You walk into the interview room looking and feeling fantastic. You carry yourself through the first few questions with a smile and conviction and then it happens...you hear a question and blank.
You know you have heard of the topic before and you know you had an opinion on it. You start to sweat and shake a bit - you know they can see you freaking out and can hear your heart popping from your chest.
You do not have any notes in this interview, so what do you do?
Wait, you do have notes! In your head, silly!
Lesson: if you really want to prepare for interview, do not be lazy and just run questions in the shower or in the mirror. Take the time to write some notes and review them...often.
Example: watch the news for a few minutes and jot down all of the important topics you think would be interview question worthy. Switch the news off then jot down your opinions on each topic - how does something make you feel? What is important about this issue? What is your position on this issue? Is there another side to the argument, even if you do not agree with it? etc
Once you have these basic notes, come back in a day or so and review them. Have your thoughts or opinions changed? Have you learned more about this topic since you first heard of it? How can you expand your thoughts on this subject matter? Jot those down and revise/update when necessary.
After a week or so of really giving these topics thought, move to another section in your notebook and note the topic and two or three major bullet points for each topic/question. Review this section weekly until your interview (revising and updating opinions if needed). Come pageant weekend, do not leave your pageant interview notebook at home while at the pageant - take it with you! Review it before your interview so your thought process and main answers are still fresh in your mind.
Ok, back to the interview room - you heard the question and started to panic. Then...lightbulb moment: you remember you had bullet points on this that you reviewed last night. You take a deep (not widely obvious) breath to settle your nerves then confidently share your bullet points/viewpoints and thought process on the subject matter.
And yes, you nailed it!
