What a preposterous statement! How can you give a good interview and be detached? After all is said about being aware of the interviewer and the dynamics, researching the company, breaking the brain to give the best answers to questions that you often don’t know what answers they seek from you, and so on, it’s a herculean thing to be asked to do by this employment counselor! Detachment is an enigma when told to prepare for the interview and you naturally feel “nervous.” But it’s really about balance.

When we hear the word, detachment, we might think of a mystic somewhere high up in the mountains of Tibet, or someone getting high from drugs. Detachment could apply to snobs or those who suffer mental illness, or just to those folks who couldn’t care less.

But the kind of detachment I believe we need for a successful interview is a detachment from self-consciousness. Practice detachment from your insecurity of being “judged.” Otherwise, you will freeze up or present yourself in a stilted manner. Insecurities turn into obsessions if nurtured too much.

Many adults come to me, some in tears, who have been laid off from their jobs and the reason for those tears is not just the frustration of job loss and subsequent rejections in cyberspace and beyond—although those reasons certainly are qualifiers—but from not knowing what to say on an interview. They hit a blank wall and dead end and all they see and feel is fear of the unknown. These same people at least once before gave a successful interview because they were hired! What happened?

On the way to their next job, they were detoured by frustration and inadequacies. Some may have told themselves they are no good because they were laid off. They don’t know if they can adapt to a new workplace, master new skills and many times they don’t want to! So they nurture fear and resistance that keeps them from greeting their next opportunity. They think, “What if I say something wrong?” or “What if they don’t hire me?” Or dozens of other “what-if’s.”

You’re either going to get the job, or you won’t. That’s all that will happen. If you don’t, know that there are factors that may not even have anything to do with your performance or background which you may never find out.

We need to get ourselves out of the picture and just concentrate on what we can do for the next employer. That’s all…Just go on the damn interview and whether good or bad, just let it go…

To me, pre-job interview and post job behavior, is one and of the same. There will be things we don’t like about an establishment where we have to fit in and sometimes lose our uniqueness to a team effort and some places are mismanaged or not managed at all. Bosses can be creepy, coworkers a drag, work a bore and so on. But somehow, some way, I believe we need to maintain a kind of detachment that makes us impervious to rejection or frustration even after we get the job. Some days we just have to take it as it comes and go with the flow to ultimately succeed. We might like to make our mark, leave our signature and be catalyst to much-needed change, leaving the workplace a better place than before we came. But sometimes a job is just a job and we learn to ride out the crappy times, balance out life and get our “jollies” elsewhere.

-By The Job Enthusiast