Facing your fears

With it being Halloween and scary movie season I thought that it would be appropriate to write about facing your fears.  Everyone is scared of something even if they don’t like to admit it.  When you’re younger it’s generally monsters or the dark, for me it was clowns, but as you mature in your years these phobias tend to abate and new ones take over.

When it comes to the recruitment industry people’s fears are evident on a daily basis.  Notable examples include candidates going for their first interview or even having a conversation with a consultant like myself.  It can be an extremely daunting prospect as you are being judged with all of your insecurities being laid bare.  Questions such as “Am I good enough?” and “What if I mess up?” constantly whir around your mind until you can’t think straight.

The above is not limited to candidates though, recruiters face similar fears, sometimes to the extent that it stops us from performing the job to the best of our ability.  Making that phone call to the individual you had earmarked as the perfect fit for a role only to tell them they haven’t made it to the next stage of the application process, or making a cold call to a client you have been dying to work with are two prime examples of this.  What becomes abundantly clear is that these fears won’t simply go away over the course of time, you have to confront them.  Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone on a regular basis will help you become more accustomed to difficult or challenging conversations.  Then if you do this enough you will gradually become more confident and accomplished at something you previously dreaded.

So as a daily exercise my advice would be to do at least one thing that tests your nerve.  Then given time you will begin to realise that things are rarely as bad as you think they’re going to be, and in fact you are actually better at them than you give yourself credit for.