21/11/2017

~Dear Diary~

Ugh. Group interviews……THE HECK ARE THESE THINGS? A DEVIL’S BANQUET?!

Over the top maybe, but my first response to an interviewer saying to us 30 odd jobless candidates, “okay guys, take a sticky note, write down your name, draw on it, be as creative as you want and then give us a 30 second introduction of yourself”……

Me: Uuuugh *squints and facepalms*

Okay, I must admit though, although this was my response, it wasn’t as bad as before during other group interviews and presentations; when I was younger, I would have wanted to die after breaking out in a cold sweat…or at least crawl up my own a$$ in an attempt to become invisible (in hindsight, crawling up my own butt would have attracted more attention though…hahaha).

However, presenting myself for 30 seconds wasn’t too bad as I have been working on my weaker “skills” for a while now; such as talking (hey, it is actually hard to say the right words with the right momentum when the mind is either blank or whirring around lightning fast okay? *pouts*) and harnessing my inner extraversion. So, these days, I find that I am much more adaptable when it comes down to something like this, you know, when all eyes are on you and you need to propel your voice to the back of a massive a$$ room. Nonetheless, my adrenaline always tends to get the better of me the first time round so I ended up wanting to either go first or second to get my introduction out of the way – as opposed to wanting to die.

I’m almost certain that a good amount of INTJ would find these kind of situations draining because first off, we don’t really talk about ourselves right off the get go and we don’t talk. Period.

Just kidding, we just prefer to listen and gauge our surroundings longer than most, and to have all eyes and ears on us is…daunting (especially for those who are less sociable, hermit-like and quiet).

Yes, hello, I am awkward.

I don’t know what to do. So I’ll just attempt to dance.

Anyways, during the creation of my name tag, I anticipated that when the interviewer(s) do say “who wants to go first”, naturally nobody would raise their hand, and so I thought, I’ll just go first. Well, the inevitable was asked and after 3 slow seconds, I raised mine BUT one other person raised theirs first. So I was the 4th speaker as we slowly went around the room and boy was I not ready to speak as the 4th person. I wanted 1st or 2nd dammit. I was ready.

Ahhh~ What is this feeling when the inevitable is coming for your balls and all you can do is to anticipate imminent pain…oh right, dread. Waiting is terrible during these situations.

Guys, let me tell you, during those 30 loooooooong seconds…it was horrendous, the mind decided to go blank and my hands became so expressive that I probably turned into a puppeteer or a music conductor for the entire duration. The niggling thing was that I was aware of how I came across and I couldn’t stop the arms flailing around whilst stringing together a cohesive sentence. I messed up a bit in the end and should have concentrated on the speech rather than being aware of EVERYTHING.

Side Note: I did do better than one other person who actually blacked out after their turn. No joke.

Anywhooo, what’s done was done and surprise surprise! 40 minutes later…another presentation about us was going to happen, and actually, anyone could have left by then since the interview dragged out for longer than expected. An intriguing idea, but by this time, my adrenaline was calming down and I felt fine about having to give a 1 minute speech. Basically, I wasn’t blind-sighted by adrenaline anymore. The second time round went better, my arms were relaxed, I spoke better and said more than initially intended just to purposefully drag out this experience.

Yeah, weird huh, intentionally dragging out the presentation…my mindset has changed a lot (for the better) these days and maybe the quieter or even self-conscious half of the population can take away the following points:

• Challenge yourself: I find that I like to challenge myself more, to push myself out of the original comfort zone. I think that if you have the ability to manipulate your thoughts and the ability to prolong, stop or hurry up a scenario whenever possible…then why not make the most of it? The key is to slow yourself down.
• Almost everything is temporary: Your situation could cease anytime, like 30 seconds for example. There is an end, a light at the end of the tunnel and all you need to do to get out of there is to either go through brief moments of struggle, persistence, discomfort or even enjoyment (stay focused here, I’m talking about presentation and not life struggles…even though my mind went straight to illness, Cancer, money problems etc).
• You won’t see anyone anyway: Okay, if you are like me, during a massive group speech, you probably won’t see anyone, as in, your brain will not process anyone’s face and you’ll come out of the speech thinking, “what or who was I looking at?” So don’t sweat it, everyone is probably just as uncomfortable as you (unless they already had their go, or likes this kind of stuff hahaha). Also, there is a good chance that you won’t see these people again anyway.
• Practice makes perfect: Yeah, it’s a cliché but it’s true. I remembered that during my college years, I did most of the talking during group presentations because everyone else in the group couldn’t be bothered, and I got really good at it, I was happy, ready to go, spoke well and adrenaline wasn’t even a thing. So practice, if you can’t practice or don’t have anywhere that allows you to practice…try and enjoy these moments when you have the chance to, or, even prolong it because it’s going to end very soon.
• Finally, don’t fret it if you make a mistake, it’s cringe-worthy and you probably want to die (again), but it’s fine to make a mistake; for example, I stuttered and had to repeat myself when I forgot to use a word that makes a whole sentence understandable (I messed up twice like this). The thing is to not get frazzled and to keep going, smile, own it and just do it.

For me, only the first point was on my mind before the second inevitable speech, that, I know that I love to challenge myself already, that I have always loved to develop myself and strengthen any weaknesses, so this was a great opportunity to do things in my stride. This thought alone allowed me to want to make this process last longer, which in return made the speech longer and that more information was offered up.

Okay, finished! I hope that you can find a point that helps you to embrace your weaknesses bravely.

Geomeun Goyangi =^-^=