Successful interviews via video conferencing

Zoom and other video conferencing platforms have  become more popular (and as travel budgets have shrunk), conducting interviews through video conferencing has become more common. Many academic departments have been using video conferencing to interview “short listed” job candidates.  Regardless of the purpose or the people involved, there are some things that you may want to keep in mind if you are being interviewed via video conferencing technology.

What to wear:

• Try to avoid narrow stripes or tight geometric patterns. They don’t always do well with video cameras, creating a “buzzy” visual output.
• Dress as well for a video interview as you would for an interview in person.
•  I know a couple of people who joke about doing video interviews without pants. The joke will be on you if you find that you really, really need get up to grab something from your office (or if something catches fire). Just a thought. 

Where to conduct the interview:

• The viewer can see everything behind you. Your desk can be messy as long as it’s not in view of the camera.  While a cluttered bookshelf may display some prized possessions, people may extrapolate from a visual mess to the state of your personal or professional life. If you can turn your desk or computer so that the camera is shooting you in front of an empty wall, that is likely to be a better option.
• Beg your noisy roommates (or office mates) to be out of your space for the hour or so that you will be interviewed.
• Similarly, if you have young children, make sure you have childcare so that you can be interviewed without distractions or noise. YOU might not be bothered, but I can come very close to promising you that the people interviewing you (or viewing the recording) will be. The exception to this tip, of course, is if you’re interviewing to be a nanny or a childcare provider or other job where you are expected to be great with young kids. 
• Be conscious of the art behind you. If people are paying a lot of attention to your unusual or startling sense of aesthetics, they’re not paying as much attention to the content of what you’re saying. Everyone’s cognitive capacity is finite, no matter how intelligent they are, so don’t expect people to not think about the distractions that you’re putting in their way.
• I’m not a fan of interviews conducted in people’s kitchens (or bedrooms!), even if that’s where their “home offices” are located. The background visuals are usually very cluttered and the audio often echoes from all of the hard surfaces. If you have to, move your computer to the living room coffee table or at the very least, turn the computer to face a blank wall or an innocuous picture.
• A window in back of you may show up as a bright white light, particularly if sun is shining through it. “Go to the light” is probably not what you hope will be running through your viewers’/interviewers’ minds.

How to position your laptop or webcam:

• Do not have your laptop or camera lower than the tip of your nose. Otherwise, everyone will be looking up your nostrils. Most people are not at their most attractive from this angle. Use a t-square or a straight ruler to double check the angle from the camera to your nose. This more-or-less- straight ahead angle prevents the image of your face from being distorted due to a too-high or too-low angle.
• Keep in mind that different angles have different psychological implications. Viewers/interviewers may not appreciate you "looking down on them" but you also don't want to appear as though you're in an inferior position. Again, a straight-ahead view makes the most sense.  
• I keep a cardboard box or a stack of large books handy for Zoom meetings. This allows me to have good eye contact with the people I'm talking to.
• I think the most flattering light for video interviews is slightly above eye level and slightly off-center.  Extend a line from your chin to the upper left or right corner of your computer or laptop and you should be pretty close.  Try a lamp with a 40-watt bulb for a soft light that will be flattering for most people.

Final Tips:

• Remember that you will not look or sound exactly the way that you do in person. Do an initial test run with a friend (at the same time of day as your interview) to check to make sure that your light is flattering, that your location is without distraction, that your sound quality is good, and that your outfit “reads” well on camera.  
• Look into the camera (or to the part of your screen that’s as close to the camera as possible). The camera represents the “eyes” of your interviewer.  If you fail to make eye contact, your viewers will make all the same attributions that they would of anyone who does an in-person interview who doesn’t make eye contact. In other words, they may assume that you lack social competence (at best) or that you’re not trustworthy (at worst).
• Rehearse! My doctoral advisees rehearse the interview with me via video conferencing even though we sit (literally) 30 feet away from each other in our offices. (It is ideal to rehearse in the same location that you will do the interview.) The person you rehearse with can tell you if there are any issues with how you appear/interact on camera, and any behavioral "tics" you might be unaware of. Be prepared to answer questions about your dissertation (and timeline, if you haven't yet defended), why you are interested in this particular position, your program of research, and your specific teaching interests and abilities.

Academic interview tips for the field of Communication (and probably others!)

I often really enjoy interviewing people because the experience allows me to meet smart, interesting researchers outside of my own field. Based on my observations of interviews that go well (and those that don’t), I can offer the following tips to those of you about to go on an academic interview.

• If you have a 30-minute one-on-one session with individual faculty members in a department, you will look like a fool if you sit down across from them and cheerfully ask, “And so what do YOU do?” This might be unavoidable if the faculty member hasn’t published in 20 years, but if you’re talking to a prominent scholar inside or outside of your area of specialization, there’s simply no excuse.  

• Have one glass of wine with dinner (but not at lunch). No more, no less. The only exception is if no one else at your table orders anything to drink.  If the waiter asks you first, say that you’re still trying to decide. Observe what the rest of the table does before ordering. Resist the temptation to hit the hotel mini-bar when you get back if things didn’t go as well as you’d like over dinner. (First, you don’t want it to accidentally show up on the department’s bill when you leave. Second, you don’t want to be hung over for the second day of interviewing. Third, dinner probably wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought it was!)
• Do not order difficult food. You are likely to be doing much of the talking, unless you are particularly clever at asking questions that require lengthy answers. For appetizers, soups are easier than salads. Small bites of an entrée are more important than the type. Cut several small pieces ahead of the opportunity to eat. You can cut while you talk—and eat while they answer questions.
• If faculty members have a spat in front of you, never take sides. This is unavoidably awkward, but could happen almost anywhere that doesn’t plan events very carefully. Try to change the subject as best as you can. Failing that, excuse yourself to the restroom or to make a telephone call. If your hosts can’t pull themselves together while you’re gone, you should question whether or not you really want the job.
• Put a couple of granola bars in your briefcase or purse, especially if you are crossing time zones to interview-- or if your appetite is affected by nerves.   
• Rehearse your job talk. About 20 times, at least. Not in your head. Here’s a possible sequence:
  1. Rehearse on your own several times, adjusting your script to eliminate awkward phrasing. Get it to the point where you feel pretty good about it. Make sure it times out within the target range. In the communication field, the length of time for a typical research talk is about 45 minutes (which is followed by 15 minutes of questions).
  2. Rehearse first for a best friend(s) or partner. You should be generally understandable, even to someone outside the field or even academe.  Revise as recommended for basic coherence and organization. Not everyone who hears your talk may be in your field, and not everyone is particularly brilliant. You should have something to offer everyone.  
  3. Rehearse for your advisor or a colleague. If you have a good advisor/colleague (AND you have been a good student/colleague), they will be eager to help you. Revise as recommended.  
  4. Then, rehearse for as large and as diverse of a group of people as you can possibly gather. If you are a reasonably likeable person, you should be able to press into service at least 3-5 people to listen to you deliver a job talk. Bring snacks. Thank them profusely. Then, revise your job talk as recommended. You dismiss their critiques at your peril.
  5. Rehearse in front of a mirror. A lot. Consider video recording your rehearsal. Check your nonverbals and adjust as necessary. Note any spots in your job talk that you dread. That's a sign that you should re-work for flow (or to sustain interest, especially your own). If you’re wearing heels or other clothing type you’re not accustomed to, rehearse in those shoes and clothes. Basically, you want to rehearse so many times that if a really cranky senior scholar is in the audience and pulls a terrible face in the middle of your talk, your mouth will babble on in some form of auto-pilot while your poor brain does back flips of despair. Later, people will congratulate you on your brilliance and unflappability. (You will discover they were all rooting for you as they were holding their own breaths!) 

What you SHOULD do:

• Research every member of the faculty carefully.  Create a cheat sheet with a thumbnail photos and a summary of each person’s area of specialization.  You can print them on notecards or fold the sheet into something pocket sized that you can take with you to a restroom or café to jog your memory before you next appointment
• If this is a job you really want, list a couple of talking points or questions about each person’s area or recent/key publications. In particular, you want to highlight areas of overlap of interests between you and your interviewers. In my experience, only people who are defensive or territorial will be overly concerned with “redundancies” among the faculty. Most people look for areas of syncronicity or similarity.
• Favor “friendly” over “smart” during your interview. You got the interview because you were eminently qualified. One of the biggest things people are looking for during the lengthy interview process is a set of characteristics that would make someone a good colleague.  
•  “Likeability” =  social attractiveness + task attractiveness + physical attractiveness + similarity. In other words, be as outgoing and as social as possible. Emphasize areas of commonality. Show interest in others by asking reasonably intelligent questions about them. Dress as well as you can.  (Be neat and clean and well-pressed, at the very least.) Talk about some of the ways that you have been professionally beneficial to colleagues in the past.  This may include taking prospective students/faculty to lunch, staffing open house events, and mentoring new students/faculty.
• Prepare a list of questions that you would like to ask potential new colleagues, department heads, Deans, and students (both undergraduate and graduate, if applicable). People are impressed when job candidates demonstrate an awareness of the unique features of a university and a department specifically. Similarly, there is nothing quite so disappointing as a candidate who shrugs and says that he/she can’t think of any questions to ask.  If you have trouble thinking of good questions to ask, talk to your advisor or a colleague who has been on the job market recently.

Still worried about your job talk?  
Here's an excellent piece published in the Chronicle on "Mistakes to avoid during a job talk": 
http://chronicle.com/article/Bloopers-to-Avoid-in-Job/137449/