How to Feel Less Interview Nerves and More Ready for your next Job Interview
- Heather Thompson
- May 8
- 5 min read
If you have a job interview coming up and you feel nervous, rusty or unsure how to prepare, you’re not alone.
Interview nerves are very common, even for experienced professionals. I see this all the time in my work as a career coach. People often come to me saying things like:
“I know I can do the job, but I freeze in interviews.”
“I haven’t interviewed in years.”
“I ramble when I’m nervous.”
“I don’t know how to sell myself.”
“My mind goes blank and I panic.”
A successful job interview is when you are able to communicate your experience clearly, calmly and confidently under pressure. And for many people, that doesn’t happen automatically.
Why interview preparation matters
A lot of people under-prepare for interviews because they assume they can “just talk through” their experience. That's risky.
In an interview, you’re being asked to think quickly, remember relevant examples, manage your nerves, read the room and explain why you’re a strong fit for the role. That’s a lot to do at once.
Good interview preparation helps you reduce that pressure before you ever sit in front of the panel by helping you:
Understand what the employer is really looking for
Match your skills and experience to the role
Prepare strong examples in advance
Practise answering common interview questions
Manage interview nerves
Speak about yourself with more confidence
Avoid vague or generic answers
This is especially important if you’re returning to work, changing career, going for promotion or interviewing again after a long break.
How to Feel more Prepared for Your Next Job Interview
Generic interview advice can be useful, but it only goes so far.
Most people already know they should research the company, prepare examples and use the STAR method. The problem is not usually a lack of information. The problem is knowing how to apply that advice to your interview, your career history and your confidence level.
Having trained over 1,000 people in interview skills, I’ve seen that interview confidence is built across three layers: calm, confident and capable.
You need to feel calm enough to manage nerves and think clearly.
You need to feel confident enough to recognise your own value
And you need to feel capable enough to structure your answers, prepare strong examples and communicate clearly under pressure.
That’s the kind of preparation that helps you walk into an interview feeling ready to show the best of yourself.
1. Calm: Managing interview nerves
Interview nerves don’t mean you’re bad at interviews. They mean your body is responding to pressure. That pressure makes sense. Interviews usually involve:
Evaluation: “I’m being judged.”
Uncertainty: “I don’t know what they’ll ask.”
Stakes: “This job matters to me.”
When those three things are present, your nervous system can go into overdrive.
That’s when you might notice:
Racing thoughts
Dry mouth
Shaky voice
Poor sleep the night before
Forgetting examples you know you have
Rushing your answers
Over-explaining
A useful part of interview preparation is learning how to settle yourself before and during the interview.
One simple technique is breathwork. Your breath is free, and you bring it everywhere with you! You can do a more detailed breathwork sequence like box breathing to help you calm down before an interview:
Breathe in for 4
Hold for 4
Breathe out for 4
Hold for 4
Repeat that a few times before the interview. You can do it in the car, on the bus, in the bathroom or while waiting to be called in. It won’t remove every bit of nervousness, but that’s not the point: you just want to calm your body enough so your brain can do its job.
2. Confident: Stop speaking in vague claims
One of the biggest mistakes people make in interviews is speaking too generally.
They say things like:
“I’m a hard worker.”
“I work well under pressure.”
“I’m a great communicator.”
None of these are bad things to say, but on their own, they don’t give the interviewer much to work with.
If you make a claim about yourself, your skills or your experience, you need to back it up with an example.
For example, instead of saying: “I’m good with people.”
You might say: “I'm good with people. In my previous role, I regularly dealt with around 200 customers a day. I received multiple top scores from mystery shopper reports, and customers often mentioned me by name in Google reviews for being helpful and friendly.
That answer is stronger because it gives the interviewer concrete proof of the claim you are making about yourself.
In an interview, a claim without an example is just an empty statement. An example gives the interviewer evidence that you are who you say you are.
This also has a knock-on effect on your confidence. When you take the time to identify real examples from your own experience, you’re not just preparing answers. You’re reminding yourself of what you are capable of.
Clichéd language is the trap many capable people fall into when interviewing. If you’ve ever felt disappointed that you didn’t get a job you felt well qualified for on paper, it may be because you hadn’t yet translated your experience into clear examples an employer could understand.
3. Capable: Structuring your answers
Once you have good examples, the next step is learning how to structure them clearly.
A strong interview answer needs shape. Without structure, it’s easy to ramble, lose your point or give an answer that sounds too general.
This is where the STAR method can help.
STAR stands for:
Situation: What was happening?
Task: What were you responsible for?
Action: What did you do?
Result: What changed because of your action?
For example, if you’re asked:
“Tell me about a time you handled a difficult customer.”
A weak answer might be:
“I’m good with difficult customers. I try to stay calm and listen to them.”
It's weak because it’s vague.
A stronger answer would use a real example and structure it using STAR:
Situation: “In my previous role, I dealt with a customer who was upset because their order had been delayed.”
Task: “My task was to find out what had happened, explain the situation clearly and try to resolve it without making the customer feel dismissed.”
Action: “I listened first, checked the order details, gave them a realistic update and offered the next available solution.”
Result: “The customer calmed down and thanked me for taking the time to explain it properly.”
That answer is far more convincing because it gives evidence. STAR helps you organise that evidence so the interviewer can follow it.
It also gives you something to lean on under pressure. Instead of trying to invent an answer from scratch in the interview, you have a clear structure to guide your thinking.
Good interview preparation combines both: strong examples and clear structure. The examples give you the evidence. The structure helps you communicate that evidence clearly when it matters.
Interview preparation is not about being perfect
A strong interview is not a perfect performance. You might still feel nervous. You might pause. You might need a moment to think. You might not answer every question exactly as you planned. That’s normal.
Good preparation gives you something to come back to. It helps you stay grounded, communicate clearly and recover if a question throws you.
That’s the real goal: not perfection, but calmness, confidence and clarity.
Looking for 1-1 interview preparation coaching in Ireland?
If you have an interview coming up and would like practical, tailored support, I offer 1-1 interview preparation coaching in Ireland.
We’ll work together to help you prepare properly, manage your nerves and communicate your experience in a way that feels clear, natural and credible.
Whether you’re returning to work, changing career, applying for promotion or simply want to feel more prepared, interview coaching can help you walk into the room feeling calmer, more confident and more capable.
Book a free 30-minute Clarity Call and we can talk through what you’re preparing for and what kind of support would be most useful.
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