SHUT UP and RELAX: Interviewing

Practicing interviews was awkward at first.  Then I remembered that interviewing for a job is sometimes awkward at first too so this turned out to be good practice. The hardest thing for me during an interview is to make my point and then to stop talking.  If I don’t make myself clear the first time I answer the question, I tend to keep filling space until I feel like I have made my point, or just talked myself in circles. 

After talking about how the interview went answering the questions again went much better. It could have been because I knew what questions were coming but I think the biggest difference was the length of my answers.  I tried hard to think for a second after the question was asked, decide what my point would be, and then to make my point and shut up.  This helped a lot and made me sound more present, and collected. 

The best advice I could give someone going into an interview is to RELAX. After the first person practiced with me I tried to relax and not be so afraid while the second person was interviewing me. This made thinking about my answers easier and also took a lot of pressure off when I didn’t know how to answer.