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Webcam Interview? What. The. Hell?
MegaMan001
CRNARochester, MNRegistered User regular
CRNARochester, MNRegistered User regular
I have an interview in a few weeks via webcam for a job I really, really want. How does one do this?
Off of the top of my head, I will be planning to dress as I would for a real life interview, I'll use a buddy on Skype to check my lighting and presentation in advance, but uh, what the hell?
Off of the top of my head, I will be planning to dress as I would for a real life interview, I'll use a buddy on Skype to check my lighting and presentation in advance, but uh, what the hell?
I am in the business of saving lives.
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Yes. Or cover with a single-color sheet/blanket.
Note that you still do not have to wear pants.
I've read probably a dozen "HOW TO MASTER WEBCAM INTERVIEWS" articles. Any other suggestions. I will wear pants.l
Find a very neutral area, with decent natural lighting. Patrol background noise. Have roommates? Kick them the fuck out. Dogs? Try and find a dog sitter or something. Silence the cell phone, don't dick around on the internet while sitting there.
Don't look away from the computer. Use the peoples names as you can.
I can't currently think of other things.
It's a face to face, just not in person. Technology has just made it REALLY easy to avoid that cost of a plane ticket (or even hotel) for a day or two.
Instead, pretend the person's eyes are located in the actual webcam itself. Look into the camera. You'll appear more engaged and personable.
I dressed in the nicest (professional) outfit I had, including trousers and nice shoes, even though I was doubtful they would see what kind of pants or shoes was wearing, i didn't want to risk anything. The whole interview ended up taking place with me just sitting, but you don't know what they're going to ask you to do going in. Treat it exactly like you would if you had to go into their office for an interview. People who laugh and say they don't even wear pants are taking a big risk. Now that I think about it, dressing up actually let me become more comfortable because I FELT like I was attending an interview, and it helped me get into the zone. Does that make sense? I feel like if I didn't wear professional pants I might not have taken the whole thing as seriously and professionally as I did.
Maintain good posture, try to look at the actual camera when you can. It's awkward because you want to look at the screen so you can see them but keep in mind if you do that it may appear that you are avoiding eye-contact. It's common sense to realise that maintaining eye contact on a web-cam is difficult, but by the time they do, they've already made a snap judgement about it.
Angle the camera so it has a good view of you in a seated position - the view that they would normally have of you if you were on the opposite side of a desk to them. However, also make sure that nothing personal/incriminating is behind you. I did my interview in my bedroom as it was the best place in the house to do it. Believe me, I took my ipad from room to room and set it up with various angles and lighting to try to capture the best view without personal shit being in the way.
My bed is directly behind my desk so I needed to arrange the camera so anything like that wasn't in view. It actually took a lot of preparation to find the right spot so DON'T SKIP THAT PART. I absolutely do not recommend that you just wing it and do your interview at any ol' position in the house. Make sure it's as perfect as you can - they will notice. Even though it's an interview, you are giving them a look into your personal home. They can and will make judgements on what they can see.
Speak clearly. It might actually be appropriate to ask how well they can hear you, and if they would like you to do anything to make it easier for them to be able to understand you such as speaking louder.
When I did my interview, I brought notes with me in case they asked me something that I had prepared for. It's a tad risky, and if you need to review your notes, you need to keep them off camera, and do it in a way that isn't noticeable. With that said, I didn't really need my notes. So I'm thankful that I didn't attempt to use them - it might have not gone well. So keep something like that in mind, you may be better off being mentally prepared rather than relying on notes like you can in a phone interview.
I don't know what other people's thoughts are about this. But I recommend that you try to use speakers if you can. Wearing a headset might look a bit goofy and might take away the feeling of a face to face interview. With that said though, if you need to use a headset, just let them know at the start that you don't have speakers, or they're broken/not loud, or that you don't have a working internal mic, so you need to use a headset so you can hear each other better. They should be fine with that.
Hopefully my input doesn't garner too much disagreement and is helpful.
Good luck!
Please shoot me a PM if you add me so I know to add you back.
Back when I was doing hiring interviews, I always really wanted a candidate to ask for a video chat interview as we gave the option but everyone always did face to face while I was there.
Think about what is valued in the job you are interviewing for and set up your background appropriately for this. Since you get to control so little in an interview, take advantage of being able to control the setting here. Keep in mind depending on the skills required to be shown on the interview that you might have to move the camera to show something else than the static background.
Just some thoughts. Keep us posted! These are my favorite Help/Advice threads. Good luck!
I know it was fine because Skype shows a picture of yourself in one of the corners so I could see exactly what they saw looking at me and I noticed that there was no glare when I did a test call with a friend. So yeah, I KNOW IT WAS FINE.
Beware... what Skype shows in the corner of your screen is not what the party on the other end sees.
Well, TIL, but I did test with my friend so I know it was fine. In the end, I got the job... so all is well that ends well
This can probably be locked unless anyone else has anything to add?
Oh, wow, yes this is extremely applicable.
This is crucial.
I'd encourage you not to over think it too much. Be yourself.
All great tips though, just picked up my suit from the dry cleaner as well.
I think she actually had to re-jigger her office because of the sunshine coming into her office at that time of day.
Seriously this. If they're not going to hire you because your home webcam set up is not optimal, you probably don't want to work for them anyway.