interview anxiety- civil service

[MidSummersNightmare]

I’d be so grateful for any interview tips for a very anxious interviewee.

I have a video interview for a digital role in the civil service this week.

It’s a junior role and I don’t have much experience in the role itself but have relevant educational background and have worked in other digital roles. I’ve also done a couple of voluntary projects related to the job role to get experience. (I scored 5 on my application form).

I’ve had a longish career gap looking after children (one with additional needs) so I’ve lost my confidence and I’m so nervous. It’s also hard to talk about recent experience when you don’t have any.

At the beginning of the interview they will give me a brief to do a presentation and I have 30 minutes to prepare and practice a 10 minute presentation. Then it’s the interview itself (which is experience and technical questions).

I’m super worried that I will freeze and forget everything I know and misunderstand the topic of the presentation. And I’m worried about doing the same for the interview. I have adhd and am peri menopausal so I’m worried about brain fog under pressure. I’m planning on taking beta blockers.

It’s so frustrating as I know I can do the job and would be great it’s just getting over the interview hurdle.

Any tips please?

I would make sure you have lots of notes with you - I never mind interviewing someone who has notes.
When you are answering the question try to remember the key aspects the job is looking for and answer the question they are asking not the question you hoped they'd ask!
Best of luck

Civil Service interviews aren't actually that bad as they're very formulaic. They need to assess you against the behaviours and skills that they listed in the job advert - they won't go off piste at all and ask you anything else.

So the key is to be really familiar with what they're looking for (there should be links from the job advert, or if there aren't links if you find them in the advert you can Google). Make notes linking your skills to what they are looking for - they can't see how many notes you have if the interview is online. Just be careful not to just read the notes, use them as prompts rather than a script.

Good luck!