Nearly there….
The second interview had gone really well. Technically the role was well within his range of expertise and rapport between himself, HR and the recruiting manager seemed friendly and warm. Perhaps most importantly having been out of work for a number of months the role was the one that he had felt most excited by and the company was one he would be eager to join.
Result……. well nearly.
The telephone call came just 24 hours after the interview. When his mobile rang he recognised the number calling, his heart started to beat uncontrollably . Surely his time of anxious inactivity was about to come to an end.
He couldn’t remember the conversation it was full of polite banalities except for the ‘ sorry but you came a close second’. Deflating, demoralising and depressing.
How do you pick yourself up after what isn’t an unusual outcome in a very competitive job market? It is desirable and perhaps natural to feel positive and excited about an opportunity but it’s a heartbreaking event when you discover you are to be disappointed.
‘Stockdale Paradox’
In his book ‘ Good to Great’ Jim Collins highlighted a phenomenon that he termed the ‘ Stockdale Paradox’ which takes its name from a two sided coping strategy adopted by U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, James Stockdale who survived eight terrible years as a Vietnamese prisoner of war. Stockdale noticed that it wasn’t just the pessimists who lacked the psychological strength to endure; it was the blind optimists too, because of the continuing disappointment they experienced when their positive assertion failed to materialise.
Stockdale described it like this ‘ You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be’.
Mental Contrasting
Mental contrasting is a technique that compares your ideal outcome with the reality of day to day life. Psychologists have confirmed that this type of realistic idealism make it much more likely we will achieve our ultimate objectives. More so than the constantly positive approach we are often encouraged to adopt.
Two questions that you can ask yourself to enable mental contrasting are:
- Whats most likely to get in the way of you succeeding in meeting your goals for today?
- Whats your ‘when-then’ contingency plan to prevent that obstacle from getting in the way?
Adopting this approach will enable a candidate to approach an interview with a positive and optimistic approach but live with the reality of disappointment and how to react.
