Here Are The Best Ways To Organize Thoughts During Interviews
INTERVIEW TIPS – Everybody struggles to organize thoughts, especially during job interviews. As a result, our answers can come out jumbled, incoherent, and sometimes downright embarrassing. Either this sounds familiar or like your worst nightmare, but either way we can all say that we don’t want that during important interviews, do we?
Fear not! In this article, we’re going in-depth on how we can structure our thoughts before we talk. Once you’ve got that down, we’re going to discuss how to process our thoughts into one coherent idea or how to bounce off from one topic to another.
HOW TO COLLECT OUR THOUGHTS
The human brain has about 86 billion neurons, but when it comes to interviews, sometimes it feels like those neurons disappear. The first thing you should know is that this is natural! All of us have gone through this at some point in our lives, and the good thing is, we can gradually learn how to overcome it.
Firstly, the easiest way that we can help ourselves collect our thoughts during interviews is by preparing for them. Naturally, all interviews are going to have different questions, but you can always prepare for some of the most common ones.
For example, if you’re a fresh graduate with no experience, a Recruitment Specialist could ask you: “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”. Unfortunately, even if you know the direction you want to go with for your answer, it somehow gets all over the place when you try to explain.
If you want to learn more about the top interview questions asked, check out this link below:
Top CSR Interview Questions Asked In The Philippines – Tips From HR
So, with that being said, here are some tips on how to organize your thoughts!
THINGS TO DO BEFORE THE INTERVIEW
Calm Yourself Down
More often than not, we tend to get nervous during interviews. Even worse, for some people, it happens before the interview. As such, we tend to psyche ourselves out and create a loop of nervousness that isn’t going to help.
When we go through this, our body builds up endorphins – these are chemicals that our body creates when we’re in stressful situations. What we want to do is to release those endorphins because once we do it can make us feel so good.
What you can do to calm yourself down is to go out on a walk or even run! These activities help release the endorphins and keep your mind from overthinking about the interview. If you don’t like walking or running, find a physical activity that you do enjoy and get out there and break a sweat. You can also use meditation and breathing exercises. Try inhaling slowly through your nose for 5 seconds, hold your breath for another 5 seconds, then exhale through your mouth for 5 seconds. This slowing down and regulating your breathing can help you settle your body and your thoughts.
COLLECTING YOUR THOUGHTS DURING THE INTERVIEW
After calming yourself down, it’s time to do your interview! At this point, you’d need to answer some questions about yourself, why you want to work for the company, why are you a fit for the position, and many more.
Thus, it’s best to practice these to help you organize your thoughts during interviews. Here are some tips on how to ace this.
Don’t worry about saying “umm..”
We’re just humans and not robots that have perfected speech. So, don’t even worry about saying “umm” during interviews. It’s understandable. Obviously, you want to try and avoid saying it too much but overthinking about not saying it more often than not messes up your flow. Be natural and be yourself, think of it as a conversation rather than thinking of it as an interview.
Use pauses to refocus
Most people would say that it’s a horrible idea to stop talking during an interview – but, what’s worse is rambling incoherent thoughts and ideas. So that’s why it’s a good idea to take 3-5 seconds to pause, breathe, and father your thoughts.
Slow Down Your Tempo
If you have trouble gathering your thoughts during interviews, then talking fast may not be your tempo. As such, instead of busting out a nervous stream of words, talk slowly and try to visualize what you’re trying to project. With this, you get to process your thoughts more and deliver your message straight to the point.
Use a Conversation Framework
When you’re asked a question during an interview, you probably have a general idea or key point that you want to focus on. However, the issue lies with creating a story around it. This is where a Conversation Framework comes in.
According to Muse, a conversation framework has 4 main parts: “Key Point, Reason, Example, and Summary”. More importantly, this framework allows you to easily organize your thoughts for all of your interviews. Here’s an example of how to use it.
An interviewer asks you “Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?”. Using the conversation framework, we can say that our key point could be that you can see yourself in a managerial position. Then, follow this up with the reason why you want a managerial position. Afterward, show an example of a situation where you showed leadership skills. Finally, summarize your answer.
Key point: I can see myself having a managerial role in 5 years.
Reason: I believe that I have excellent leadership potential due to my experience in leading organizations during my college years and have led volunteer activities at the local and national levels.
Example: Since I was in grade school, I’ve always led school activities and reports. I carried this throughout my high school and college days. Luckily, this led me to be chosen as a participant in various leadership seminars and empowerment training.
Summary: With that being said, I know that with the help of this company, I could further develop my skills, help the company grow and grow with it as well.
So, now that you’re ready to take on your next Interview and want to take the next step in your career journey, Global Strategic wants to hear from you. Apply today and become part of the team!