Introduction
Interviews are a stage in our career that provide us with the opportunity to advance and make our career successful. However, many candidates either hesitate or become overconfident during interviews, which prevents them from performing effectively and can create a negative impression on the recruiter, reducing their chances of getting hired. If you want to pass your interview, the most important thing is to stay grounded during long interviews.
Today, in this article, we are going to discuss how we can remain grounded during long interviews.
How to Stay Grounded During Long Interviews?
1. Preparation Is Key to Stay Grounded
The first and most important way to stay grounded in an interview is preparation. Preparation is essential for performing any task effectively and achieving good results.
When we prepare ourselves well before an interview—especially for interview questions—we can easily stay grounded. Proper preparation helps us answer all the questions confidently and increases our chances of clearing the interview.
There are a few things you can do as part of your interview preparation. Research the company and the role deeply, practice common interview questions, understand every detail of your resume, and prepare examples or stories from your past experiences.
If you want to practice common interview questions before your interview, you can visit our other blog, which will help you prepare for all the commonly asked interview questions.
2. Managing Body Language Under Long interviews
Another important tip is that if you want to end your interview strongly and effectively, you must maintain positive body language till the very end.
You should not do this: in the beginning you are very energetic, answering effectively, actively listening to the recruiter, and then slowly your motivation goes down. By the end of the interview, you become very quiet, do not answer properly, and start feeling bored.
If you do this, it creates a negative impression on the recruiter and reduces your chances of getting hired, no matter how well you performed at the beginning of the interview. The ending of an interview matters a lot.
3. Mindfulness and Breathing Techniques
Another effective way to stay grounded in long interviews is using mental techniques to stay calm. No matter how challenging the situation is—whether in an interview or in life—if we remain calm and handle the situation thoughtfully, we can manage it more easily.
If you panic and fail to stay calm, you may answer without thinking. This can lead to irrelevant or completely off-topic responses. In moments of confusion, it becomes difficult to understand what to say and what not to say, and because of panic, we often speak in a hurry.
There are several mental techniques that can help you stay calm during a high-pressure interview, such as deep breathing, positive self-talk, visualization, and focusing on the present moment. All these techniques help you stay calm, think clearly, and take well-considered actions in any situation.
4. Time Management During the Interview
Managing your time effectively during a long interview is crucial to staying composed and delivering strong answers. Rather than trying to tackle everything at once, break complex questions into manageable parts—start with the context, then describe your actions, and finish with the results. Speak clearly and steadily, taking brief pauses to collect your thoughts; this not only prevents rushing but also demonstrates confidence.
Focus on one question at a time instead of worrying about how much time is left or what comes next, treating each question as its own mini-interview. Using transitional phrases like “That’s a great point; here’s how I approached it…” can help maintain the flow and give your mind a subtle pause while keeping the conversation coherent.
5. Emotional Control to Stay Grounded
Even if a candidate is well prepared, there are times during an interview when they may not know how to answer a question or what exactly to say. As a result, they may become silent or feel awkward.
Many times, situations arise where a candidate forgets an answer, gives an incomplete response, or faces critical questions for which they did not prepare. However, in such moments, there is no need to panic. You just need to remember one thing: one imperfect moment does not define the entire interview. Manage your emotions, recover quickly, and continue answering with confidence.
6. Communication Skills That Signal Composure
One of the most effective ways to stay grounded during long interviews is to communicate clearly and calmly. Speak slowly, understand the questions properly, focus more on listening than speaking, and present your answers effectively.
You can structure and present your answers clearly by using the STAR method.
- S – Situation
- T – Task
- A – Action
- R – Result
You can give structured answers to interview questions with the use of the STAR method.
Basically, STAR means Situation, Task, Action, and Result.
In a Situation, you have to explain the context or problem, the Task means what is your role or responsibility. The third one is Action, which means what steps you took to solve the problem, and the last one is Result, in which you have to share the outcome or learning.
This method makes your answers concise, clear, and impactful, and the interviewer can easily understand how you will perform in real situations.
If you want to practice and examples of interviews, then platforms like Best Job Tool provide you with tips and guides for mock interviews, which helps to improve soft skills and communication.
Conclusion
An interview is not something extremely difficult; it is simply a part of your successful career, and you can clear it easily if you stay grounded by following the tips shared in this article.
Many candidates attend interviews without proper preparation, which leads to several difficulties. However, if you carefully follow the tips mentioned in this article, you will be able to perform well in your interview.
You just need to remember one thing: stay calm no matter what the situation is, present yourself professionally, and do not let small mistakes demotivate you.
