ALT-2 Reasons to go for a Walk before a Job Interview
If you are by now an experienced job hunter, you must have come up with an effective strategy to cope with the tension most people experience during job interviews. But people seldom acquire that many valuable hours of job interview experience. Most would need all the help they can get to remain unruffled and relatively relaxed during the interview itself. Taking a walk before an interview brings with it many advantages; it helps make your state of mind clearer and better prepared during the interview.1) Tension reducer
Walking is a great way to keep in touch with those muscles, which have been tense due to a prospective situation that can be scary to some potential interviewees. The fact that you are taking a walk prior to an interview provides an opportunity to remain firmly grounded on your own feet, no matter what the outcome of the interview will be. Depending on the period it takes to make you perspire, you can try walking at least 10 blocks away from the location where you are going to be interviewed. Or you may just walk around the area for at about 15 minutes. Just make sure you are close enough so as not to show up late for the interview. You will be recharged after the walk. This also gives you time to relax and arrive refreshed.2) A way to meditate
Walking provides opportunities to move yourself into a state of relative calmness even in the midst of ongoing demands from all directions for your attention. By walking, you become more aware of the many difficult steps you have taken from the early days of your job hunt up to the point where you are about to be interviewed. Give yourself a pat on the back for having walked this far; not everyone is given such an opportunity.3) To have a break
A healthy mechanism used in coping with a typical stressful situation, "take a walk” is an advice given to people when their life’s situations become stressful. This advice applies as well to interviewees whose minds are crowded with a huge baggage of thoughts. Walking allows your mind to see the situation in a bigger perspective. The job interview is an assessment tool in most respects. In addition, you have to remember your role is mainly to help the interviewer come up with the best assessment of you as an applicant, and not to make you undergo another stressful situation.
4) Last chance to review your checklist
If you are someone who is not into making a checklist or some kind of a list of reminders for yourself before a job interview takes place, then consider making one as part of the routine. During the walk that you will take before the job interview, have your checklist ready for review. By this time, almost all of the items on it should have been completed. Only the last one or two items should remain incomplete. This has to include “take a walk” and as you see this checked off your list, you are given an instant boost from having accomplished your task. This is a good feeling to have and one positive thing that you can bring with you to help you cope with the interview.5) Opportunity to check more closely your future worksite
In case you are eventually hired, you gain from the walking experience the chance to see what your future job site offers. You can then use the information you gathered during the walk for some other important plans related to your career.Show up at least 30 minutes before interview time. And opt to announce to the receptionist that you have arrived and that you are taking a walk before your scheduled meeting. That will be taken as a good sign of your confidence, being in charge of what you are doing. Just be punctual and be around during the actual time of the interview.
