How do I improve self confidence?

Hi there,

What you are going through is completely normal and many people struggle with the same thing. I went through it too. I encourage you to do three things:

• Emulate: watch interviews of people you admire and see how they behave and answer questions. Try to understand their tone of voice, how they construct sentences, what to do when they are stuck. My personal favorites are David Rubenstein, Dominic Barton, Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein. Recently Harvey Schwartz, CEO of Carlyle, did a great podcast with Bloomberg on his struggles when he was starting out. Also, check the CEOs of the companies you are applying to
• Practice: it makes all the difference as you will be less likely to be in a position in which you make errors. Michael Bloomberg once said "the more prepared you are, the less luck you need"
• Think about scenarios: have a few messages in mind of what to do in case you get stuck, how would you handle it etc. Often times you will get questions that the interviewer knows that you will not be able to answer in order to see how you react as this will happen with clients too

Happy to have a chat in case it can be helpful for you, I understand how frustrating it can be.

Hi there,

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your situation:

• First of all, I would advise you to practice making small mistakes on purpose in your practice and then calmly correcting them. This will help you build resilience and reduce the emotional reaction when it happens in real interviews.
• Moreover, I would advise you to work on short mental resets after a mistake (e.g., a deep breath, brief pause, or quick note to refocus). This helps stop the spiral and gets you back on track fast.

You can find more on this topic here: How to succeed in the final interview round.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Hey - these feelings are normal and many people experience this.

There's no simple answer for how to build confidence when doing case studies - it's different for everyone. 

For me, it was about just practicing until cases became second nature. I.e., I'd made plenty of mistakes across my practice, and I got used to just resuming my case after a mistake without dwelling on it.

Let me know if you want to chat - this is something that applies not just to interview prep but to the job as well.

There are lots of explanations for what you describe, all of which are difficult to unpack in a Q&A answer.

But what I've noticed empirically, especially with high-potential candidates, is that they tend to set a very high bar for themselves, something akin to perfection, and the moment something goes wrong in a case, they lose their focus and everything goes downhill.

What helps then is a mindset change - accepting that you will be making mistakes and that no case performance is perfect. And that this is a certainty and is absolutely fine, and that despite the mistakes that all candidates make, some of them get offers. 

But, as mentioned above, this is a more general diagnostic. I would need to see how that happens to you specifically to recommend how to adjust it. 

Best,
Cristian

Hello there,

I have just wrote an article exactly about that (how to improve confidence in Math), still to be published here. Happy to share the document with you, please DM me for the file, I cover several ways one can solve this issue.

Other than that, if this was a one time feedback during a mock session, it may be that it is not enough to label yourself as someone who as a problem with math per se, so take it with a grain of salt. If you would like a professional coach to evaluate your skills in this area and, if this is really an issue, to create a personalized plan to cover this gap, happy to help you with that!

Best regards,

Mari

Hi, it's great you are getting positive feedback. Ultimately this is a mental / psychological matter, and everyone has a different way of dealing with it.

I think the key theme is to build resilience - and this could be done in various ways but engaging in activities that push you and force you to fail (e.g. competitive sports) might help, although those are longer term processes.

For a short term perspective, consider a few breathing or focusing techniques to try and have a reset on the spot.

Hey there :)

Yes, you're not alone—lots of strong candidates struggle with confidence dips after small mistakes. I’ve seen this too, and what helped me a lot was watching TED talks on this exact topic (like Amy Cuddy’s on body language). They shift your mindset from needing to be perfect to just showing up calm and resilient. Also, try running drills where you intentionally make a mistake, pause, reset, and continue—training your brain to stay steady.

You clearly have the potential, so it’s just about managing those moments.

Here if you want to practice together anytime!

best,
Alessa :)