How to Prepare for a Virtual or Video Interview

In this chapter

A video interview is still the same questions.

It is not the same hour. They see a rectangle: your face, your audio, your background, your ability to share a window without a five-minute apology. Presence has to travel through a microphone. Fidgets get closer. Silence feels longer. Interruptions are visible.
High search volume here is not a coincidence.

People fail good answers on bad setup, or they over-produce a “studio” and sound like a broadcast. The job is to be easy to hear and easy to look at, then do the work of the earlier chapters.
Confirm the tool (Meet, Teams, Zoom, a vendor platform), the link, and whether you need an app or a browser.

Do this the day before, on the machine you will use, on the network you will use. Hotel Wi-Fi and a first-time install are not a morning-of experiment.

Camera at eye height, not a laptop on your knees.

Face a window or a lamp - do not sit with a bright window behind you. Headphones with a mic beat a laptop mic in an echoey room. Test mute, unmute, and screen share once. Close the tabs you will not share. Notifications off. Phone on do-not-disturb except the number you gave them.
Background: tidy and boring.

A virtual background that crops your ear is worse than a plain wall. If other people share the space, a closed door and a note on it is part of prep, not a luxury.
Have a glass of water, the posting or proxy spec on paper or a second screen not in camera, and the invite details.

Looking down at notes is allowed in small doses. Reading paragraphs is obvious. Looking at your own thumbnail the whole time is also obvious.

Look at the camera when you land a point, at the screen when you need to read a face.

You will not do this perfectly. Drift toward the lens more than toward the wallpaper of your own video.
Speak slightly slower than in person.

Compression eats consonants. Pause after answers - latency makes overlap into a fight. If you talk over them, stop, apologize in three words, let them finish.
Energy: one notch more than you think you need, not a keynote.

Flat reads as checked-out on camera. Performing reads as sales. Sit on the front of the chair. Hands can show. Swiveling and checking Slack cannot.

When you share, share the window, not the desktop, unless they ask for the desktop.

Hide the dock and the slack badge. If you are walking through work, have the file open already. Hunting through folders on a recorded call is a long minute.
If audio dies, say so in chat, switch to phone, or rejoin.

Do not sit in silence hoping it is them. If their video freezes, keep talking for a sentence, then check. A short “I think we dropped” is adult. A monologue into the void is not.
Someone walks in: acknowledge, mute, handle it, come back.

Pretending a child or a delivery did not happen is stranger than ten honest seconds. Pets are only charming if they do not become the interview.

Join two to three minutes early.

Waiting rooms are normal. Late plus “the link didn’t work” with no screenshot and no email is a story they have heard.
Do not eat.

Do not drive. Do not take the call walking down a street unless they explicitly agreed to a phone screen. A video invite means they wanted a face.
Recording: if they record, assume it is real.

If you want to record, ask. Do not secretly record. After the call, use the same note-taking discipline as an onsite — the next chapter on panels and the later chapter on the hour after still apply.

You are done when a friend can do a two-minute test call and report: they can hear you, see your eyes, and you can share a window without panic.

Then you forget the setup and do the interview.
If several people will be on the call, read the panel chapter next.

Video plus a panel stacks two rooms. Prep both, or you will only survive the technology.

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