If you’re preparing for a phone or video interview, here are all the things you should think about, courtesy of some great comments HR professionals and interviewers have sent us (for each point, I’ve also linked to the full comment talking about it):

• Make sure your camera is aligned to your face properly (link)
• Pretend like you’re there in person (link)
• To ensure your setup is working properly, test with a friend or family member first (link)
• Get rid of any clutter (link)
• Be patient (link), and be comfortable with silence (link)
• Rather than looking at yourself on camera, look at your interviewer and try to make eye contact with them instead (i.e. look directly at your webcam) (link). See if the platform you’re using has an option to hide yourself, as is easily done on Zoom for example (link)
• Choose your background very carefully (link)
• Find common ground early if you can to minimize the feeling of separation which is common in phone and video interviews (link)
• Don’t forget to smile (link)
• The advantage of phone and video interviews is you can have plenty of notes with you to refer to at any time, so make use of this (you can keep them out of sight of the interviewer) (link)
• Things will sound much better both for you and the interviewer with headphones (link)

If you’ve paid attention to all these points and you’ve also studied how to succeed in job interviews in general (see our piece on job interview tips here), you should be well prepared for your phone or video interview. Good luck!

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