توضیحات ای جی

BEC : Interviews -AJ

Hello, this is AJ. Welcome to my commentary. Now, in this commentary I want to talk about probably the most difficult and scariest challenge of interviews and that’s just the emotion of interviews. I think most people are very, very nervous about doing job interviews. Some people are terrified of doing job interviews, other people just are quite nervous, but really it’s a common fear. It’s almost as scary as public speaking.

A lot of people are very terrified of standing in front of a large group of people and giving a presentation or talking. Well, doing a job interview it’s about the same thing. You’re only talking to one person usually, maybe a few, but normally one person in the beginning interview, but you’re trying to get a job so you’re really nervous. You probably want that job so there’s a lot of emotion involved. So it’s tough to be relaxed, it’s tough to be confident and those two things are really the most important part of the interview.

We talked about all kinds of ideas about dressing, about preparing for different kinds of interviews, about following up, about giving examples in your answers. All of that stuff is great, but those are the details really. The core thing, the most important of all is really the emotion, because if you’re terrified, if you’re really, really nervous it’s going to be very difficult to remember all of those great things while the person is asking you questions.

I’ve had this experience in the past where I prepared, I had all these great ideas in my head, but then I go to the interview and I’m so nervous that I can’t really give good answers. I’m nervous and kind of tight and breathing heavy. Then the person is asking me these questions and I just give terrible answers. Then I leave afterwards and feel terrible. That has happened to me, definitely. It may have happened to you if you’ve already done job interviews.

So a really, really, really important thing is to train yourself to be confident and calm. It’s something you have to practice and train it doesn’t just happen. Having a kind of strong, positive, peak emotion during the interview, that’s something you must practice before so that when you go into the interview you’re doing great. You’re fantastic. You’re strong. You’re confident. You’re relaxed. So I learned how to do this.

I actually learned how to do this from public speaking. Public speaking is a performance. It’s like an actor going on to a stage, right? All these people in the audience they’re watching you. You are performing, so you have to prepare that. Like an actor prepares before they perform, well a public speaker also must prepare and so must an interviewee.

So the interviewer asks the questions and you - the interviewee - answers them. Well, you have to prepare also. You are also performing. It’s a performance and you have to go into it and be ready for it as a performance. Part of that means knowing what you’re going to say, knowing how to answer well, Part of that means having the right costume, that means dressing well, and a really big part of it means having the right emotions. So how do you do it? How do you train yourself? Well, there are a few ways to do this.

The first step of practicing is really just practicing your answers. We talked about that in the conversation. You’re going to imagine imaginary questions. Maybe you’ll have a friend or a family member ask you questions and then you’ll give your answers. So, you know, what is your greatest strength and you’ll practice answering that. What’s your weakness? Can you tell me about a time when you did something great? You know whatever.

Just get an interview book and find common questions. They might be different in different kinds of jobs. They might be different in different countries. So just get used to answering them well and being able to just give your answers very quickly so that they’re in your head all the time. You’re always thinking about them.

In the conversation my dad mentioned that even while he’s mowing the yard - cutting the grass - maybe he’s thinking of interview questions and he’s thinking of his answers.

You can do the same thing. You’re on the bus, you’re in your car or you’re walking around you can constantly be thinking of possible questions and your answers.

Well, once you are ready, once you are ready to answer the questions very easily, it’s all in your head, it’s very easy for you to answer the questions, the next step is to answer the questions with calm and confidence. So the next step is you have to add the emotion. The best way to do this is to change your body. As Tony Robbins says, change your physiology.

So the best way to be confident is to physically change your body. That means, number one, you pull your shoulders back. It means your chest is up. It means your chin is up.

You’re looking up you’re not looking down. Then you practice moving around with strong motions, strong movements. So you might practice gesturing with your hands, but in a strong way not in a little weak way. You don’t want your hands close to you where you’re holding them and looking weak.

You want to look strong and powerful, so you practice moving your arms in a strong confident way as you talk, as you give your answers, as you practice your answers.

What I do is I actually walk around the room. I walk around my room, I talk and I give my answers. If I’m doing a speech I’ll talk about my topic and as I’m doing it I practice walking around looking confident with my chin up, with my eyes up, with my chest up, with my shoulders back.

Another important part of this, use a strong loud voice. Every time you practice your answers do it with a loud voice. Go in a room alone, close the door and talk loudly.

Speak loudly, powerfully, confidently. You have to practice it again and again and again and again and again so it’s automatic. Then when you go to the interview you automatically use a strong powerful voice. You use strong powerful movements.

Practice this standing and walking around, practice it sitting down, both situations. You must train yourself to do this.

Another great way to train yourself for this is to go online. Go on the Internet and find videos of great speakers, great public speakers; confident speakers. It could be someone like Tony Robbins. It could be someone like Steve Jobs. There are a lot of styles. Some people are high energy, that’s my style, other people are more calm, but what you want, what’s most important is that they are confident, that they’re confident and powerful speakers. Find some videos of them. Let’s just use Tony Robbins as an example.

Find some videos on YouTube or online of Tony Robbins speaking. Don’t worry about what he’s saying. Don’t worry about the words, maybe you can’t understand what he’s saying. Just watch how he moves his body. Watch how he uses his face. Watch the gestures he uses with his hands and then copy them. Imitate them so that when you’re speaking, when you’re giving answers imagine you’re Tony Robbins and do it with a strong voice like Tony uses. Do it with strong gestures like Tony uses. Do it with strong confident facial expressions like Tony uses.

If Tony’s style is too much for you, too high energy, find another confident speaker who’s a little more calm. Steve Jobs would be a great example. There are several videos online of Steve Jobs giving speeches. He has a more calm style, but he’s still very confident. Watch the way he moves his body. How does he use his hands? How does he use his face? How does his voice sound? Copy those things. Practice them. Imagine that you’re an actor and you’re trying to be Steve Jobs. You’re trying to be Tony Robbins. So, practice giving your interview answers in a style like them.

The final piece of this is a technique to help you get into a strong emotional state - ‘state’ just means feeling - just before the interview. So here’s the problem. You’re going to practice this. Practice it and practice it so it becomes natural and easy. Practice having this strong emotional state. Practice using strong gestures. Practice using a strong voice. Then you’ll be sitting in the waiting room before your interview and you’ll start feeling nervous. Oh, my God, and then you start getting tight. Even though you practiced now it’s really tough because the emotions are coming up. You’re feeling nervous, so what you need to do is you need to have some way to instantly change your feeling.

You need a little ritual. This is a psychological technique called anchoring and it works very well. So what you do is this. This is how you practice it. At home you get into a very strong, confident emotional state. You could play some powerful music, music that is very energetic that makes you feel strong and happy and alive. Then you use your body in a very strong way like Tony Robbins or like Steve Jobs.

Move around the room. Say something powerful out loud with a loud voice. You might just say yes! You could just use the word yes. Yes! Or you might say I’m ready! Or I’m strong! Whatever it is using a strong gesture, strong movements and the music is going.

Make yourself really feel powerful and confident inside. You have to feel it powerfully.

This is at home. Then when the emotion is very, very, very strong, when it’s strongest in you, do some movement.

For example, I squeeze my right hand very hard and I squeeze it in exactly the same way every time. So squeeze your right hand or you could do something else. You could smack yourself on the head. You could do anything. You could move in a certain way, but it has to be the same way every time. So you feel really powerful, really strong, strong voice, rah, I feel great … squeeze your hand really hard. Then start again.

Kind of shake your body and relax. Then listen to the music again. Get yourself really powerful having a very strong, peak, top, powerful emotion and as you feel it squeeze your hand exactly the same way again very powerfully. Then you start over and you do it again. You do this many, many times, maybe 20 times, maybe 30 times one day. Then the next day you do it again. Then the next day you do it again.

What you’re doing psychologically, you’re connecting the feeling to that action.

Squeezing the hand becomes connected in your mind to the feeling. If you do it enough, if you do it with very powerful emotion and it’s always the same movement, they will become so connected that in the future when you squeeze your hand that way you’ll start to feel more powerful and confident. It’s really interesting. It’s cool. So in this way, any time you want that feeling you just do that action.

I’ve done this. For me, I squeeze my right hand and then I move it in a certain way. Now any time I want to feel powerful or confident I just do that movement. I’ll do it a few times. For an interview I would go into the bathroom before the interview and I would do that movement really powerfully and I would get myself really feeling strong and powerful. Then I’d go sit down and wait for the interview.

As I’m sitting waiting for the interview I’d be squeezing my hand sometimes keeping myself feeling strong and powerful. Then I walk into the interview and I am ready. I’m feeling powerful. I’m feeling strong. I do this every time I do a public speech. Every time I stand on stage and I speak to people, 10 people or 1,000 people it doesn’t matter, I squeeze my hand. I do actually a lot more things, but I get myself very powerful. I’m ready. I’m excited. I’m confident. I’m very, very powerfully emotional and strong. Then I walk onto the stage and I’m ready. No fear at all. I’m not nervous. In fact, I’m excited.

You have to train yourself in this same way. You’ve got to train it again and again. Use this technique so then just before your interview you feel certainly much less nervous.

Eventually, when you practice this you actually will feel very powerful, very confident, very calm and then, eventually, after more practice you’ll actually feel excited. You’ll be excited about interviewing. You’ll be ready. You’ll be eager. You’ll say ah, I’m ready to go. Let’s go. Come on! That’s what you want. You walk in there like that … you’re different.

We talked about vibes, the emotion that people can feel from you. Well, when you do this and then you walk into an interview your vibes are very strong, very calm, very confident, very excited, very positive and very different from most people. Most people will walk in and they’re feeling tight and nervous. They’re trying to pretend they’re not, but they really are.

By doing this and really practicing it you really will feel confident. You really will feel strong. You really will feel positive, maybe even excited and the interviewer will feel that.

It’s very powerful. You’ve got to practice, like I said, every day. You really have to get your emotions super strong then do that action and you have to repeat it many times.

This is basic. If you’ve heard of Pavlov and the dog, he rang the bell and the dog salivated and then later he gave him food, if you know that experiment from psychology, you’re basically just doing that to yourself.

So, good luck. Use this technique again and again. It’s also great for getting ready for a public speech. It’s great for any situation where you are probably going to feel nervous, so you can help change your emotion in this way. All right, so use it and then we hope to hear lots of success stories about the great jobs that you got because of this.

See you next time, bye-bye.

The End.