INSTANT MBA: The Surprising Interview Mistake Most Job Seekers Make

Instant MBA

June 03, 2014

To land the job, you need to ace the interview — but many people let their nerves get the best of them, says Rachel Green, director of The Emotional Intelligence Institute, in a recent LinkedIn post.

She says one of the biggest mistakes that job seekers make is thinking the spotlight is on them.

"Do you go into the interview thinking you are about to be interrogated? Do you imagine that you will go blank and stumble and not know what to say?" Green asks. "If this sounds familiar you are making an important mistake; you are thinking the job interview is all about you. It's not."

The spotlight (and pressure of making a wrong or right decision), she says, actually falls on the "job interview panel" — those involved in the hiring process.

When you think the spotlight is on you (as many of us do), you get nervous. And when you get nervous, you don't think clearly. So, she says, one way to suppress your nerves and avoid making this mistake is to start "feeling sorry for the job interview panel and understanding what a difficult task they have."

Remind yourself that your goal is simply to help the interviewers: to make it obvious to the panel that you are clearly the best person for the job, and to make it easy for them to pick you. "Your job in the interview is to make yourself stand out from the other applicants so the panel is left with no doubt that you are the person to select."

When you think about it that way, you take the focus off yourself and ease your worries.

Click here to read the full LinkedIn post.

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