Confidence - Your Secret Weapon
Confidence is a combination of an internal belief in yourself and an accumulation of many wins, both large and small, as well as failures that have helped you see and tap into your ability to surmount obstacles that you may face.
Confidence is an important factor in helping you sell yourself to a hiring manager. When you can go from “unsure or tentative" to exhibiting confidence, a hiring manager will take notice. When you project confidence, everything about you shifts, and the people you meet can feel and see it.
As a communications expert, I’m always observing how we communicate with each other. One of those ways is with our eyes. We all do it intuitively and most of the time unconsciously. That’s why when your spouse or significant other or friend is acting “different,” and you ask what's wrong, you don't necessarily believe their answer of “nothing” because their body language is saying something different from their words. We intuitively read each other’s body language, and we believe body language over words.
When I interviewed someone, one thing that made a big difference was how their confidence level came across to me. If two people had basically equal skills, the primary factor that would put one candidate above the other was confidence. That's how important confidence is. I feel it is vital that you project confidence and infuse it into everything you do, both in a job search and beyond.
Confidence is not something you can simply say “I have” and then possess. You need to build your confidence. One of the major tools you can use is determination to help you begin building your confidence.
Short Term Goals
Focus on your short-term goals; set a few and have the determination to look at them and do the work to achieve them step-by-step. Set an achievable goal that you can work on and stay focused on achieving it. For example, a goal could be to connect with 1 hiring manager this week. So the next question for you to ask yourself is “what steps do I have to take in order to achieve that goal?” What steps do you need to take to reach your goal of landing a new job?
Keep perspective Accurate
Keep your perspective accurate. I’ve heard many job seekers speak negatively about their prospects for landing a job. Sometimes hiring managers say things like “no one is getting hired” or “No one is getting called back.” That’s not an accurate perspective. Some people do get called back. Keep your perspective accurate and focus like a laser on your goal of landing your new job. Focus on the future and not on the past as a way to help you win your race to your new job. Yes it's difficult but it is possible.