On the twenty-sixth installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, offers some helpful advice on how to reduce your anxiety when it comes to interviewing. She talks about the importance of practicing and preparing for an interview beforehand and breaks down the differences between both processes. Check out the show notes to read her piece on Money about how to crush your next virtual job interview!

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TRANSCRIPT

Latesha: Hey, hey. Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. It is Saturday. I hope that it is sunny where you are and you are enjoying this warm weather. Please get out and enjoy the sun. Get you some Vitamin D. We spend 99.9% of our times up in the house, so I am planning to get out this weekend and buy some new plants, and you know what? I'm going to figure out a way to actually make grocery shopping exciting, okay? I don't know what that's going to be yet, so if you have any ideas let me know, let me know. I want to have a moment of honesty, transparency, with you all. Yesterday I had a deep, ugly cry. Have y'all ever had just a really ugly cry that was necessary? I was feeling overwhelmed, and I made a to-do list--and I do that a lot. If I ever feel overwhelmed with everything in my head, 'cause sometimes a bunch of thoughts get all jumbled and conflicting in my brain and so I have to write it out in my journal or on my whiteboard, and I was overwhelmed because I had so much to do, and I said, "You know what? Make a list, girl. That's what you always do." So I made a list, and I was reading through my list, and then Closer came on my Pandora station, you know, the "Closer to my dreams," that song, and y'all, I just started crying. [laughs] I just started crying because I was looking at the things that I had to do, and it was so impactful and rewarding. The work that I do every day as a coach, as a career coach, as a business coach, you know, as someone that really speaks and focuses on career empowerment, the work that I do is so necessary and vital to so many people, and I just had to take a second to say, "You know what? I am so thankful that these are my worries," you know? Reaching out to a coaching client, writing an article that's due, you know? Pitching myself for, you know, a committee to give back to the community. Recording this podcast episode. Like, these were the types of things that I was worried about just getting done, and I just had a moment of relief, and I feel that I--it's surreal to me, it is. I never thought that, you know, at this young age I would be where I am in life when growing up our worries was about money, you know, and paying the bills, and making, you know--I don't know how much my mother made as a bus driver, but making that money stretch month to month, and I carried a lot of that emotional weight with me into my adulthood, and so I just had a realization yesterday that "You know what? You don't have that worry anymore, and what you're doing is important, and you need to keep going." I remember the little girl that thought "Man, adulthood sucks," you know? [laughs] And I love my mother. I'm thankful for how hard she worked to raise me, but I am just overwhelmed with gratitude, that I get to wake up and do the work that I love every single day. It is not something that I take for granted, ever, and, you know, I am inspired by all of you listening to this podcast and to the Living Corporate team for allowing me to be a voice here. So if you have not, during this quarantine, it's a great time to get still and to think about the things that you are proud of, you know? We all I'm sure have things that we still want to achieve and milestones that we want to hit, but just know that your journey is your journey, and if things don't make sense right now, I promise that you they will. The struggles, the failures, the heartaches, the nos, the decline emails with these job applications, just know that it is a part of your journey, your testimony, your story, and you're going to change lives one day--if you have not already. You may already be changing lives and don't even realize it. So thank you for letting me share that. Again, just this quarantine has allowed me to be more introspective and to really think about what is important to me, and this work that I do is extremely important and necessary. So with that being said--whoo, okay, y'all. I'm trying not to cry. [laughs] But what we're talking about today is interviewing, but not just interviewing. Interviewing with a twist. For my job seekers out there, for my job hunters out there, whatever you may call yourself. I'm noticing that a lot of us get anxiety, especially when it comes to interviewing. Interviewing... I'll be honest. It is painful, right? [laughs] I have had some terrible interviews in my day, no lie, but now I get to coach people all the time on how to have great and wonderful interviews. I want to be honest with you all though. I have seen some of the most talented, the most experienced people not get jobs, not because, you know, they don't meet the qualifications, but because their anxiety takes over and they kill the interview, and I don't mean kill in a good way, okay? So I want to give you all some advice on how to reduce your anxiety when it comes to interviewing. This is important because I know that this is something we all have struggled with before. Interviewing does get easier over time though. I guarantee you that. I want to promise you that. It will get easier over time. It's one of those things that takes preparation, a whole lot of preparation, and practice. I read an article online the other day that said we should be spending four hours preparing for an interview. I know that seems like a lot, y'all, but you gotta think of it like this is your one shot and that's it. There's a show that I binge, and I really enjoy it actually, and it was a show on Netflix with T.I. and Cardi B and Chance. You know, that show where D. Smoke--D. Smoke is a really dope rapper, and he won this competition. It was a rap competition. It's kind of like an American Idol, you know, but specifically for rappers, and so it was really funny watching the first couple of episodes. So if you've watched, like, American Idol, right, it's very similar to that. So I was definitely the type of person to watch American Idol, but I would just watch, like, the first couple of episodes each season just to see the terrible auditions, like, the people that thought they could really sing and they would open their voice and it would--it just sounded awful. Y'all know what I'm talking about. [laughs] This show was dope though 'cause there were some really talented artists, but when it came to them auditioning, they would get into that audition and they would fumble. I'm talking about forgetting lyrics, being off-beat, you know? Some people just were bad, okay? [laughs] Some people were just bad, but I do think that a lot of them were super talented, but they did not perform well because the nerves got to them. So this is what happens when we interview. You can be the most talented. You can be the most ambitious, you know, but if your nerves take over, that could ruin the interview. I do want to give you all some hope here though, because you might be thinking, "Man, I ain't even applying right now because nobody's hiring. And she's talking about an interview." Listen, people reach out to me all of the time on Twitter, on Instagram, even my clients, telling me about interviews that they've landed. Companies are still hiring. I want you all to know that. Do not give up on your job search right now. Don't give up. Companies are still hiring. Companies are still interviewing, and people are out here getting job offers. So if you are in the midst of your job hunt, please continue to keep going. You need to get to that interview, but you need to do two things: you have to practice... you have to practice, [and] you have to prepare. Two totally different things. So let's talk about the difference before I get into some of these tips on reducing anxiety. Preparing for the interview is reading through the job description, seeing what skills they're looking for, seeing what experience these companies are looking for, and making sure you have clear alignment between the work that you've done, the work that you're currently doing, with what they are looking for you to do in that specific role. You have to make sure that you are speaking to your most relevant and transferable experience. So if you are applying to a job in, let's say... hm, let's say you're applying to a job in consulting, and consulting is a lot of, you know, solutions, creating solutions, innovative solutions, being able to identify what your client's problems are, creating these solutions and also delivering these solutions in a way that makes sense to them. So if you have done some type of consulting work in the past, you want to make sure that you have stories you can speak to that specifically relate to how you have helped to solve your client's problem, okay? Does that make sense? You gotta have relevant examples. So, like, let's say that you have an example that is about creating