suddenly go, "Oh, that sounds really good. I need to sound like that too." Even though your natural language would be a lot better and probably that person's not doing a very good job of their stories, but it sounds good on the outside. It's kind of like how people say, "ChachyBT just makes everything sound so smart." And I'm like, "Do you mean all the buzzword corporate stuff that it puts in there because it doesn't sound smart?" Next question. Is it treatable? It is absolutely treatable. And I expect that most people will make a full recovery as long as they are open to being diagnosed. And they listen to this podcast. That's right. Yeah, this particular episode, in fact. Or any of our episodes, but this particular episode will be the thing that cures them. Can interview mode syndrome present with a comorbidity of a rash? Probably a stress rash. Probably comes up with a stress rash. Wait, missed opportunity to put sweaty hands and clenched butt kicks also. Also symptoms. But do you know that I actually think that they would be separate syndromes? Because I think that if you were kind of being panicky and anxious, you may be more likely to have things like freezing or not knowing what to say or whatever. It wouldn't necessarily always lead you to full on interview mode. Which, to me, is very much about like I suddenly have forgotten how to speak like I normally do. Like I'm trying to speak like a different person. Like I've put on interview mode. And I can't talk like I normally do anymore. Like that doesn't always go with the nerves. It could. But sometimes the nerves might just cause a whole heap of other stuff. I see. But imagine if you had both at once, like the nerves, the shaking, the sweaty hands, the dry mouth, the amnesia, the rash, and also interview mode. And you were like trooking like a robot giving answers that sound like, you're not even a person. Double homicide. So I find with my coaching sessions to give a bit of context that this is sometimes the diagnosis that I'm giving someone because we get on a coaching call and some people have told me that they feel nervous just talking to me because they listen to the podcast, which I find so funny. But I understand because you listen and you're like, oh my god, it's really you. But we are genuinely able to build some rapport and we're just kind of chatting about the job they're going for and the interview and the details or whatever. And then we do like an example answer. And I get them to do their career story or answer a particular question just to see where they're at. And it's like they change who they are. They're suddenly sounding really like they've got no passion, they've got no tone. Like they might be reading, but they also might be just they've just gone into interview mode. And they're not the same person that they were. And I don't really understand what it is that they've done or achieved. Like I can't really get to know them or understand their story or their skills because they've put on interview mode, which is what they think they need to be doing. But it just works against them because their answers aren't connecting. And then we chat afterwards and I ask questions like, okay, so I didn't really understand in that story. Were you doing that with your team or was that team in a different, although overseas? Oh, okay. And then they're fully able to explain everything in such an engaging way. And they're like, oh well, actually, the reason that we did that was these things. And I'm like, all of that passion, I tell them to go back and watch in the recording. Look at the difference between the way that you just talked to me just now and your version in interview mode. They are two completely different people. They have never met. They don't have nothing to do with each other. How interesting. Even though they're talking to you the entire time, all you're saying is like, okay, let's pretend we're in the interview. And it's the switch flicks. That's right. And I do kind of go into interview mode. I call it like for me when I ask them a question. And I go, so Emma, thanks so much for making the time. What I wanted to know a little bit more about like I'm putting on a bit of a different voice like we're doing a bit of a role play, right? But that's what they're doing to themselves every time an interview starts is that they feel like they need to be in interview mode. And I've had this kind of concept and tried to explain it. And I have explained it to a lot of my coaching clients, but I never really had like, I don't know, like a good summary of kind of what was going on. And I got a bit inspired from a conference I recently went to. But let's first touch on why I think this is happening. This is my kind of amateur psychological reasoning. So you think that they're trying to sound smart. It's like when they've been studying the Thessaurus, they're trying to use big professional smart sounding words that they would never really say in real life. And I think that's at the core of it. It's like I want to sound like a leader. I want to sound more senior. I want to sound smart. I want to sound something. I'm trying to sound like someone else, not like myself. And I think it can kind of happen when you feel like there's maybe a special way that you're meant to communicate in interviews. And that is the part that can be contagious. If you've watched videos or you've come across some stuff or you've even gotten some advice from someone that says, this is the way that you should answer this question. Well, based on my time at Blah blah blah, I effectively managed like you're listening to stuff that sounds like script or whatever. And you think maybe that sounds good. So you've got in your head now that my answers need to sound like that. They need to sound super polished. I would like to argue that the way you give the impression of being smart is your stories and your experience is conveyed epically. And they walk away with an overwhelming feeling of like, wow, what a smart person. They don't go, she sounded so smart. They go, she is smart. She is experienced. She is this. Not sound smart. That's right. Think about, I think what just popped into my head when you were saying that is thinking about the teachers that you have. Think about the teacher that you had that you think that's a smart person. They are really clever. High IQ, like they know stuff. Why do you think that? Who's coming to mind for you? English teacher. And she was smart because she was just epic at explaining things had so many like tools. Explaining things. Explaining things, right? Like maybe they had a good vocabulary. But the teacher who was the best public speaker wasn't necessarily the one that I thought is the smartest. Like those two things aren't connected in the same way. Yeah, it was the one that always made you have light bulb limits when it's like, that's right. Your 50th hour of not getting it. And then they find another way. You actually understand because they're explaining it in such great ways versus the one that maybe was all talk. And you were like, as soon as I ask a question, you don't really know what the backup is or you can't justify to me or you just say just because that's why you have to do this activity or something. Those are the people that you don't think are as intelligent to still a little experiment to challenge those thoughts. Also putting everything you say through a filter feeling like you can't be honest, you can totally say in a story, yeah, things went awfully wrong. You know, the boss left, he quit, he was fired. You can kind of paint the picture of how disastrous it was. But people kind of feel like they need to dance around it and be like, well, there was some mismatched alignment with this. And it's like, just say the boss had a mental breakdown in here. Yeah. I'm maybe not, but you know, just say the boss had like a personal situation and had to leave work at really short notice. Like the boss had a bit of a crisis and whatever. Like, we're not being insensitive, but we're also not being like weird and corporate and hiding it. Like, when people say don't be negative, we've done a whole episode on that. It's not about not saying that, hey, my boss and I didn't get along. You just don't want to be rude and give the fully unfiltered, you know, you want to be friendly and professional, but still like a person. So this filter idea, this kind of came to me a little bit as well because of something that I mentioned in the syndrome, where it affects people more if they're interviewing in a language that's not their native language. And I at first, when I would coach people who were interviewing in a second language, I kind of felt like, well, I don't have any tips specifically for that because I don't know any other languages. I'm a dumb dumb who can only speak one language and I absolutely take my hat off to anyone who has even a small grasp of a second language. I think it's incredibly, incredibly difficult and I cannot even imagine how hard it would be to operate in a country that you didn't grow up in in a language that you didn't grow up in. That's just insane. That's amazing. And I thought, well, I don't really have any tips for doing that. That must be so hard. Like, you're translating to listen and you're translating to speak, but what I found was that basically the main thing that they're struggling from is the same thing that native English speakers struggle with as well, which is interview mode because they are so worried often about using the wrong English word or not being able to find the right English word or sounding like their English is broken or whatever, that they're thinking too hard about it and their English is better and their communication is better when we're chatting casually and suddenly when they go into interview mode, they're trying to filter everything and use like be more perfect than they are and therefore is harder to understand them. So I find that this is a lot worse when you've got any kind of a filter that you're trying to sound in some other way. You're trying to sound like you have better English, you're English is worse. You're trying to sound smarter, you don't sound as smart. It really gets in people's way and I think choosing words that you wouldn't normally use as well. It's just going to be so difficult for you to effectively communicate something if you're using words and phrases that aren't part of your normal vocabulary. So I actually, like MSN had been kind of stewing on this idea for a little while and talking about it in all my coaching sessions. But when I went to a conference this year, I actually heard someone speak and they touched on this topic. Now this was a conference for creators, business owners, podcasters, that kind of thing. So this wasn't anything to do with interviews or recruitment, but the topic was on public speaking and how to be a good public speaker. So the speaker was Tristan de Montbello and he is one of the co-founders of a company called UltraSpeaking and they kind of talk about, you know, excellence in presentations and being really, really amazing at the top tier of presenting or whatever. And they do, I think, a book and some courses and things like that. And there was so much of this that I was like, oh my gosh, this is interview mode. That's exactly what he's describing. There were all these different tips and things that he kind of talked about, but one of them in particular, this concept was that we don't really need to add public speaking skills. Everybody knows how to speak and talk and communicate inherently as humans. You actually just need to remove things to be a better public speaker. You need to remove these things that are getting in your way. And there were a couple of others, but one of them in particular, he called it "impress mode". When you go into "impress mode", all these things start happening and then it makes it harder for you to deliver an effective presentation and to speak well. And when he said this, I was like, oh my gosh, I think this is exactly the same thing when people are going into interviews. And I loved the way that he broke this down. So when you're in "impress mode", he said, you start seeing the world as hostile. This captured what I was trying to kind of articulate around trying to be something that you're not or wanting to come across differently. So when you're in "impress mode", you start thinking, what are they thinking? How am I coming across? Do I sound smart? Do they think my English is good enough? You're thinking about what they're thinking about you. So you're thinking about them as hostile in a way that you're trying to get into their head and read their judgment and read their kind of internal analysis of you. And what he said was, you cannot connect with someone when you're in "impress mode". Because even if they're talking, you're not really listening to them and trying to connect. You're still analyzing what are they thinking? What does that mean? Where is that coming from? And so you're never going to be able to actually just connect as people because you're second guessing what you're saying. You're trying to come across a particular way. You're managing your impression. So his suggestion, and again, this isn't a public speaking context, but I've kind of shifted this a little bit. You want to shift from "impress mode" to "express mode". And instead of thinking about how do I say how I make how I make a cross, we want to think about what do I really think about this? It goes to our previous episode about thinking time. Thinking about what is the point of this story? What am I trying to get across? How do I get this idea out? What's the best way for me to explain this story so that you understand what was going on at my company at the time? We're focusing on that understanding, like thinking about being a teacher and having the person have the light bulb moment as opposed to how do I make it sound good? More expressing means that you're going to be more impressive, which is the irony of this whole thing. Hey, interview boss listeners. If the podcast just isn't doing it for you and you need way more help to prep for your next interview, we have the perfect thing for you. Interview Academy. M, tell us all about it. This is huge. This is the love child of Sarah after doing hundreds of one-on-one coaching sessions, finding out what people struggle with the most. Common mistakes. Sarah has created. The ultimate course that you can do in your own time, self-paced, heaps of modules, videos, interactive quizzes, a workbook that will become your Bible by the end that you can take with you into your interview because if you're a long time listener, you know that we endorse taking notes into your interview. It's a game changer. Check out more about it at interview boss.com.au/interviewacademy. I feel like in two interviews that I've had, one of them, I wasn't trying to impress at all. I was just in a really good space. I was relaxed. I had very much the mindset of like, I've done all I can, we'll see how it goes. I actually connected so much with all of the interviewers and it helped that they were lovely and chate and we had good connection. But that, when I compared to another interview I had, where I was really stressed out, I didn't have much time to prepare. I had so much going on in my personal life. I definitely was in the scarcity, impress mindset and my brain was going everywhere. I was overthinking so much. I was so critical. I was not really even in the room. I was just off with the fairies. That's what I mean. How can you connect with someone when you're in that mode of being like, I need to impress these people so much? You're not going to be able to just relax and connect. And interview mode is honestly sometimes for people that I do coaching sessions with. I'm like, this is the one thing you need to change. Your answers have great structure. You have good stories. You have a good intro. All these other things are going for you. But just as soon as you go to explain it, you switch into a different personality. You've got interview mode syndrome and therefore nothing is coming across the way that it should. I would feel like at the end of the interview I still didn't know who you were. I still were like, who is this person in front of me? They're a bit too perfect and I haven't actually told me much because they're trying to sound a different way. And when we fix this and they shift to, you don't have to sound a particular way at all. Just focus on trying to explain properly. They go, oh, okay. See how I mean? It's like, it's not that you needed in those cases. They didn't need to add interview skills to their repertoire. They needed to take away something that they were doing. Take away the interview mode that you're in and the rest of it's already there. So true. And it's not as if the way that we regularly speak in our daily life is inappropriate or really unprofessional. Like the way that we would speak to a colleague if we were telling a story about something, we would get across the full details that would make perfect sense. That is fine. So I hate that we just feel the need to go into this highly intellectual jargon mode. I don't know who is responsible and who taught us this, but we need to undo it. Well, and there's a concept that I think really helps with this. And I want to prove to everyone who's listening that we are natural storytellers as humans. This isn't just like some ridiculous theory. It's kind of like why language evolved in humans to begin with. It's to tell stories to one another. That's like our primary form of communication from the earliest days of, you know, homo sapiens learning how to speak. It's stories. That part is inherent. So anything that you hear about or it's like a star or even what we do, situation, what I did, and result, all of those are just tools to kind of help you. Honestly, because you've probably forgotten how to tell a story when you're sitting down trying to go into interview mode, but you are a natural storyteller. I promise. So if you're listening to this, I'm going to prove it to you. I want you to think about a time where your car broke down. I feel like everybody has had some kind of experience of their car breaking down. And maybe if you've never driven maybe a bus broke down or like some other thing in that vein, you're going to have to come up with something else. Some massive obstacles that's prevented you from getting out the door on time has had domino effects that you've missed all these other important commitments throughout the day. You're highly strong. Your emotions are running wild. Maybe it has financial implications. Maybe you slept in or something like you're allowed in go off or like maybe some disaster in your house happened like that you flooded something or you spilt coffee all over yourself on your way to work. The reason I pitch this is because first of all, I think it's relatable. And second of all, I think Emma has had too many of these experiences. It's actually a bit too raw to talk about this right now. I've had a lot of car trauma in the past year and I don't want to talk about it. No, I do. Well, I'm going to make you talk about it in this episode. Otherwise, I'll share mine. I've had plenty of my own kind of experiences. I think being broken down on like a highway, whatever you call it, motorway freeway, whatever, where people are flying past, that is a fundamental human experience. Do you want me to tell you the story? Hold on on, wait, let's go through the rest of this and then you can give your example at the end. The reason I chose this is because I think it's relatable, but also because it's the kind of thing that you're going to tell someone. You get home at the end of the day, you're going to tell your partner. You're going to tell your work colleagues because you're like, oh my gosh, I have had a morning. Let me tell you about this. You wouldn't believe what happened to me. And so I want you to think about, let's say, it's just happened and you're telling the first person that you've kind of encountered immediately after it happening. Like you've only just gotten back home or whatever it is. When you first tell the story, it's kind of chaotic because you're like, oh, and then I forgot to mention, there's also a road two roads over and then I can see the truck on that, you know, like you're kind of forgetting bits and pieces and you're adding maybe too much detail and like, because it's only just happened. Like your brain hasn't really even consolidated the story yet because like it's just happened and you're still really hot thinking about all these details and whatever. Now, then you call your mom or your friend or your sister or brother or partner or whatever and then you're telling them about it and it's the second time you've told the story and the third time and they're like, what happened? You can't have a day. You've gotten better at it now because you've already told that story once and now that you remember that little detail about your indicator not working. That wasn't really related and it didn't help you tell the story. So actually you've kind of condensed it and it makes a lot more sense and you know which the dramatic parts are and you remember all the details to add. Yeah, people laugh way more. It's more of a roller coaster. You're so much better at telling that story now because you've refined it. The storyline kind of makes sense. Like you give the backstory even if it didn't happen chronologically like that, you give the backstory that's relevant, whatever. Everyone can relate to this. Whatever your situation was, whether it's car breaking down or something else, I promise you, you have done this. You first tell the story. It's a bit chaotic the second and third time you tell it. It's a much better story. Now if you were to tell that same story again, I bet you still remember and I bet it's a little bit different, but you didn't write it down. Mm-hmm. You certainly did not write it down. No, it happened to you. You experienced it. We're using our memory. We're using our brain. We're just telling the story to effectively communicate to that other person. He's how, oh my gosh, he's what happened. He is the story. He's setting the scene. Okay, so I've got this big important meeting and I get in the car and I hear something, but I don't really think much of it. And then it's not until I'm going 100 kilometers an hour on the thing that my car just, all the lights go off and it suddenly slows down and I'm panicking. Like you're setting the scene, right? So that they understand how you felt. Now is the time that I want you to tell us your best car breaking down story. Go for it. Okay, well, look, there's multiple, but I'll go with the most recent one. So my car, she's aging. It's time for an upgrade in the near future, but I'm not ready yet. So this is the situation part, by the way, she's setting the scene. I'm hanging on for dear life and I've put a lot into maintaining it. A lot of things have gone wrong. Nothing enormous, but like, you know, I've been maintaining, upkeeping, fixing her. She's on her last legs. Anyway, a year ago, I had to get a new transmission. I broke down. It was devastating. Lost all accelerating. I had to get a new transmission. That was like $4,000, which was a lot of money and it sucked, but I had to do it because otherwise, I did not have a working car and you can't sell a car that doesn't work. So I had to fix it. Anyway, so it's about three months after this. So I am traumatized from my car breaking down. Just keep that in mind. So I'm driving and thinking about how much money you might have to pay. Yes. I'm driving on my way to work on a Saturday morning, a shift at the radio station doing the news for the day. So I'd picked up a weekend shift. That starts at 4.45. I had just went and picked up a coffee from the drive through on the way. I was on the home stretch about to be at work, probably two kilometers or less away. I was on the straight road and all of a sudden, my car stops right in the middle of a busy thoroughfare. It is 4.45 in the morning. I have to get to work within probably 15 minutes to pre-record my first bulletin because there's no announces in the building. So for the first couple of bulletins, I have to get there and pre-record them. So I am broken down. I'm thinking, shit, it's pitch black. It's so early in the morning. No one's going to be awake. I've got a ticking time bomb. I need to get up the hill and get to work ASAP. I can't leave my car here because it's blocking the road. Like I need to be towed. So step one, I call the NRAA. So they're on their way, roadside assistance, but they're going to be like an hour or so or so. So I'm like, okay, phase one is complete. And then I'm thinking, hmm, I can't call anyone. My partner Joel, he had gone to an event the night before and driven his car there and left it there. So even if I called him to wake him up, he had no car to come and save me. So I'm like, all right, my sister was pregnant at the time, not Sarah, my other sister. And so I was like, she's last resort. I don't want to wake her up this early in the morning. So if she's sleeping, she needs a sleep. So then I'm like, all right, I'll start with mum and dad. I call mum and dad probably 15 times each. None of them had so they're fast asleep. Their phones are on silent. They've started this new thing where they don't keep their phones in the same room. And I'm like good for you for your quality of sleep. But like, what if there's an emergency? I could, yeah, God help me. Anyway, so then I'm just, I just need someone to bounce off to be like, how am I going to get out of this pickle? So I'm like, all right, I'll call Sarah. I googled the time in Canada. I'm in Australia. She's in Canada. And the time actually matched. And I was like, oh, yeah, she'd be awake. So I just called Sarah and was like, hey, I'm broken down. I know you can't do anything. But I'm like, great. How, like, how am I going to help? But I know that when Emma is in these scenarios, she sometimes just needs some reassurance to be like, I just need a verbal plan of attack. Yeah. He's what we're going to do. So I have a little pep talk to Sarah. I'm like, all right, everything's going to be okay. So I get off the phone to Sarah and I'm calling my boss as well because my boss has the ability to log on from home and he can skip the local news and he can flag from the national news, the syndicated news to play. So I'm calling him. But again, it's 4.45 in the morning. It's a Saturday. He's asleep. So what that means since he won't answer and he can't log on remotely from home, it means if I don't get to work in 15 minutes, the old news is going to play from the day before. It's going to sound like it's that day's news, but it's actually from the day before saying that something happened today or yesterday or whatever day it was that's not going to be accurate. But we don't pre-record the news all the time. So possibly the last time someone recorded the news could have been a week ago, four days ago. So it could be extra old news. So it's not just, it won't just do the live bulletin from yesterday. It'll be. No, it plays. Whatever the last time the news was pre-recorded was, that's the file that will play. So this is like worst case emergency scenario that could ever possibly happen. I'm like, oh my god, the weather, the sport, the whole thing is going to be completely wrong and really confusing unless someone presses a button to turn it off. To turn it off, yes. So I'm like, all right, gonna have to call the pregnant sister. So sorry, unlucky. So I call pregnant sister. Remarkably, she's the only family member that answers the phone. She answers, she's got such a tired voice, I feel so bad. But she answers, she's awake and I'm like, hi, I need you to get in the car and pick me up and just wait here. If you wait here with my car, then I can run up to work and I can go and turn it off and she's turned it off and then come back and then like we've bought ourselves some time. Yep. Because the immediate priority is don't play the old news. And she's like, okay, I'm coming. She gets on her dressing gown. She gets her husband out of bed. They get up at stupid o'clock to come and rescue me. It's like probably like a 20 minute drive though. So I've got a bit of time. Then I'm sitting there going, oh, times ticking. I contemplated running up the hill, but I was like, that will be too slow. I'm not fit enough for that. And also you're leaving your car too. Like someone might run into it or something. In the meantime, I've got my hazards on and thankfully, because it's early in the morning, there's not a lot of cars coming through, but as soon as it gets to like seven o'clock, it picks up. I'm stuffed. Anyway, so I'm panicking. Time is ticking. It's now like 50 past. I'm just so worried. So I end up, I'm like, all right, I'm going to have to call a taxi. So I'm trying to call a taxi. Hey, this was an idea that I had told you about. By the way, we we brainstorm some options. I'm trying to call a taxi. And I said, if you can just get there and then get back. Because it's not far. If I had to travel a long way, I would be nervous about leaving my car there. But I thought I can just duck up, duck back the taxi driver can wait for me. In the meantime, when I'm on hold trying to get through to a taxi, a sketchy looking man comes up beside me and knocks on the window and he's like, you can't park there. Love. And I was like, no, shit. I fucking know that. I didn't know that. And I'm like, yeah, I know that. And he's signaling and he's waiting for him. He's signaling at me to wind down my window. He's like, can't park here. Love. Move it up. Move it further. Yeah. Bad spot here. I'm like, don't you think I would if I could. I cannot accelerate the car will not turn on. I'm not about to get out and push. I'll get hit by a car and I'll die. And so I was he's signaling for me to wind down a window because he can't really hear me because I'm yelling back at him. And I'm like, I'm not putting the window down. Hell no. You I look so sketchy. Leave me alone. So I'm just like, no, was he outside of his car? No, he was walking. He was a pedestrian. He was standing outside my car window and I was so scared. Absolutely not. I locked the doors. You might do a little tiny crack. No, I didn't even know. I was just like, I'm fine. Thank you. Mind your own business. So he he buggers off. And then the taxi people are like, all right, yeah, got a taxi coming. We'll come and get you. And then the taxi people took way too long. So I ended up having to cancel them miraculously. And for people that are like, why didn't you Uber? Well, there's not a whole lot of Uber available where you'd leave. No, no, I had to taxi. There are some, but it's not you be could us enough for them to be available at odd times of day. So remarkably, who skids up next to me, sister and my brother-in-law pulled up in the nick of time. I'm talking we had like three minutes to get up to my work. So they parked the car behind me. And he drives me up the hill. I think Chris stays with my car in case anyone that sketchy man comes back and tries to give me a hard time. We fang it up the hill. I sprint upstairs into work. I'm like really falling over up the stairs. I get into the computer. I hit the button. I press skip, skip, skip, skip for the whole entire day because I'm like, I might make it back, but I might not make it back. So I just skipped the whole day's news. And then the funny thing is I have a text exchange with my boss that proves how I worked it out on my own because he wasn't answering. So I was just giving him updates. So I said, so sorry to call you so early. My car's broken down. I'm two minutes away from work. I won't make it in time for the 6am news. I'll keep you posted. And then the next message update. I'm temporarily ditching my car. And I've booked a taxi there to take me to go and switch on national. And then the next photo is a selfie of me at the computer pressing the button. And then I said, national put in for the rest of the day. I don't think I'll be able to get to work today. I have to get the car toad. And then the next photo was a photo of my car on said tow truck. And I just said event for morning. It was like a full. Like, what has gone on? So in the end news was skipped. I was a hero. The community didn't have to hear old news. I got back to my car. It was still there about 10 minutes later. tow truck arrived. Got me on my merry way. It all worked out. Eventually got the car fixed. And wasn't it not a super serious crazy problem as well? Yeah. I thought it was going to be another transmission because the exact same thing happened that happened when my transmission blew up. But it was just a little hose or something. It was good. It was inexpensive. It was $800, which compared to the $4,000. I know it's still a lot of money. But compared to thousands, it was good. So it all worked out. Crises averted. Now that is a very long story. And you may not want to tell one quite that length in an interview. But how did that go when you first told the story to like your colleagues or something like that? Or like, well, to me when I was on the phone, it was chaos, right? Like, it was all over the place. Like, you didn't even mention to me that the guy knocked on your door or whatever. Like, you would have talked about different things. I thought I was going to do this. I thought I was going to do that and like irrelevant stuff. What are some key things of how it's evolved? The more that you've told it. The hobo knocking on my door was definitely interesting. The fact that my pregnancy sister was the only one who answered. But I called you even though you weren't in the country just for moral support. I think the fact that my partner was asleep and also had no car, even if I wanted to call him, just adds a layer, adding that context at the beginning, right? Yes, it does. It's like, wow, the planets are really aligned to make this problematic. Yes. If you were listening to this, I bet even though you may be not as talented as a storyteller as Emma, because she does have a certain humour and way of telling these stories to get a great laugh, I promise you, you are a natural storyteller. And if you've told a story about your car breaking down, I bet it got better the second and third time you told it or something funny that happened to you. And I bet you didn't have to write it down or look at a list, or look at structuring or whatever. You just know how to set it up, talk about what happened and then what was the end result and talk about how your car eventually got fixed or how much it cost or whatever. So I hope that that has challenged everyone who was thinking, but I need interview mode because I need to remember all these things and how I need to talk about it and XYZ. Sometimes you need to get rid of things that are holding you back. So, Doctor, what's our prescription for treating interview mode syndrome? Deach the scripts. This may be a prescription, but you don't need a script for it. And listen. That was so cool. Listen to our episode on not scripting yourself, stop filtering yourself or trying to sound like anything or anyone at all. Your main focus is to communicate effectively. Think about how do I help them understand this story instead of how do I sound good or what are they thinking? Use your own natural words and tone. Moral of the story, just be yourself. It's so cliche, but the more you're trying to cause play a certain persona or come across a certain way, it just makes it so much harder. Yeah, interview mode syndrome holds a lot of people back. And so if this is you, don't worry, there is help for you. Maybe this episode has done the trick. Maybe you need more serious interventions. Maybe you need a clinical session with me, in a one-on-one. Maybe you need a repeat script. Maybe you need a more intense cure, in a one-on-one coaching session or interview academy. Good luck with it and please get out of interview mode. Thanks so much for listening to interview boss. If you like hearing the sound of our voices and listening to our ridiculous stories, follow us on Apple or Spotify or better yet, tell someone else about the show. That's how we can hit the charts and help even more people. For more advice, inspiration and some savable behind-the-scenes content, check us out on Instagram and Chalka's Follow. And can you believe we started interview boss in 2021? Not really, it's insane. That's a lot of episodes and a lot of hours of talking. Oh my gosh, it is. And if you're scrolling through all of our episodes, you might scroll straight past something that you really, really needed. Yes, we're always getting messages from people asking us to do an episode on something and I'm like, we already have. So we've put together playlists to help you find the episodes that are exactly what you need suited to your situation. They're all categorized. If you're applying for jobs, we have episodes about resumes, cover letters, job ads. If you've been offered your dream job, we have episodes on resigning, exit interviews and how to impress at your new company. And we even have a very special playlist that's very popular. If you have an interview coming up immediately and you need just our most recommended hard-hitting episodes between now and then. For all our last-minute listeners, it's all there for you. You can browse by category and check out all the playlists at interviewboss.com.au/podcast.