Tips For Online Job Interviews

While working remotely, taking online meetings, and online interviews have been getting more popular day by day, the COVID-19 pandemic really accelerated this trend. Most companies, even the ones who never had remote work experience, now have a remote workforce and are getting almost everything done online.

Job interviews are also now seen as a kind of meeting that can be held online. As a result, companies have started to organize online interviews and it is likely that even after the pandemic, remote interviews will be here to stay.

With this blog post, I want to share tips on how to get ready before the interview, have a smooth interaction, and how to handle unexpected problems during the conversation.

Tips for getting ready before the interview

• Have a pen and paper. While the interview is on your computer and you can take notes in note-taking applications, you don’t want to lose contact with the interviewer. Using pen and paper will help you keep eye contact with the interviewer and stay focused.
• Choose a room with good light and position your table to best leverage the light. Better video quality will improve your communication with the interviewer.
• Keep your environment as silent as possible. Noise will distract you and the interviewer.
• Keep a glass of water by you. Since you will be talking a lot during the interview, you will need to stay hydrated.
• Configure and test the online meeting tool (i.e., Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Microsoft Teams, etc.) that will be used in the interview.
• Configure your camera, microphone, headset in the meeting tool settings.
• Have a test meeting with a friend on the tool, if possible. If you don’t have a friend available for test, most of the tools like Skype and Zoom have internal test tools for sound input and output.
• Install the required applications that will be used in the interview. For example, you may need to install an IDE for software engineering interviews.
• Investigate, test, and learn online tools (ie. hackerrank codepair, draw.io, awwapp, etc.) that will be used in the interview.

What should we pay attention to during the interview?

• Keep the internet usage at a minimum level during the interview. You should inform the people you live with about the interview and ask them not to use internet connection as much as possible, especially video or music streaming applications (ie. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, Spotify, etc.), as they may exhaust your connection bandwidth during the interview.
• Inform the people you live with about the plan and duration of the interview and ask them to keep quiet, if possible.
• Turn off the computer and mobile phone notifications.
• Don’t ask for using search engines or online resources unless the interviewer told you explicitly that you can use them.
• Keep eye contact with the interviewer while answering verbal questions.
• Ask to repeat the question if you can’t hear the interviewer because of a connection problem or if you can’t understand what is said.
• Just like onsite interviews, you should use your time carefully during online interviews.
• Rest and get ready for the next session during the breaks rather than checking your answers for the previous session on the internet.
• Don’t forget that all rules for onsite interviews also apply for an online interview.

How to handle unexpected problems during the interview?

• If there is a problem with voice, inform the interviewer via the chat in the online meeting tool about the problem and be in contact while solving the problem.
• If you are having a problem with the internet connection:
• You can try to use your mobile phone’s internet
• You can ask the interviewer to turn off videos
• You can try to connect to the meeting via dial option if provided
• If you are still having problems, you can ask to continue the interview via phone call.
• Don’t stress and reconnect quickly if you lose the connection. If it takes a long time to reconnect, it will be nice to inform the interviewer by a phone call.

If none of these are applicable or don’t solve the problems, you can ask to reschedule the interview. Don’t think about rescheduling as a problem because if you and the interviewer cannot hear each other, that will decrease your performance. When the interview is rescheduled, you should find the root cause and solve it before the next interview.

If a distracting noise starts during the interview, you should ask for a break to stop the noise if you can. Don’t forget that you are responsible for the interview environment during online interviews, whereas the interviewer is responsible for the environment during onsite interviews. You can find the Online Interview Checklist at the bottom of the post.

All of the topics above are also important for the interviewer. If you are the interviewer you should make your environment ready and you should guarantee a high-quality interview.

Don’t forget that everything you should be careful about during an onsite interview is also valid for the online interviews.

I wish you the best in your interviews…