#70: How to Win Your Next Job Interview (Even If You’re an Actor!)

Your next job interview doesn’t have to be a nerve-wracking mess. Whether you're auditioning for a role or applying for a 9–5, the prep strategies are the same — and performers might even have an edge. In this episode, Brittany shares 5 powerful interview tips straight from the stage that will help you show up confident, prepared, and unforgettable. Learn how to exude confidence, dress with intention, and actually connect — not just perform.

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 Visit: brittanynoltimier.com/70

Transcript

All you have to do is the prep work. It's not that hard to make a good impression when you go into an interview or an audition, as long as you've done the research and the prep work. Hello there and welcome back to Dance Colleges and Careers. I'm your host, Brittany Noltimier And today we are talking about how to win at your next job interview from the insight of an actor and a dancer and director.

because I have my audition tips here that I teach my students on how to give and present their best selves when they walk into an audition. But as I was teaching it, it really correlates to anybody just trying to go in and get a job. And the very first thing is super duper simple. So let's get started.

We have five tips today for nailing your next job interview. I'm a performer, I'm a dancer, I own a children's theater program, so I direct children on how to bring their best selves to their auditions.

it is the same as going into a job interview. And so if you're thinking, I have a job interview, I'm really nervous about it, I have five tips today straight from the actor's point of view to help you feel more confident and really nail that next interview.

Okay, so step one is show your personality. Yes, you have to check off the boxes that you've probably already been screened before you come in. And then now they want to see you. They want to know who you are, the great parts of your personality to be working in their environment, in their job, in their want to get to know the real you. They don't want to see fake you. They need to see who the real person is.

who will be coming into work every day and putting their best foot forward. So first and foremost, show your personality. Be you. I know that can be super duper hard when we're nervous and stressed and we're just trying to answer the right way to get the job that we really care about. But when it comes down to it, they're more likely to hire somebody they like, somebody they believe they can trust than a fake facade on the outside who just knows how to answer questions well. Number two, we're going to move into confidence.

I want you to exude confidence. I think this is a hysterical piece of advice because if we could as humans be more confident, we would be, right? If it were that easy, I would just put on my confidence pants and walk into that job interview, but I know it's not. So the real truth to exuding confidence, gaining more confidence is by practice, repetition and practice. And through that,

practice, it gets a little bit easier every time. We get less stressed through it. So then when you go to your job interview, you'll able to bring out your best self. know you're gonna be nervous. I do it too. I'm very nervous, but it's what you're showing the person on the other side.

So sometimes you just have to act the part. If you're really nervous, just act like you're not. Tell yourself these wonderful, kind things about yourself to put your confidence pants on and step into the room with your best foot forward. my worksheet that goes along with this. It says, enter strong. Body language plays a big part in this from the moment you walk in the door.

When auditioning or interviewing, don't rock back and forth or put your hands in your pockets So stand tall, take deep breaths to calm your nerves, speak clearly without rushing, and don't forget to use pauses and punctuations for effect. Exactly. So this says exude confidence, but the explanation behind it is physically what your body and your verbally should be doing and saying.

to exude confidence. So the very first thing that I'm always teaching because it is your first impression, the most important thing, and also a part of our health is our posture. So if you walk in with your chin down, your shoulders slumped, you can't look anybody in the eye, you shake somebody's hand and you look down, that is not showing confidence. And these are just physical actions you can practice.

before you go into that room that is really important. So again, we don't want to be rocking back in our chair. We don't want to do any of these weird physical ticks that are physically showing the other person your nerves. Sometimes we can get a shaky voice and that's where the deep breaths come in, to calm yourself, slow the way we're talking. So that doesn't come out so fast. in this like,

Panicked, stressed mode. So just try to keep reminding yourself slow, intentional. Not too slow, slow, but like slow it down, but with intention and then pay attention to what we're doing physically. And most importantly, just sit up with your posture, shoulders, roll those shoulders up, back and down, lead with your heart, lead with your chest, little chin up, nice and in line. So we're not doing this weird thing. Okay. So that we have, we are

Poised for success. We're going to move into number three, dress for success. This is so important when I'm talking to my students about acting and coming in for their auditions. One, because we don't want to have any outfit malfunctions, right? In acting, it can get physical. It might not be like sometimes they just stand and hold the script. But I was telling my students every time I went in to do an audition.

and I was wearing a dress I had shorts on because there were at least two or three times in a singing audition when they said to me, wait, you're a dancer. Can we see something? And I would do a nice high kick just to show off flexibility or a leap to be like, OK, yeah, she legitimately is a dancer because sometimes people will say that and they're like. So that is my background, so it showed like, OK, this is where her singing is at, but her dancing is here.

So that might work in this position, even though we asked for the singing audition first. So for me, dress for success, I wore my dress to be super cute, but I always put shorts on so that I could still do the physical things I would need to do if they asked for it. some things to think about when we're saying dress for success, especially when we're going in for the job interview, I'm sure you've heard people talk about dress

for the job you want, not for the job you have, but that's exactly right. we're gonna go into how to talk about preparation, but you wanna pick out an outfit that fits this job that you want to have. Same thing in acting, you want an outfit that makes you look good for the role you want to get so that the person on the other side can picture you in that role, whether that's on the stage or at this business, in this job.

If you're not comfortable in a skirt or if you're like worried, you're going to be pulling it down, wear some pants or wear something different. If you have a V cut shirt and when you lean forward, you feel a bit exposed, pick out a different shirt. Look how high this collar is because I'm doing this with you. Right.

And then other things that might make you feel uncomfortable. with dance in my background, I'm just used to having my hair pulled back. I have been trying lately to do the hair down thing. And even just before this, I was giving a lesson to my students and my hair was in my way and it's a thing I do all the time, but I I'm like, I should have known better. I like.

my hair out of my face because I want to be able to present here with you. And I don't want a hair coming in front of me and then getting weird shadows so that you can't see my expression and I can't connect with you as well because now I'm worried about my hair and I'm worried about the shadow. And that's what not what this moment is about. This lesson I was teaching is about this, this connection and me being prepared repetitively in the same way will make it so that

I won't have those weird outside things to mess me up or to keep me distracted from what's really important sure that the first time you're wearing this interview outfit or this audition outfit is not at the interview. Okay, you gotta wear it ahead of time so that you can tell if you're like, I need to...

safety pin this or this does have a malfunction when I'm bending down to pick something up. So it's just good to practice the way we dress for success as well. It feels weird or dorky or you're like, no, but I can't get that dirty. Right? You can't get it dirty. You can't like go out and eat a, eat a melting fudgedicle popsicle in your, your pressed and ready outfit, but you do need to step into it so that when you put it on, you're not like,

afraid and in a totally different person's body, but it is you and you're confident and you're comfortable and you have all you know what to expect. Moving into number four, this is warm up am keeping my notes exactly the same as my students as for you here in your interview because it's the same. So I highly encourage you to

or anybody before you go into an interview or a stressful situation to do a physical warmup. You know, that's why some people exercise and go to the gym. Or you can just follow along with one of my warmup videos on YouTube to really reach, use the whole room, use your body and just be a little bit larger than life. It will give you more energy from the inside out and it will help you just shake out some of the nerves, some of that nervous energy.

before you walk in to do this very high focused activity. And that's why people exercise, right? It's why successful people exercise, why we go to the gym. But I'm not saying that's the only option, because sometimes you don't have time. But if you're at home and you're getting dressed and you're nervous, just throw on a 10 minute exercise video and it will help you pull out those endorphins and just help alleviate some of the stress from just what we're thinking about.

and help us get centered. And a vocal warmup is important because you're going to be talking and maybe you've been home all day just getting ready, thinking, maybe you haven't even used your voice yet and you wanna go in and talk a lot. especially if you're like me and I do have a weaker voice than others.

I have to do a warmup. I do warmups before I visit with you here because I don't want to stop and have to start choking because I'm excited, right? Because when we're talking, we get, especially in an interview, we get nervous, excited, things tense up. So we just have to stretch the voice, warm up the voice

so that we don't tire our voice out and start choking and coughing because we never warmed up voice. So maybe that has never been an issue for you and you have very strong vocal cords. That's wonderful. But if you're like me or you choke or maybe throughout the last couple of years, your job has changed like me and you're not speaking all the time. So the amount of time when we use our voice is less. So when we use it a lot, it gets fatigued and

So if you need to get back into strengthening your voice, I highly encourage you, and it's gonna start with that vocal warmup, not for an hour, just like 10 minutes, yeah, to get your voice moving that successful interview. biggest thing is do the prep work.

Do the prep work for your interview. If this is the job of a lifetime, I'm sure you've already done this already because you know how important it is, but you need to do the research. Who are you going to be speaking to? You don't want to be in there and then you're like, I forgot what your name is. Hello. And they say their name and you're already nervous. And the whole time you're going, crap, what's your name again? What's your name again? What's your name again? That's not good. So do the research. Who checked the email ahead of time? Who are you going to be speaking to?

What's the protocol when you what is the job? What are they looking for in that role? And how do you fit into that?

Because the way this correlates to musical theater or in plays is when you come into the interview with the audition, we are trying to fit you into the puzzle piece of our musical, of our show. So where do you fit as a character, as a cast member in our show? And so the same thing at your interview, at this new job position, where can they see you fitting at their job?

And then the more they get to know you, they might want to put you in this slightly different area that they need more help with right now or that you might be more successful in because of your experience or your personality.

So in musical theater, when I say do the preparation, that means watching the movie or watching the musical, listening to the music and doing some research on who the characters are and who you can be in the show. But for you, it's the exact same. So in case it makes you nervous, just go back to like your musical theater roots or if you've never done musical theater, let me bring you there now because it's fun. I'm teaching this to students going, you have to do research. You have to do research. Here's your homework.

Guess what? It's watching a movie. That's fun homework. It's listening to music. Do you like listening to music? I do. That's great homework. Then we go into who the characters are and who you can picture yourself being. So same thing for you as you're looking at these different roles, these different positions, yourself there. And then you know you're interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you because you need to find a place where you belong.

Remember, you don't have to know everything about the company, but you have to know enough to know how to ask the right questions. You don't want to be starting with basic things that anybody looking at their website could learn in 30 seconds. You want to come in, having done the showing that you're actually interested in their company, and then that will make them more interested and more invested in you.

So get out there. I hope you go and nail that audition. Don't forget to stand up tall, speak clearly, and just act like this is where you're supposed to be because it is. Don't apologize for yourself. Never walk in and say, hi, I'm Brittany. No, be proud of who you are and show it from the moment you've arrived.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Dance Colleges and Careers. Until next time, be brave, tell your story, and own the stage.