I’ve got 13 months of unemployment under my belt.

This morning I’m pretty sure I bombed a phone screening interview. For the last interview I bombed, I think I overprepared, so I froze when the interviewer went off script and threw me a couple of curveball questions. No call-back, I wasn’t surprised.

So this time, I thought I wouldn’t prepare as much, and I froze AGAIN despite realistically knowing the answer.

It feels like I’ve entered a vicious cycle of not doing the best in an interview, then my self-esteem taking a hit, then feeling worse about my capabilities by the time the next interview rolls around, and in turn failing to perform. It sucks because I know I would do really well in these roles.

Has anyone else been through this cycle and gotten out of it? How did you do it?