An unemployed jobseeker has to face and deal with a lot of negative emotions. He feels strong negative feelings like fear, anxiety and shame.
Negative emotions eat up the energy of the unemployed and paralyze him. However, the unemployed should be able to maintain a positive attitude and strong motivation so that he can find a new job as soon as possible.
It would be better for an unemployed jobseeker to feel positive feelings such as joy, curiosity or pride. According to research, such positive feelings direct jobseekers’ actions towards the future, help him to challenge himself, increase his energy as well as his motivation.
Positive emotions even make his thinking quicker and more flexible.
However, transforming negative emotions into positive ones is tedious and requires self-examination, i.e. it can be a long-lasting project.
Instead, an unemployed jobseeker should try to influence the interviewer's feelings when looking for a job. It is worthwhile for him to show positive emotions in himself, because the emotions are contagious.
During an interview, jobseeker can show that he is positive, cheerful, self-confident and proud of his accomplishments. He should try to make the interviewer feel joy and compassion, perhaps even get the interviewer amazed.
So how can a jobseeker influence the interviewer's feelings?
One way is to tell a short story about oneself. Storytelling is a tool very much used in advertising as well. Here's how the storyline goes:
1. Briefly introduce yourself
2. Tell that you have had a problem and that you have struggled with this problem for a long time without any success.
3. Then one day you learned something unexpected about how to solve your problem. You experienced a very strong, stunning feeling which made you totally change the way you think about yourself and about your chances to overcome your problem.
4. Now you do things better with excellent results. You are extremely proud of yourself and of your achievements.
A brief example about this storytelling could be a story where an unemployed person says he has been looking for work in vain until he came across the concept of “intrinsic motivation”.
Understanding the concept of intrinsic motivation opened his eyes and helped him understand who he is and what he really wants to do in life.
Now with this revelation he has regained a sense of control on his life. Nowadays he is only looking for jobs for which he has a strong intrinsic motivation - and that is also why he has applied for this particular job and wants to work in this particular company.
This storyline reveals the difficulties that the unemployed person has encountered, and this increases the listener's compassion.
In addition, the story conveys a stunning “Bigger than life” -feeling (so called AWE-feeling). This is some kind of truth or wisdom beyond life, the discovery and deep understanding of something that can only be experienced by those who have gone through similar difficulties. As human beings can feel other people’s feelings, the interviewer can also feel this AWE-feeling as if it was his own.
Ultimately, this short growth story shows that the job seeker is proud of himself and of his achievements.
When hearing the story, the interviewer will feel positive feelings such as compassion, AWE-feeling and the feeling of pride.
As an additional advantage, the jobseeker demonstrates in the interview that he knows himself and knows what kind of work motivates him.
Thus, telling a short story about oneself can help the jobseeker to positively influence the interviewer's feelings and, as a consequence, can improve the chances of getting a new job.