Many people have been “out of the swing” of interviewing for many months, perhaps a year or more. “It’s been so long,” I hear. It sounds like someone who hasn’t had a date in months! After a while it seems like people shut down and become so discouraged, they no longer seek out opportunities and they become frightened of opening up about themselves to anyone. In this age of Internet and privacy paranoia, it is easy to isolate and no longer be in touch with what you once meant to say…if only you were given the chance.

It doesn’t help that we continually hear about the horror stories at interviews, the reneged offers, subterfuge and general mistreatment and disrespect of job search candidates. It’s a lot to ask of ourselves to put it all out there for a total stranger and not know how we will be received and if we will have a job offer we can live with. And that the economy needs to come back up and jobs need to be created again.

Warning: Your mental “service engine light” has come on. Take free interviewing workshops or free reviving-your-work-search seminars at your local library, community human service organization or One Stop Career Center run by the Labor Department www.servicelocator.org.  They have classes to jumpstart your energy and enthusiasm and cope with long term unemployment. Why bother? You want to be there for the openings when they occur. What the heck. There are no jobs? But there are some jobs! If you find yourself succumbing to the “why bother” thoughts, that’s when you know your batteries need a jumpstart. You will be interviewing somewhere, someday when you least expect it…

What to do? Get a tune-up immediately. Call interviews business conversations if it makes you less tense and intimidated. Quit anticipating the interview with a negative pall over it. (“I’ll never get this job! I never get any job. I don’t know what to say. They probably have someone already in mind.”) Remember, in the first place, that every business conversation is good practice and will make you stronger for each succeeding one. Sure it’s a means to an end but we advertise ourselves professionally and move on. That is the best we can do! We may not realize it, but we become stronger. If interviewing feels like a bloodletting, then let’s apply a tourniquet.

 Be prepared because you never know when the phone will ring or you will receive an email. Be prepared anyway because your professional best is who you are in this situation.

Phone Interviews. The best sales trainers will tell you to take the call dressed up for business even though you are home. They will tell you to stand up and SMILE during the call. It energizes you and puts you in the work world head. Have your resume in front of you to refer for dates and anecdotes on achievements. Tell them about yourself. What you’ve done, any awards or publications, briefly how you made the last company money, brought in customers, retained customers, turned around, started up, won Employee of The Month five times and today you are eager to get back into your field because the last company tanked or moved business to China. Sound like you are ready for a day’s work. Maybe they’ll call you back at some point for an in-person interview.

Mock interview Type One. Role-play and practice with friends, relatives, job coaches, career counselors, workshop facilitators, yourselves. Anybody. Take the virtual interview tests on career advice sites like www.monster.com. Google search suggested answers to difficult, involved questions.

Mock Interview Type Two.  (Bet you didn’t know there was two, didja?) Here’s a tactic for you: One individual I recently heard of either initiates or goes on any brief interview he can find for the most traditional service-industry jobs—fast food, gas stations, and retail shops—even though he knows they probably don’t have openings. He doesn’t do this just to get practice but for his own self esteem and to stay in the thick of things and be ready for a “real” interview. He walks in everywhere and anywhere and strikes up conversations during non-busy afternoon weekday hours. He’ll ask if they need help or are looking to hire. Do they anticipate hiring when school opens or for the holidays? How has business been? What is the one change they’ve noticed since the recession, he asks. He interviews them! It makes him feel good and keeps him in touch with developments in his own area and an active member in his community. If he sees something in the business section of the newspaper about a new business or some award a local business has won, he congratulates them. It opens up a whole conversation. It makes him feel good—and the business owners—as well. It keeps him interview-ready. The more he talks to people, the more articulate he becomes, the more in touch with himself, the more confident he becomes. He keeps his interpersonal skills sharp. Besides, he never knows who they know! So create impromptu “mini” interviews around town – just so YOU feel better about yourself. Not to mention that perhaps he will have a survival job after his unemployment benefits run out and he hasn’t found what he’s really looking for.

Real In-person Interviews in “Real Time” in Your Field. Sound like a dream come true? These days, it does. Of course there could be heartache afoot. We’ve heard of the four and five follow up interviews at the same company and then the same company suddenly becomes incognito never to be heard from again leaving the poor victim without a job, like a jilted lover at the altar. We’ve heard about the EEO dictating the dog-and-pony show of going through the motions with internal candidates waiting in the wings for the latch door to open and down the chute into the new job they go. We have heard of every stinking piss-poor scenario and it’s enough to make us sick! But we have to go on each and every interview we get as if we are going to get the job and it’s a real interview with no hidden agendas. We can never know unless we get the lowdown from someone whom we know inside the company. Then at least our egos are assuaged once more. Either the job is pulled for financial reasons or a higher-up comes along and says, “Hey, what are you doing? My best friend needs a job—he just got laid off!” And bingo, there you are, iced out and feeling hapless again—only this time taunted and teased—to boot. The job world can be so damned cruel! The pain and anger of being left dangling must be excruciating.

Try not to be intense and desperate (breathe in, breath out) but to sound enthusiastic and energetic, ready to overcome their objections with thoughtful, intelligent, self-assured rebuttals. If the hiring manager interviewing you expresses doubt that you can travel in inclement weather to the office in the next state, tell him/her that you have a relative in the area and keep a change of clothes and toothbrush in your car for just such contingencies. (For goodness’ sakes, there’s always telecommuting, working from home!) Sometimes when interviewers throw up too many obstacles, it may be a subtle way of saying they’re not going to hire you. Regardless, rebut them. Don’t let them off easy. YOU will feel better. If the interviewer pries with questions about family responsibilities or intimates children “interfering” with the job, assure him/her that your personal life has never infringed, that you are prepared and have a safety net. Deflect whatever you feel to be inappropriate or a means to eliminate you. If he/she (a human person like you with feelings and problems, joys and sorrows, who just so happens to have a job at the moment) says you haven’t had the exact experience, tell him/her that you have won the respect of former colleagues and used the time wisely to learn new skills in half the time it took a full time employed colleague to learn the same thing. Tell them no problem, your certification completion is currently in the works.

How-to advice on interviewing can go on ad infinitum and there are probably hundreds of scenarios, combinations, anecdotes to back the vast amount of advice. We can’t always predict every possibility until we get there. There are more job search advice articles on the Internet today than you can ever hope to read in one lifetime but read some of them and get a “feel” on different cases and scenarios. It is what it is. We try to preempt them as best we can from other’s experiences. No matter how poorly the interviewer conducts, him/herself, let us come up clean and whole. We have to live with and are only responsible for ourselves. The best way to re-learn how to interview after a long hiatus and overcome your fear is just to get out there and talk to people. And listen. And keep talking. Most of all don’t let go of the belief that you will one day obtain gainful employment once again.

-By The Job Enthusiast Who Won’t Rest Till Everyone Is Put To Work!

Read about more helpful resources from The Job Enthusiast here.