By the time a candidate reaches the Personal Interview (PI) stage, he would have crossed the entrance examination and the group discussion rounds. The PI is the last hurdle that the candidate needs to clear, and more often, proves to be the step where he stumbles. The reason for this is that a face to face personal interview brings those qualities and skills of a candidate on which he seldom pays attention. These skills such as positive attitude, body language, gestures, verbal fluency, quality of articulation of thoughts all come into the picture and are observed closely. But the one attribute that really shapes the interview and with it his career is confidence.
Confidence is the key to success
In any field, confidence is a pre-requisite to success . All the successful people exude confidence, which comes from having worked hard and achieved things on their own. In the PI, confidence is everything. The panel observes the candidate minutely and looks for flaws and shortcomings to pin him down. Only a confident person is able to handle the gruelling questions with elan and comes out with flying colours.
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No confidence leads to self-doubt
In PI, as in life, the biggest cause for failures is self-doubt. A person who constantly doubts himself can never hope to succeed in life. Being critical of oneself leads to improvement but doubting one’s skills and capabilities only gives rise to low self-esteem. Candidates who have no confidence in themselves are saddled with self-doubt which affects their interview, as they are unable to project their true personalities.
No confidence leads to fear
Lack of confidence also creates fear in the candidates. The candidates allow negative thoughts to enter their minds and get burdened by expectations. Instead of consolidating their knowledge and preparing for the interview, they waste time in thinking of things that can go wrong and are troubled by the question ‘What if they fail?’ more than thinking of success. The panel is quick to identify this weakness in candidates, which hampers their chances.
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Over confidence leads to casual attitude
On the other end of the spectrum is over confidence, which also ruins the candidate’s chance in the PI. The foremost danger associated with over confidence is casual attitude. Over confident people are usually casual in their approach, believe that they can handle any situation and are better than everybody else. Over confident people are often at risk of slipping up on basic things due to their casual approach and then are forced to eat a humble pie in the interview.
Over confidence leads to misjudgement
Over confident people often misjudge their value, opinions and abilities. They have more confidence than required in a given situation. Such people end up irking the panel with their pompous nature, and their belief that they are superior to everyone else.
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Advice for candidates
All aspirants must inculcate confidence in themselves. This confidence will partly arise from your preparation level and also from your self-belief. In PI, how you conduct yourself, how you speak and your mannerisms are as important as what you speak. A confident person will be in complete control of himself and will say the right things in the right measure. To build confidence, it is imperative that you feel good about yourself, take pride in your achievements, know your strengths and weaknesses, feel optimistic, set small and realistic targets for yourself, and achieve them, keep learning new things and be humble. Doing all this over a period of time will give you confidence and an edge in the interview.
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