Have a remote interview? How to prepare?
Interviewing for a job in the days of COVID can be worrying. However, getting your remote interviewing skills sharpened up means that you may be able to work from anywhere as well as working for a company in another country. Whether you are in person or on-screen, take the time to prepare so you can show off your confidence and competence.
Get Somewhere Quiet
Make sure that your background space is quiet. If you have children or pets, hire a sitter or go to a friend’s house. You want all your focus to be on the interviews. They are interested in hiring candidates who work remotely; they know you will face distractions. Interviewing questions for interviews in a quiet space will help you.
Use a Basic Background
Unless you are one of the candidates applying for a creative position, use a blank wall or a basic background while answering questions for interviews. Wear something on top that offers some contrast, but don’t wear a white shirt in front of a black background; it will make your face disappear above the brightness of the shirt. Choose a grey, tan or pale blue background so you can appear cool and collected in front of it.
Dress From Top to Bottom
For your confidence, make sure that your shoes match your pants. Even if you never stand up in front of these folks, your experience in interviews will be less stressful if you match top and bottom. Of course, your potential employer knows that candidates may be wearing sweats, basketball shorts or nothing on the bottom, but you deserve to have the confidence to stand up and move around if you need to.
Check Your Tech
When hiring candidates for remote work, employers need to know that you know how to handle the tech on your end. If you’re having a Zoom interview, test it by enjoying a Zoom meeting with friends and family at about the same time on the days before the interview. Your video and audio will need to function easily. This may mean heading to private space with better internet than is available in your home depending on the time of day.
Arrive Early
Get to your interview early so you can test everything one last time. Should you hit a glitch, let your interviewer know immediately and find out their best option. For example, if you have video but no audio, you can offer to run the interview from your phone. If you have audio but no video of yourself, take a quick photo of yourself and post it. Finally, if you need to move the time of the interview because nothing is working, do so as soon as you know something isn’t working. You might also have backup. If you were going to interview on your laptop but it isn’t working, having your tablet set up long before the interview appointment will save stress and worry.
The world of work has changed tremendously in the past 18 months. If you are interested in remote work, consider looking for tutorials on the best tech choices to increase your options for connecting to potential employers and clients.
