Job Interviews For Dummies®, 4th Edition

Chapter 10

Beat Stage Fright with the R-Word: Rehearse

In This Chapter

Staring down your jitters

Kicking stress with video rehearsal

Making body language walk your talk

You’re nervous. You have a mouthful of “ah” and “um” cotton. You’re a bundle of nerves, from shaking knees and clammy palms to racing pulse beats and tummy butterflies as you make your appearance on an interview stage.

What you have is a galloping case of stage fright. Sound familiar? As the late great American newscaster Walter Cronkite remarked, “It’s natural to have butterflies. The secret is to get them to fly in formation.”

Refocusing Attitude Can Calm Nerves

You’re not alone in your nervousness. Most people — including me — start out with a case of the shakes when interviewing or making a speech. When I began giving speeches, I could feel my throat drying up as panic fried my memory banks. I knew I had to go out and orate to promote my media careers column, but doing so was not my idea of fun.

Then one day things changed. I was in Florida addressing a group of career counselors when a teacher with whom I shared a podium watched me shake my way through my remarks. The teacher, herself an accomplished speaker, ...