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Interview anxiety

How to calm nerves before an interview

Nerves before an interview are normal. Say your main answers out loud the night before, settle the logistics early, breathe slowly for a minute before you go in, and keep one line ready in case your mind goes blank.

A young woman in a dark blazer sitting on a wooden bench in a sunlit office lobby before a job interview, eyes closed, taking a slow breath with her hands resting on a leather portfolio

The five kinds of interview anxiety

In 2004, researchers Julie McCarthy and Richard Goffin split interview anxiety into five worries. A 2018 meta-analysis found that candidates who report more anxiety tend to get somewhat lower interview ratings, so it's worth knowing which worry is yours.

  1. Communication

    You know the answer, but it won't come out clearly.

    What helpsSay your main answers out loud beforehand, until the first sentence of each comes easily.

  2. Performance

    You keep thinking about doing badly, or about the other candidates.

    What helpsPrepare three or four stories you can adapt to most questions, so no answer starts from zero.

  3. Physical

    Shaky hands, a racing heart or a dry mouth. McCarthy and Goffin call this one behavioral.

    What helpsSlow breathing before you go in, and water within reach.

  4. Appearance

    You worry about your clothes, your hair or how you look on camera.

    What helpsChoose your outfit the night before and try it on once, then leave it alone.

  5. Social

    You worry they'll find you awkward or won't like you.

    What helpsPlan how you'll say hello and one question to ask them, then put your attention on their questions.

What interviewers notice

In a study of filmed mock interviews, interviewers mostly missed nervous tics like shaky hands and nervous laughter. The one they read correctly was slower speech. Scores dropped when nerves made candidates come across as less warm and less assertive. So greet them like you mean it, know your first sentences, and say what you did with an “I” and a verb.

The night before

  1. 1

    Say your stories out loud

    Pick the three or four stories you'll lean on and say each one out loud, start to finish. Reading them silently won't show you where you stumble.

  2. 2

    Settle the logistics

    Know the address, the route and when you'll leave, or test the video link, camera and mic. Lay out what you'll wear.

  3. 3

    Pick a time to stop

    Set a cutoff for prep, then do something unrelated until bed.

The hour before

Plan to arrive 10 to 15 minutes early, or join a call five minutes early, and use the spare minutes for these.

  1. 1

    Warm up your voice

    Say your answer to “Tell me about yourself” out loud once, in the car, the hallway or your kitchen.

  2. 2

    Breathe slowly

    Take slow, deep breaths from your belly for a minute or two. The NIH's integrative health center lists slow, deep breathing as a relaxation technique, the kind meant to bring on the body's “relaxation response.”

  3. 3

    Call it excitement

    Say “I'm excited” out loud. In a 2014 set of Harvard studies with singing, public speaking and math tasks, people who did this felt more excited and performed better than people who tried to calm down.

General information, not medical advice. If anxiety keeps you from interviewing, or it doesn't ease, talk to a doctor or a licensed counselor.

In the room, or on the call

  1. 1

    Pause before you answer

    You're allowed a few seconds to think. “Good question, let me think about that” gives you time without sounding stuck.

  2. 2

    Sip water between answers

    It helps with a dry mouth and gives you a natural pause.

  3. 3

    On a call, keep notes nearby

    A few bullet points where you can see them, out of the camera's view, are fine. Glance at them between answers.

How to sound confident

You won't always feel confident in an interview, but you can practice how your answers sound. Studies of voice and wording point to four habits.

  1. Keep your usual pace

    In the study of filmed mock interviews above, slower speech was the one nervous habit interviewers read correctly. Prepare the first sentence of each main answer so you start at your normal speed.

  2. End sentences on a statement

    Let your voice drop at the end of a sentence instead of rising like a question. In three persuasion experiments, listeners heard speakers whose sentences fell at the end as more confident than speakers whose sentences rose.

  3. Say your results without hedges

    “I guess it helped” and “it probably saved time” make a result you caused sound unsure. In a study comparing four ways of speaking, hedging drew the lowest ratings of the speaker.

    Say“It cut the wait from two days to one.”

  4. Let your voice move

    Recruiters who heard a candidate's pitch rated the candidate as more competent and thoughtful than recruiters who read the same words. The researchers point to pitch variation. In related experiments, actors told to read with little feeling spoke in a flatter voice and seemed less thoughtful.

What the scorecard shows. Every scorecard has an unscored panel called “How you came across.” It counts hedges like “I guess” and “probably,” flags an answer that was much slower, faster or flatter in pitch than your other answers, and quotes up to three of your own lines that may have helped or hurt. It compares you only with your own answers, and it doesn't score confidence.

Rambling and filler words, and what to do about them →

What to say if your mind goes blank

Keep one of these ready. Each one gives you a few seconds to recover.

  1. You didn't catch the question

    Say“Could you repeat the question? I want to be sure I answer what you're asking.”

  2. You need a moment

    Say“Let me take a second to pick the best example.”

  3. No example comes to mind

    Say“I don't have a perfect example of that, so let me walk you through how I'd handle it.”

  4. You lost your place

    Say“Let me bring that back to your question. The short version is this.”

  5. You started badly

    Say“Let me start that answer again.”

Why practicing out loud helps

Two of the five worries, communication and performance, are about not knowing whether the words will come or whether the answer will be good enough. Saying your answers out loud before the day settles both.

McCarthy and Goffin suggested training that pairs calming techniques with practice on what you'll say. In one small study (31 UK medical students, no comparison group), anxiety scores were lower on three of the five measures after a day-long course that included a mock interview.

Say your answers out loud first

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