How to regain and boost confidence before interview?

Hi there,

First of all, it sounds like you need to take a break. Take a full weekend (or longer) off. Go somewhere (in nature or doing something you love that relaxes you).

If you've had a long preparation journey, a few days is not going to make or break your prep. Rather, getting yourself into a healthy, positive place will pay immense dividends.

Here's some other mindset shifts for you:

1. Be comfortable with the unknown. Recognize that not knowing things is part of casing and part of being a consultant! The point is that we identify what we don't know and ask questions to figure it out
2. The is the most important moment in your life…until the next one. How many intense situations have you had in your life? Lots. How many affect you to this day? None.
3. Worst case scenario - you bomb and find another job…it's not a big deal
4. The person in front of you is…another person. They will eventually be a boss/mentor that you work closely with and connect with. They're not the boogeyman!

Here are a few other potentially helpful Q&As for you:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-to-regain-from-burnout-and-regain-confidence-11858

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/improving-confidence-11121

Your loss of confidence is probably a mix of 1) feeling down because of lack of rest (i.e. being a bit more depressed, and therefore less confident) and 2)  your performance realistically becoming worse… because of lack of rest. 

In both cases the root cause and the solution is the same. Take a few days to relax and recover on your sleep. You need to make sure you are having enough rest everyday. 

You should at all cost avoid doing a lot of preparation when you are feeling tired and overwhelmed. Otherwise you will actually gain a lot of bad habits (e.g. “lazy” structuring or bad market sizing because you are exhausted and not putting in your best). 

When you train a bad habit, that bad habit becomes engrained. That's why you should never practice when you are tired. 

So take it easy now and make up for it later.

If you feel that you are not allowed to take time off - you can alternatively make a plan to gain “side skills", i.e., instead of practicing whole cases, you focus on reading about business / industries, read the financial newspaper, watch some useful videos (for a short period) or address specific weaknesses. Or even just focus on the FIT interview. Just don't do cases for 1-1.5 weeks (ideally, do nothing).

Hope this helps.

Hi there,

First of all, I am sorry to hear how you feel at the moment!

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

• In order to improve your mood/ mindset, I would advise you to take things slowly even if you feel you should do even more for your preparation. You are in a specific situation unlike most of the candidates who just finished university, and it is your chance to go through the process in your own pace.
• Moreover, I would advise you to take some spare time where you are neither busy with your current work nor your interview preparation.
• If you still feel overwhelmed, I would advise you to think about seeking professional help. It is something very common theses days whether you would consider yourself burned out/ depressed or not.

In case you want a more detailed discussion on how to work on your mindset/ mood for your upcoming interviews while working full-time, please feel free to contact me directly.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

Hi, have a look at this article for plenty of tips & guidance-https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/job-interview-stress

Hello!

I totally get you, it happened to me too! At a point it´s too much, and the stakes are too high, so the pressure eats you slowly!

I would recommend taking a break, already with 3-4 days it´s enough, and don´t do anything related to this. It will allow your brain to breath and function again

Hope it helps!

Cheers, 

Clara