The pandemic has forced many things on us in terms of knowledge, skills, style, and application in all areas of the workforce. Employees are forced to change the way they worked in past. Hardly in a short span of time had the working style changed drastically. Hundreds of millions of people have made the abrupt shift to working from home; millions have lost jobs. The future looks uncertain. Despite initial fears that the pressure would be too great, we discovered that this new way of working could be a blueprint for the long term. That’s what leaders of many companies around the globe are finding as they responded to the COVID 19 crisis. Majority of businesses organizations have switched from an offline model to online model. The coronavirus has also forced the hiring process to go virtually right from hiring top talent, middle cadre and lower cadre employees. Both hirers and applicants are facing the music.

Modern technology has equipped the organizations with numerous tools which make hiring process much easier. High-speed broadband connections and VOIPs such as Skype, Slack, Viber and many others have not only allowed people to get in touch with each other for the sake of socializing, but they have also enabled companies to hire and recruit talent.

These days, more and more businesses are conducting online video interviews with potential employees. This approach has its advantages as well as disadvantages. Virtual interviews are transportation cost free, they speed up the interviewing process and allow hiring managers to interview non-local candidates.

Online interviews hardly take any time and efforts. Both parties can sit comfortably in their respective locations and engage in a conversation. Costs are minimal and a lot of time and energy can be saved. It helps both parties lot of time to analyse various objectives and viewpoints for assessing.

But on the flip side, if a candidate is answering an interview from a remote area, due to low wifi bandwidth the audio and video quality will hamper and the interviewer might develop a bias while evaluating the candidate and it might create ambiguity in the questions that are posed by the interviewer or the way the assessments are designed can be biased as well. Most importantly point to consider is all candidates must have access to a computer or internet. Connectivity problems can arise, making it difficult to communicate easily or to hear what the candidate is saying. And, delays can occur in transmission across the internet. If the interviewer is assessing psychometric assessment, it cannot be guaranteed that the  assessment will be done correctly while evaluating the candidate. It is difficult to read somebody virtually.

A personal or face to face interview is one that engages a normal and structured interview questionnaire for the interview. An interview is a two-way conversation initiated by an interviewer to gain information from a respondent. In an offline interview the interviewer picks up nonverbal cues. People behave and express themselves as a response to specific questions, especially stressful ones. When candidates want to make a point, their arm gestures, the way they are sitting, and their eye contact helps in understanding their confidence level and their listening skills.

Follow the tips given here below for an online interview:

Check the platform

Before logging on, ask the interviewer what the format is; whether it Is  an audio interview or both audio and video? Is there someone on the other end of the video or are the questions pre-recorded? If they are pre-recorded, how many chances do you get to record your answer?

Check the platform to connect with

For platforms like Zoom, Google meet, and Skype which are pretty user-friendly. But, it helps to feel familiar with the interface before you get on with your employer and realize you are trying to respond and still muted.

Lighting

Natural light coming through window light is best. Turn off any overhead lights if you are able to sit by a window because they will add a yellow or blue tint depending on the kind of lighting in your room. Light on your face will highlight your eyes and facial features.

Find out the best spot to conduct your online meeting the day before to make sure you are not rushing around before the interview. Make sure you have a stable table for your laptop. Use a box to lift the laptop up so that it gets from just below your shoulders to just above your head for a perfectly framed interview shot.

Keep the background normal

Do not use background screens, pictures they are distracting and unprofessional. Remove any clutter. Avoid odd things in the background like a bed, kitchen platform, or toilet. Don’t show how smart you are by stacking books on the table. Silence anything that could interfere with your conversation, including your phone and email notifications on your computer. It is rude to be interrupted during an interview unless you have an emergency situation that your potential employer is already going to be aware of. Make sure no one else is around when you are completing your interview, including pets.

Maintain the time

Being on time is most important. Being a little early by 10 minutes shows your professionalism. For a virtual interview, you may want to make sure you are ready and are interested in the job.

Dress code

Even though you are not meeting your interviewer in person, make sure to be dressed in suitable attire. Sit up straight, do not slouch. Remember first impression is the last impression. Don’t forget to smile! Whether you are talking to an actual person or recording your answers, smile the way you would during an in-person interview. Good posture makes you feel more confident, puts you in a better mood and communicates openness.

Don’t be nervous

Practice your main talking points if you are nervous please remember to slow down; it can be easy to talk over people on online calls. You may need to be slightly louder and more emphatic than you would be in person, since the screen is going to reduce a little bit of the impact you would have in person.

Eye contact

In the online environment, eye contact is important. The ability to maintain good eye contact is an important aspect of social interaction. People who look others in the eye are supposed to be friendly and confident.

Listen carefully

It’s easy to miss something important during an interview. It’s also sometimes very difficult to interrupt without an embarrassing mess of corresponding sound bites. Sometimes devices have speakers that don’t get very loud. You may want to consider connecting your laptop to external speakers or even headphones to get clearer sound. If you have any gaming or podcasting microphones, using one could really improve the quality of your voice for the call.

Body Language

Try and use engaged body language during the interview. It will help you answer with confidence and energy. Even if the call is just over the phone, the right posture will help you sound more friendly, open and sure of yourself.

On the flip side, slouching can cause you to feel tired and want to be done. Crossing your arms or your legs will look like you aren’t fully engaged and can actually cause a kind of mental block that makes it hard to really take in the information.

Make sure you are sitting up straight with your shoulders back and head up. This is something you will want to practice when you are getting your spot picked out.

Keep your points handy

While you might take a few notes of your own during the interview, write down also a brief list of things you want to say.

Respect yourself

Be yourself in the interview – genuine and authentic. This is your opportunity to express yourself of what you have mentioned in your resume; off paper. Try to loosen up your mind set and take cues from your interviewer.

Eye contact means a lot in non-verbal communication. It is very difficult to have a conversation with someone who avoids looking at you. Though we listen with our ears, eye contact does matter. In human being, eye contact is a form of nonverbal communication and is thought to have a large influence on social behaviour. The term eye contact was coined in the early 1960s; and it has been in practice since then. The act is a significant and an important sign of confidence in social communication. The study of eye contact is sometimes known as Oculesics.

If you have good eye contact with a person, it generally projects your interest in the person while talk to him/her and it shows that you want to listen what the person is saying. If you look down or away from a person rather than meeting his or her gaze, it projects your disinterest in him or her. If you neglect making eye contact with a person, it signifies you lack self-confidence.  People, who are self-assured and are convinced of what they are saying, have a clear eye contact.

Eye contact and facial expressions   are interlinked and they provide important sinals in conversation. I think, subconsciously we probe each other’s eyes and faces for approvals and disapprovals. Eye contacts stimulate strong emotions. It is an important element in showing fondness, flirting, love, romance, which serves to establish and determine interest in establishing relations. Mutual eye contact that signals attraction initially begins as a brief glance and progresses into a repeated volleying of eye contact. We all avoid eye contacts with strangers. Don’t we? If you frequently stare at somebody, it can impede the person’s privacy.

When people struggle to make eye contact with others, it shows that they are not confident. Failing to make eye contact suggests that the person is shy; it can also be taken as disrespect. Making eye contact for a longer than required indicates that a person is outgoing; but to some it might indicate aggression and over-confidence. So beware.

In interviews especially eye contacts are considered very important.  The panelists do observe your eye contact. Switching your eyes from left to right and back all the time will make you appear insecure, careless, and confused. Do you know, that one study says that left side of face is more expressive than right side? Our critical thinking is controlled by left side of brain and right side of brain controls emotions. It is also found that females have better eye contact than male.

How different cultures view eye contacts?

The customs and significance of eye contact vary broadly between different cultures.  Americans appreciate a good eye contact during conversation. In Spain, France and Germany also stable eye contact is appreciated. Maintaining constant eye contact is considered well mannered and polite.  In Western cultures eyes are considered to show the central point of a person’s focus.

In Middle Eastern culture, eye contact is less common, and considered less appropriate than in Western cultures. There are strict gender rules; women should not make too much eye contact with men as it can be misunderstood as romantic interest.

In Asian countries such as China and Japan, eye contact is not considered an essential element in social interaction, instead it is often considered inappropriate. These countries have an authoritarian culture, in which subordinates shouldn’t make steady eye contact with their superiors. For example, students are discouraged from making eye contact with their professors, as it can be interpreted as a sign of disregard.

Many African and Latin American cultures are strong in hierarchical societies. In many circumstances intense eye contact is seen as aggressive, provoking and really disrespectful. Friends, eye contact is subtly ingrained in societies. It is worth to know what it means in each culture before taking a trip to a country.

And, do you know, that although it is common in Western culture for adults to admire babies and young children and commenting upon how cute they are; this is totally avoided in Vietnamese culture for fear that these comments may be overheard by bad spirits and those spirits will try to steal the baby or otherwise cause some harm to it.