Poetry v. The World: “We’ll get back to you”

This week I had an interview, (believe it or not), and it served as an odd moment of self reflection for me.

There’s quite a few anxieties I’m usually prone to having before one. It’s essentially you selling yourself, a pitch for you by you. I’m not super comfortable when I have to do something like that. Talking myself up has always been a rough spot for me. Not because I’m modest, but because I value the appeal of seeming modest when I’m not. (And I’m only half joking.)

But nonetheless our insecurities can really surface in those moments before. Ones concerning appearance, attitude, intelligence. The problem is it’s me as a whole that I have to maintain, not just one or a couple facets of myself. Usually in essays I just have to worry about my language, in sports I just need to worry if I’m achieving good results with physical movement. So I’m not used to everything needing to have purpose, to have weight. My posture, my responses, how I deliver my responses, how I handle stress. Covering all these bases while simultaneously having to work it all out on the fly is challenging.

That being said, it’s not like I haven’t overcome these to some degree. I’m not the perfect interviewee, don’t get me wrong. But I maintain a level of clarity during interviews, despite the constant need to freak out. I think it comes from a place of necessity. At some level I understand that the calm and relaxed version of me is more likely to get hired than a tense, on-edge version. Since my end desire is wanting to get hired, I can manually turn the volume down on the things that would slow me down.

Or at least, that’s what I do. What do you do to prepare for an interview? I honestly could use more tips and tricks to get me through it.

In any case, please stay safe and have fun! Until next time…

jonahso

-Jonah J. Sobczak