Imagine: You’re getting a phone call from an employer, for that one job you actually feel excited about.
You know, the one that took all that extra attention to apply…
The one where you hovered over your cover email at least a dozen times, carefully picking your words and crafting your sentences, even double checking the recipient’s name letter by letter, multiple times, to makes sure you don’t misspell it…
That’s the job I’m talking about. You get the call from that company.
Of course, your body instantly fills with excitement, and your heart starts to jump a little.
This is a great job. It could change your life. And it could really be happening!
But then, you remember a crucial little detail that sucks all that excitement out of you: This is a competitive job. You have no idea if you’ll get it. You’re even a little surprised that they called you…
You realise: You have to ace this interview!
For many people, the thought of an important interview is enough to send them down the debilitating, nerve-wracking, paralysing terror mode. And the more they try to suppress it, the more it manifests in their communication – seriously sabotaging their chances of getting the job.
(Sidenote – it doesn’t matter if you consciously feel this panic. What matters is that your physiology feels it. It always does. That’s it’s job.)
As you answer the phone, you think:
“What if I sound desperate?”
“Can I really do this job? Do they know that this job is a step up for me? What will they think when they find out?”
“How many other people are they interviewing? What does it REALLY pay?”
These, and many similar worries, as well as all sorts of negative emotions flood into your body in an instant. And you, slowly, beneath your awareness, start to manifest these worries in your body language. This, of course, reflects in your voice tone.
You answer the call with a whimper of a “hello”, half-choking on a single word. You “recover” with a polite but skittish “how is your day going?” hoping that they can do more of the talking and give you a chance to breathe…
It’s just getting started!
As the conversation pick up, whoever’s on the other side of the phone, can hear the micro-quivers and pitch fluctuations in your voice. As their brain processes your voice, they also start feeling your emotions, reflected in their own physiology. They start becoming uncomfortable, and they don’t even know why.
Despite the fact that – technically speaking – you have all the right answers, the way you’ve been answering them is all wrong! And they already know, once the call is over, they will be glad it is.
This is because, purely from your voice tone, they already formed a negative mental image about you. A sense of “buyer’s remorse” sets in, they are regretting they called you. All the other candidates suddenly look better.
After some brief niceties, they find an excuse to get off the phone. And they quickly type the following few words as notes to your candidate profile “Failed. Don’t reach out again!”.
This is not a good situation. We don’t ever want to be in this situation.
We don’t even want the possibility of such a situation…
That’s why, today, we are going to reveal the top 7 cognitive shifts that will not only make you immune to stress and worry on phone interviews, but will also make sure you exude confidence and trigger the right emotions in those that you talk with.
The right emotions can best be described as, “an excitement to hire you”. Here’s how you get there.
Cognitive Shift #1 – My Stress is Eustress, Not Distress
As far as the body is concerned, the sensation of “dis”-stress (bad stress, like “dis”-ease) and the sensation of “eu”-stress (good stress, like “eu”-phoria) are identical.
What matters is how you interpret it. Or more accurately, how you have conditioned your mind to interpret it.
While most people have had zero training on channelling stress into eustress, what’s worse is that, they have also been taught to interpret all stress as distress. We are told that emotional discomfort of any kind is bad.
Luckily, there is an easy “trick” to directing all stress energy into a positive flow.
The key is to control your focus. Don’t pay attention to negative outcomes to the degree that it overwhelms you. Sure, negative outcomes are real and preparation is useful. We don’t want you to stick your head in the sand.
But we do want you to realise that, just like negative possibilities, there are also positive possibilities.
Instead of being overwhelmed by the negative ones, just acknowledge them as real, but focus on the positive outcomes. That’s the direction you want to head.
In fact, during interviews, it is best to be stunningly optimistic in the moment – not because it’s an accurate prediction of the future, but because it is an appropriate hack for converting distress to eustress in that moment.
If you think about getting humiliated and rejected in your phone interview, you will subconsciously drive the conversation there.
If instead, you think about them giving you the job right there on the spot, however, you will drive the conversation, and more importantly, your emotions in the positive direction.
Remember: On phone interviews, keep your focus on positive outcomes. Imagine them. Daydream them. Lead yourself to them.
Cognitive Shift #2 – They Want To Hire You
This is simple…
Unless you are being interviewed as a formality due to some obtuse legal requirement – like HR needing to show that they interviewed a bunch of people before hiring their nephew, and you play the predetermined part of the rejected candidate – all interviews, including phone interviews, happen because the employer WANTS to hire you.
After all, they wouldn’t waste a single second on you if they didn’t want you (or need you).
You have value, and they see it. That’s why they are talking to you. Always remember that!
Cognitive Shift #3 – Listen First
While we do teach our students techniques for guiding and controlling professional conversations toward the outcomes they want, such tactics are only possible if you learn how to listen first.
Remember: in order to find out exactly what you need to say in order to get the job, you first need to listen to the people you are talking with and understand what it is they need to hear.
You need to learn what we call “engaged listening” – which is a step up from active listening.
I can’t teach you how to do it here. But I can give you the gist of it: take responsibility for not just understanding what they say, but also understanding what they mean and why they are saying what they are saying. Approach them with empathy, put yourself in their shoes, and try to feel what they feel.
Engaged listening is somewhat like listening to a sibling or a close friend – the boundaries between the two individuals get blurry at times.
This has the benefit of helping you build rapport. But more importantly, it gets you to listen for real.
Cognitive Shift #4 – You Are a Professional, Not a Hireling
The field of human resources has been invented to manage hirelings…
Generally speaking, a hireling is only concerned with what is in it for them. As a result, a hireling needs to be controlled and bound by contracts so that corporations can squeeze every little drop of value from them.
A professional, however, is someone who is interested in win-win interactions. It’s not all about me. It’s all about us.
Professionals are instantly recognised. It is natural to trust them. And they are wanted – desperately – by high-value corporations and entrepreneurs.
Embrace the attitude of a professional. (And no, the professional attitude is NOT the attitude of a sucker, and every professional’s bank account is proof of this.)
By the way, you can’t fake this. This is one area, where there is no shortcut. It has to be authentic. If you’re not quite the professional at this point in time, you must learn to become one.
Cognitive Shift #5 – Rapport Guides Them Into Hiring You
A job interview is an emotional – even intimate – process.
While most employees treat an interview like answering a survey or filling an online form, high-value professionals recognise that interviewing is not a passive process, but an active process.
Before they can say “yes” to hiring you, and give you every single cent allotted for the role (and perhaps even more), they need to feel comfortable with you. They need to trust you. They need to accept that you are a “good fit”.
Rapport is an important part of the process we call “getting their brain on your side”.
Remember this: you are not only there to answer their questions with the right answers, but you’re also there to demonstrate that you belong to the same groups they do (i.e. rapport = belonging = hire). And you actually have the basic tools to do so.
Even if you don’t know any of the rapport building techniques in our materials, you can simply start by being genuinely friendly.
Cognitive Shift #6 – Your Excitement is Contagious
Human beings have the ability to choose how they interpret their emotions. But they have no control over having the emotion in the first place.
This is what advertisers use with their moody music and images – they force the emotion on the audience, and try to channel it into a line of thinking that increases the likelihood that you’ll purchase their product. (Just watch a Coca Cola commercial and see how they embed “happiness” through imagery and music).
The same thing is going on in every professional conversation, but at a more subtle and hidden level.
Due to our mirror neurons, when we interact with people, we absorb their emotional state. This is why, if you worry and get nervous on a phone interview, it has a negative impact on the person interviewing you.
But the opposite is also true: If you’re happy, excited, optimistic… If your voice resonates with joy and possibility – they have NO choice but to experience these feelings as well!
Focus on the outcome you want. FEEL the outcome you want. Get EXCITED about the outcome you want.
They will too.
Cognitive Shift #7 – You Can Take It Or Leave It
Regardless of how much you want a particular job… Regardless of how great a fit it is and how excited you feel about it… You must be able to walk away from it.
This has so many benefits including increasing your perceived value, and eliminating all negative emotions. It also turns you into the “buyer” rather than the “seller”.
More importantly, all the techniques I’ve listed above become supercharged when you are able to walk away.
Of course, your ability to walk away must be authentic. You cannot lie to yourself. Even if you lie to an employer and pretend to play it like you could walk away; your subconscious impressions and your voice tone will give it away.
There is no other way to do this: If you want to be able to walk away from any given interview and have power in the interaction – you need to transition from scarcity into abundance in your career.
And you can only do that when you stop “hunting” for jobs and start attracting jobs.
There is a method and a step-by-step formula for doing this. And you can turn the tables with the corporate world, once you learn our principles and follow the formula. It’s not rocket science.
Of course, if you have a phone interview coming up in a few minutes – this is not the time to learn any of this. Instead: Relax. Focus. You got this!
We sincerely hope you get the job and it turns out to be even better than your expectations!
And if you for some reason don’t get the job, or decide it’s not the right one for you, at least now, you’ve found us – You can come back here anytime you want, and make sure your next job is actually amazing!
Good luck…