How to calm nerves before an interview: what actually works

Don't try to calm down. Say your answers out loud in the days before, slow your breathing in the hour before, and tell yourself "I'm excited" right before you walk in. Then keep one line ready for when your mind goes blank.

Almost everyone gives the opposite advice. In a 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Harvard's Alison Wood Brooks asked 300 adults what to do before a nerve-racking speech. About 91% said "try to relax and calm down."

Then she tested it. Students got two minutes to prepare a filmed speech on "why you are a good work partner" (pretty much an interview answer). Right before speaking, half said "I am calm" and half said "I am excited." Raters who didn't know who'd said what scored the "excited" group as more persuasive, more confident and more competent. They also kept talking longer, about 167 seconds against 132.

Their nerves didn't go away. They went somewhere useful.

Does being nervous actually hurt your interview?#

Less than you'd think. Deborah Powell and colleagues at the University of Guelph ran a 2018 meta-analysis (a study that pools many studies). They found a correlation of about negative .19 between interview anxiety and interview scores. Real, but small.

Interviewers also notice less than you fear. In Feiler and Powell's 2016 study, 18 professional interviewers rated 119 filmed mock interviews. Shaky hands and fidgeting barely registered. Anxious candidates lost points for seeming less warm and less assertive, and for speaking more slowly. So stop worrying about your hands. Focus on sounding friendly and sure of what you're saying.

The week before: practice out loud, not in your head#

Running answers silently feels like practice. It isn't. The first time you say "tell me about a time you failed" out loud, it comes out messy. Let that happen in your kitchen, not in front of a hiring manager on Thursday at 10am.

The strongest evidence comes from clinical research. In a 2021 trial in Behaviour Research and Therapy, people with social anxiety disorder practiced virtual job interview scenes on their own. Their interview anxiety fell more than a waitlist group's did, and the drop held six months later. Fear shrinks fastest when you do the scary thing again and again, while little is riding on it.

Pick five questions you're almost sure to get. Our mock interview questions are a good place to find them. Answer each one out loud, record it, listen back once, then go again. By round three, your openings stop wobbling.

Want to look around first? See how UnchartedCareer works.

An AI voice isn't a human panel. Still, it's the closest you'll get to that first-question jolt on a Tuesday night at home.

A plan for each stage#

What to do 5 minutes before an interview#

Breathe slowly, and make each breath out longer than the breath in. In a 2023 Stanford study in Cell Reports Medicine, Melis Yilmaz Balban and colleagues tested a breathing drill. People did five minutes a day of "cyclic sighing." That's a double breath in through the nose, then a long, slow breath out through the mouth. Over 28 days, it lifted mood and slowed resting breathing more than mindfulness meditation did.

That was a daily habit, so two minutes in the parking lot won't match it. It's still the best use of them.

Then say "I'm excited." Out loud in the car, under your breath in the waiting room. It feels silly. Say it anyway.

Put your notes away. Rereading them in the lobby tells your brain the test is still going. Short on time? Our interview-tomorrow checklist shows what's worth doing tonight.

What to say when your mind goes blank#

It happens to well-prepared people too. Memorize one of these now:

• "That's a good one. Give me a second to pick the right example."
• "Do you mean the project itself or how I worked with the team?"
• "I want to give you a real example, not a generic one. Can I come back to this at the end?"

Then really pause. Three or four seconds of quiet feels like a minute to you. To the interviewer, it looks like thinking. If nothing comes, use the third line and move on. Interviewers rarely remember the blank. They remember whether you came back to it.

How to stop post-interview anxiety#

Give the replay a job. Within an hour, write down every question you got and the one answer you'd change. Then pick a follow-up date. If they said "you'll hear by Friday," put "email the recruiter" in your calendar for next Tuesday and close the tab.

When it's more than nerves#

If anxiety stops you from applying at all, or brings on panic attacks around interviews, talk to a doctor or a licensed therapist. Cognitive behavioural therapy (a short, structured talking therapy) has a good track record with this kind of anxiety. Practice helps everyday interview nerves. It isn't treatment.

FAQ#

Is it normal to be nervous before an interview?#

Yes. In Brooks's 2014 speech study, people rated their anxiety above 5 out of 7 before speaking.

Should I tell the interviewer I'm nervous?#

One light mention is fine, like "I'm excited about this one, so stop me if I talk too fast." Don't keep apologizing.

Does interview anxiety mean I'd be bad at the job?#

No. A 2019 follow-up found interview anxiety had almost nothing to do with how well people later did the job.

Tonight, pick the question you're dreading most. Answer it out loud three times and record each try on your phone.