Sometimes the most useful thing a recruiter can do is provide practical advice.
Post COVID, the interview process has reinvented itself and first stage meetings are almost always virtual and relatively short. This is difficult for clients and candidates alike. For clients, balancing selling the company and listening to the candidate is challenging and is sometimes skewed away from attracting and towards assessment; for candidates it’s the opportunity to establish rapport and to demonstrate that you would be great in the company’s role without real eye contact or clear nonverbal cues.
It’s easy to assume that clients and candidates are equally comfortable and competent video callers; after all we’re all experts now. It’s a fact that we’re human and the combination of nerves and technology is not always a winner, so while a laugh and a joke can go a long way at these tricky moments, there are a few simple steps we can take to be at our best.
Here are a few hints and tips:
- Check the meeting link / software at least 15 minutes before your meeting to avoid those adrenalin fuelling glitches that can make the start of a meeting a bit awkward.
- Be prepared. If there is a problem connecting, call the person you are meeting with and work together to agree an alternative plan. Do this as soon as you know there’s an issue.
- Sit in a quiet area and make sure that you are happy with what people can see behind you. If you are not, you have options: you can move, blur your background if the software permits or choose an appropriate virtual background – probably not the tropical paradise for most occasions…
- Make sure that the person you are talking to can see your whole face and some upper body. This positioning will make the virtual feel a little more dynamic. As you move a bit and use your hands as we do when we chat, you are communicating more naturally, and people are benefiting from an element of non-verbal communication too.
- Prepare thoroughly and then try as much as you can to be present in the meeting and to trust yourself to answer questions well. If you do need to use notes, position them in front of you so that you are still looking at the camera while you refer to them.
- When bandwidth gets in the way, feel comfortable checking understanding of an answer or a question.
- Technology is not infallible in the same way that trains can be delayed or there can be traffic on a motorway which can make you late. What separates the confident and polite, is the ability to come up with an alternative way of getting things done. Poise and logic will always win the day.