My anxiety peaks when I have a pending decision…

I am not risk-averse about software engineering interviews and I regularly appear for them. I continuously seek interview opportunities and face no difficulties in securing them. I remain quite confident before the interview day and prepare by reviewing similar interview experiences shared on discussion forums.

About 15 minutes before the interview, I compose myself and often pray to the Almighty to help me if I falter during the interview. During the actual interview, I maintain my calm and present myself in the best possible manner. The final outcome does not concern me in that moment; I simply enjoy the entire process and try to engage with the interviewer as much as possible. Having completed more than 250+ full interview loops, I can predict the results with reasonable accuracy.

Until this point, I might sound like a confident person who enjoys appearing for software engineering interviews. Yes, that is indeed who I am.

But… as the interview loop progresses to a stage where each round contributes to the final decision, I become increasingly anxious while waiting for the outcome of each interview round.

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti : Eminem - Lose Yourself

I am not worried about failing the interview; I am comfortable with failures. Losing and moving forward has been an integral part of my journey. What makes me anxious is the time before the verdict. Waiting makes me anxious. I am an overthinker and become pessimistic while waiting. I try to envision all possible outcomes and tend to focus more on negative scenarios. I somehow believe that if I remain optimistic in such situations and the decision goes against me, it will hurt me more, so instead of being optimistic, I choose to consider more pessimistic scenarios.

I Need to Work on This

Even though I appear to be a supremely confident person at the beginning of the interview loop, as it progresses, I tend to lose my confident demeanour and often check with the recruiter multiple times in a week. My anxiety can create doubts in the other person’s mind, and I might lose the edge that I hold.

I am unable to focus properly on the tasks at hand; I cannot simply forget about it and occupy myself. I need to know the decision. I myself believe that this is not acceptable in all situations. More often than not, I require time to make a decision, and so do others who are evaluating the interview loop.

How do i train my mind to handle stress while waiting?

This does not happen to me when I am not interested in the outcome, for example, when I interview for the sake of preparation and do not really wish to join the company. I rarely check with the recruiter and sometimes miss their calls. It is not that I deliberately ignore them, but just that I am busy at that moment.

Why can’t I keep myself occupied when I am really interested in something and let the Universe do its work for me?

This happens because when we deeply care about an outcome, our brain perceives the waiting period as a threat. The higher the stakes, the more my brain wants to maintain vigilance. By preparing for negative outcomes, I am attempting to protect yourself emotionally.

The key is recognizing that this vigilance doesn’t serve me - it doesn’t change the outcome and only causes suffering. The interviews where I don’t care about the results actually demonstrate my capacity to detach, which ironically is exactly the skill I need to develop for the interviews I do care about.

I have to consider each high-stakes waiting period as an opportunity to practice this detachment - not from caring about the outcome, but from the need to control what isn’t controllable.

Time-Boxing my worry

Since completely eliminating worry is unrealistic, I try containing it:

• I Allocate specific time slots (15-30 minutes) to think about the pending decision.
• Outside these slots, I redirect my thoughts when they drift to the interview outcome.
• Constant reminders: “I’ll think about this during my designated worry time at 6 PM”.