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No More Sweaty Palms! 7

questions both verbally and nonverbally. This is a serious business - the
employer’s money in exchange for your talent. Therefore, you need to
learn as much as possible about each other before making any long-term
commitments. This is not the time for playing any get-the-job games.
The process of answering and asking questions for you involves two
important and sometimes contradictory considerations:

1. Get the job: You must sufficiently impress hiring officials both
professionally and personally so you will be offered the job.

2. Get useful information: You must acquire critical information
on whether or not you wish to join the organization. In other
words, the employer must also sufficiently impress you before
you will accept a job offer.

These two considerations often compete with one other because of
interview apprehension. Indeed, apprehension about the interview situa-
tion - complete with a dry throat, sweaty
palms, and wobbly knees - leads some Stress what is
interviewees to concentrate solely on right about you -
playing the “good interviewee” role to
the exclusion of acquiring important your patterns Of
information for decision-malung. Fearing achievements that
they will not sufficiently impress the
interviewer, they become preoccupied define your
with dressing right and giving “model” success.
answers to interview questions rather
than concentrating on exchanging information and learning about the job
and the employer. They communicate anything but their real selves to
employers.
You should not let this happen to you. After all, you owe it to yourself,
and perhaps others close to you, to make sound career decisions. The job
interview is not a time for you to become someone else by engaging in
role playing - “the good intervieween - that doesn’t represent the real you.
Like your resume, your interview behavior should clearly communicate
the “unique you” to employers. This is the time to present your best self
in the process of learning about both the job and the employer.
Throughout this book we stress the importance of lowering your