From the course: Remote Interviewing Techniques for Creative Jobs

What's different about remote interviews

From the course: Remote Interviewing Techniques for Creative Jobs

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What's different about remote interviews

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- Anytime when you're not face to face with the person you're talking to it's harder to get the full range of tone, facial expressions, and body language that happens in a normal conversation. The lower the bandwidth the harder it gets to really read the mood of the person you're talking to. So email is harder than a phone call which is harder than a video conference. And that's the big difference about remote interviews because we can't see all the different types of nonverbal communication that happened in face-to-face interactions. We have less information about what the other person means when they say things like, "That's interesting". Are they being honest? Sarcastic? Using humor? The lower the bandwidth the harder it is to tell. Turn-taking is more difficult as well. You might not sense the normal cues that mean the other person has finished talking and that it's your turn to say something. Did they finish or are they just quiet while they think? Are they nodding in agreement or rolling their eyes? Of course, there are some benefits to remote interviews too. You can keep your notes handy to refer to. Interview sessions are generally spread further apart than in-person so you have more time to rest in between. There's no travel involved so less worries about being ready on time, potentially being in an unfamiliar hotel room overnight or navigating around an unfamiliar city. The thing is companies have used phone screens as an initial assessment of candidates for ages and video conversations are much more common now in our everyday lives as well as an interview situations. So the downsides of the lower bandwidth connections is pretty much universally understood and accepted by companies who are hiring. And so if you can deal with those downsides that just leaves the upsides. You can conduct the interview from a familiar location with the information you need at your fingertips. You can save time and feel fresh too. So let's look in more detail the things you can do to improve your chances in phone interviews and video interviews.

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