In the context of this post, your confidence in your absolute skill is the same.
When interviewing, you’re comparing yourself to people who have applied (the fact that you got an interview indicates that you might be more suitable than most of the applicants), and maybe to the other interviewees too.
When you start the new job, on the other hand, your relative skill is probably about the same, but your instrumental skill is much lower than the other employees’ because you don’t know the systems/tools/jargon that the company uses. You’d need to learn new things, ask questions, and get feedback to get up to speed.
I think the framing of 3 types of confidence is helpful but I think displayed confidence is something else entirely.
In the context of a job interview, the interviewee’s displayed confidence is often used (at least subconsciously) by the interviewer as a proxy for their competence. If I am up against a less competent individual who displays greater confidence (whether real or pretended) then in displaying my true level of confidence I am giving a signal to the interviewer that I am less competent than the other person.
Therefore I must pretend that I am more confident than I am, otherwise I lose out.
Understood. It might indeed be useful instrumentally. That being said, I’m not sure how I would be able to display a different confidence level than I felt without lying (I don’t lie). Is it something you say, or is it just your posture etc? Or is there something else?
I think it’s mainly a matter of what I choose to focus on.
I won’t volunteer information on my confidence level and generally won’t be asked. In answering questions I will emphasize all the parts of the role I can do and what I’ve done in the past. I won’t volunteer the fact that I am not confident in a particular area as this would raise a huge unnecessary red flag for the interviewer. If I think I am below average at a certain skill I will say that I can do it (in a confident manner!), give what examples I can and leave it at that. This is true but doesn’t tell the interviewer the whole story.
A smart interviewer will dig down into the specifics and will ask more specific questions, meaning that you have to tackle your weak areas. In that case I will feel free to be more open as I will be more confident in the interviewer’s ability to accurately assess myself and the other candidates.
In the context of this post, your confidence in your absolute skill is the same.
When interviewing, you’re comparing yourself to people who have applied (the fact that you got an interview indicates that you might be more suitable than most of the applicants), and maybe to the other interviewees too.
When you start the new job, on the other hand, your relative skill is probably about the same, but your instrumental skill is much lower than the other employees’ because you don’t know the systems/tools/jargon that the company uses. You’d need to learn new things, ask questions, and get feedback to get up to speed.
I think the framing of 3 types of confidence is helpful but I think displayed confidence is something else entirely.
In the context of a job interview, the interviewee’s displayed confidence is often used (at least subconsciously) by the interviewer as a proxy for their competence. If I am up against a less competent individual who displays greater confidence (whether real or pretended) then in displaying my true level of confidence I am giving a signal to the interviewer that I am less competent than the other person.
Therefore I must pretend that I am more confident than I am, otherwise I lose out.
Understood. It might indeed be useful instrumentally. That being said, I’m not sure how I would be able to display a different confidence level than I felt without lying (I don’t lie). Is it something you say, or is it just your posture etc? Or is there something else?
I think it’s mainly a matter of what I choose to focus on.
I won’t volunteer information on my confidence level and generally won’t be asked. In answering questions I will emphasize all the parts of the role I can do and what I’ve done in the past. I won’t volunteer the fact that I am not confident in a particular area as this would raise a huge unnecessary red flag for the interviewer. If I think I am below average at a certain skill I will say that I can do it (in a confident manner!), give what examples I can and leave it at that. This is true but doesn’t tell the interviewer the whole story.
A smart interviewer will dig down into the specifics and will ask more specific questions, meaning that you have to tackle your weak areas. In that case I will feel free to be more open as I will be more confident in the interviewer’s ability to accurately assess myself and the other candidates.
In my experience smart interviewers are rare.