Avoiding job interview jitters

While interview anxiety can strike even the most seasoned job hunter, there are ways to avoid the dreaded interview jitters. Gary Marsh, a partner with recruitment company Carrera, said interview anxiety was common among people of all ages and experience.

"The reasons candidates get so anxious is normally personality related,'' Mr Marsh said. "For example, if they are a worrying type or lack self-confidence they may worry too much about the upcoming interview.

"They may also have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they will find a role or the type of role they think is suitable to them. "So, if they're unsuccessful at an interview, they lose confidence for the next interview so you get a downward spiralling effect,'' he said.

The key to a successful interview is in the preparation. "Just like exams at school, the students who felt the most confident about exams were the ones who said they had prepared well,'' Mr Marsh said.

To combat the interview nerves, Mr Marsh said candidate's should research the company before the interview, prepare a list of "real life''' personal examples to use during the interview and prepare a list of possible questions to ask the interviewer.

Carrera senior consultant Michael Simonyi said a candidate's experience also played a part. "It can depend on the role the person is coming from; what sort of experience they have had,'' Mr Simonyi said. "If you've got an engineer or a customer-service person where they spend all day on the phone talking to the customers and don't have that face-to-face interaction, suddenly they're in a small room with one person and it's like they're under the spotlight.''

Mr Simonyi said practising interview techniques with a dictaphone, video recorder or colleague could help control the nerves. "The more clearly and confidently you can communicate, obviously the better impression you're going to make,'' Mr Simonyi said.

"So having that sort of nervousness or lack of eye contact and those sort of things has to detract. "It's probably one of the reasons why it often takes people a few interviews to get a job, because it's almost like they need to get a couple of practice runs under their belt.

"They need to be confident enough to be able to walk into an interview and nail it,'' he said.