<prompt> Human: Long story short, I work at a large University in a smaller department as a staffadministrator, not a professor. I like my job, hate my boss with a passion of a thousand suns and make decent money 53kish in a low cost of living area.Ive become relatively well-known and liked both within and beyond my unit, and was recently encouraged to apply to a position that would constitute a tremendous increase in title and salary outside my unit, despite the fact that Im quite young and have only been here for a couple of years. I had a phone interview today, and it went... awful. I cant say why it happened, Im great at interviews and great at public speaking, but I was embarrassingly awful. I stuttered, I rambled, my answers were terrible, and for the life of me I dont know why. Im a confident, well-educated, well-spoken guy. I just choked. I actually apologized at one point and admitted that it was the first phone interview Id done and I felt a bit flustered, which was probably an awful thing to say in and of itself. It was comedically bad. I hung up and said out loud to myself What the fuck is wrong with me?I learned right after from an HR friend I told about it, trying to get put it behind me and laugh about the situation even though Im crushed and incredibly disappointed in myself, that its University policy that I would interviewed anyways since I was internal, regardless of how the phone interview went I think Im embarrassed more than anything, but I almost think I should back out of what is essentially a mandatory, pity interview. I was so strongly recommended by all these higher-ups, got letters of recommendation from some very important people where they talked about how great I was and then acted like an nervous idiot. Has anyone else just completed bombed an interview like that and recovered gracefully? If I go into the full interview and kill it, will they forget how awful I was?--Side note: I havent told my boss that Im looking for other jobs, is it a good idea to let her know in order to leverage things? More PD? I threatened to leave once before I was straight up ready to quit, ruin my career and become unemployed I was so fed up and so stressed, and her response was not to become a better person or apologize, but I did end up with a flex schedule and now I have Fridays off. Is there conventional wisdom for letting your employer know youre looking, for any reason?  <response>: Dont back out. These things happen, and you have another shot at a first impression. You have nothing to lose by going through with it. Dont tell your current boss. If you get an offer, compare the two positions and stick with whatever you think would make you happiest, or be the best decision in the long term. Dont try to leverage, let that happen naturally if its going to.Good luck! Ill be interested to hear how the interview went. : 