How Do You Handle Stress?

In addition to the question on preferred management style, a common interview question is how do you manage stress or pressure?

As we move towards more transparency, employers are naturally cautious of their employees’ participation on social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Knowing that the Library of Congress is keeping records of all public tweets might have caused some to change their account to “protected”, but many are still airing their grievances in public.

It is essential to maintain a professional presence on social media networks. I’m not advocating being a boring person who tweets nothing but sanguine statements all day. That is not real. We all have days where we experience grief, frustration, or sadness. All aspects of the human condition are elemental to a well balanced presence on social sites. These aspects of our personalities are, I believe, the reason American society has been drawn to reality TV for so long.

What I will not advocate, though, is sending a barrage of angry tweets, also known as a timeline takeover. Not only is it a quick way to lose followers, but it can cause potential employers to question your ability to handle the stresses of an average workplace. It’s not because people don’t care about you or your situation, but a blog post may be the better place to air those thoughts. My idealistic side would love if all offices were full of people who got along every day and never had debates on projects. My realistic side knows that debate can be healthy and can push projects in a needed direction.

Still, these debates can lead to frustration.

When I feel any number of emotions, I turn to music. Since I know the power of commiserating with others, I share the songs I listen to on Blip.fm to my Twitter account.

All it takes is one person to notice a theme in the songs to comment and make me feel ten times better than I did previously. That is when Twitter is at its best – when people you connect with on a regular basis professionally come to your aid personally.

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