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4 Ingredients to a Winning Video Interview Environment [Updated]

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Video Interview

video interviewIf you are in the job market it is highly likely you will have a video interview. Interviews are given via Skype,  Zoom or a variety of other platforms. The key to a successful video interview is to look and, more importantly, sound your best.

Even though you might think that having really good video is paramount, but it is more important to have high-quality audio. The audio quality is more important than the video.

Let me take you through the 4 ingredients of a winning video interview environment.

Note: This post was originally published in April of 2017 and was updated in November 2018.

Room Selection

The room environment where you will be interviewed is key. You want good, consistent lighting and excellent acoustics. Pick a room that is devoid of hard surfaces (like tile or wood floors), glass table tops, or lots of windows. It should also have carpeting and possibly drapes on the walls.

Hard surfaces distort the audio by causing the sound waves to reflect and creating a tinny audio effect. This can be quite annoying to the interviewer and will detract from your interview performance.

When I record my podcasts, I am in my master bedroom closet where the hanging clothes create a studio-like audio environment. You probably cannot hold a video interview in your closet, but you get the point. You will want to position yourself in the room where you are less than six feet from a wall. If your webcam has an autofocus feature you will want the camera to focus on you and not something behind you. A little trick is to buy a simple room divider with smooth paper surfaces and place it behind you.

If you select the right room for your video interview everything else becomes so much easier.

Lighting

You want even, full-spectrum lighting on the front of your face. If this is an office, the lighting will be from above and this creates a shadow under your chin. This is the 10 pounds we gain on video.

If you are at home, much of the artificial lighting will be from the side as most home lights are designed to put light on working surfaces. You may have natural lighting and most of the time it will come from the side and light up half of you.

Natural lighting is problematic in that it changes throughout the day and changes due to weather conditions. What looks good one day when you are practicing interviewing may look dark during the actual interview.

It is best to use simple lighting for your interviews. I would start by purchasing two inexpensive desk lamps and install full-spectrum light bulbs. This is a very inexpensive solution.

The cost of LED lighting has come down so much that a professional light kit like the one I bought can be had for less than $140.

These lights will act as key lights and give you even lighting. Place these pointing up at your face on the left and right. Finally, close all of the window shades. Do not spend more than $150 on the lighting. You may already have the lamps in your house or office. I would invest in some good LED or fluorescent full spectrum light bulbs.

Audio

In the world of high definition video, your audio is more important than your video. Our tolerance for poor audio is much lower than for video. You will want to sound great.

If you have picked the room properly, with sound deadening materials, this is fairly easy. Use a set of headphones. These could be the earbuds from your cell phone. You can run the wire underneath the back of your shirt so they do not show. This will eliminate any chance of an echo.

If you use headphones you can use the microphone built into your computer. However, I prefer to use a USB condenser microphone. I use an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone that I purchased with a pop filter for less than $75.

Audio gear has come down in price significantly in the last 10 years. It is definitely worth the money to spend a little bit of money on a high-quality microphone.

Clothing, Body and Camera Positioning

Pick clothes that have color and look good on you. For most of us guys, we will need to ask for help. Avoid patterns on shirts, jackets, and ties. The cameras have gotten a lot better at dealing with patterns, but it is still best to avoid them.

It is best to be standing up when being interviewed. You will be able to use your hands naturally. Most of us will be more energetic when standing versus sitting and your diaphragm will be able to expand more easily giving you a more powerful tone.

Elevate the computer so that the camera is at the same level as the top of your head. You might get some boxes or books and put your computer on top to get it to the correct level.

Since you will only be on video from the waist up, wear shoes that will not generate any noise when you move around. Flip flops work great. The most important feature is to be in an environment where you feel comfortable. You are on stage and you want to give your best performance. Much has been written on how to perform during a video interview.

Bonus tip – tape a picture of a person where their head is directly above the camera. When you speak,  look at that picture as this will simulate making eye contact with the interviewer.

A great performance can come across poorly without the right environment.

As you can see, this is not hard. You just need to do some planning.

What do you plan to do for your next video interview?

Marc Miller  

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It Is Permissible To Be A Pest In Your Job Search

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Being a Pest is not Just Permissible it is Required

PestI cannot tell you the number of times I have heard from the unemployed, I do not want to be a pest. They may get angry with me and reject me.

If you want to get the attention of a prospective employer, you may very well have to be a pest, a nice persistent pest but a pest none the less.

You may reach out to a prospective employer by sending an email or calling them and leaving a voicemail and then you get nothing, it feels like a black hole.

Many of you will stop right there and give up. No, you need to be persistent.

Check out my post called 3 Steps to Get the Hiring Manager or Recruiter to Respond which explains that it sometimes takes 3 touches to get a response. You are being a pest!

The reality is you have no idea why some hiring managers or recruiters have not responded.

Let me give you some recent examples.

Dragging Their Feet Hiring Example

Sometimes, hiring organizations just drag out the hiring process for a whole variety of reasons:

  • Budget issues
  • Disagreement on what would make a good candidate
  • Turf war on who this position will report to
  • Changing market conditions
  • Hiring manager goes on vacation
  • Recruiter’s mother gets ill and has to take 2 weeks off to take care of her
  • Hiring manager’s dog gets attacked by a pit bull and drops everything to take care of her dog

I can tell you all of these have happened and none of these reasons would have been evident to you.

Sam is a member of the Career Pivot Community and had multiple job opportunities that just went dormant. He had not heard anything from any of them in a couple of months.

By not being a pest and following up, he started to suffer from MSU disorder, he just made stuff up in his head.

Follow Up Email

Sam sent the following email to all of these dormant opportunities:

Dear hiring manager or recruiter,

I have not heard from you in several months. I wanted to follow up with you and see if I am still in the running because I have several other opportunities in the pipeline.

If I am no longer being considered please let me know and let me know if I can be of any help in filling the position.

Thanks

Sam

This follows the process described in the post 3 Steps to Get the Hiring Manager or Recruiter to Respond where when you offer the hiring manager an out, and you are still in the running, they will respond immediately.

He sent 5 emails and received 3 emails back in less than a day stating that each opportunity was still open and he was being considered. In all 3 situations, the hiring organizations were dragging their feet in the hiring process.

Why did he not follow up sooner? He did not want to be a pest.

He is now following the poke, poke and poke some more method of follow up. Be a persistent pest, a nice pest but still a pest.

Overly Busy CEO

Charles is also a member of the Career Pivot Community and is executing a long-distance job search. He wants to find a job before he makes a move, and one of his most recent visits to the place where he wants to relocate, he met the CEO of a company that was a really good fit for Charles. The CEO was looking for a VP of operations, he was in his early 50s, Charles is around 60 years of age, and they really hit it off.

The CEO told Charles to look him up the next time he was in town. Before his next visit, Charles sent the CEO an email and got no response. He later texted him and did get a non-committal response about getting together.

Charles made the trip and could not arrange a meeting. He continued to text the CEO regularly, every 3-5 days.

CEO eventually got back to Charles and set up a meeting. What surprised Charles was that the CEO thanked him for being so persistent. The CEO told him that he was really a marketer and did not know much about operations. He knew he needed a really good operations person but kept putting it off. It was Charles being a pest that eventually got him an interview.

Charles will be waiting on the outcome of that interview in the coming weeks by still being a pest.

It is Okay to be a Pest

Just like in Charles situation, the CEO appreciated his persistence. Charles did not know that the CEO was just procrastinating about hiring a VP of Operations. How would he have known?

When we do not know something or there is a void in our knowledge about a situation, we all have the habit of wanting to fill that void or Make Stuff Up.

Instead, we can be a pest and poke and poke and poke. Remember I said to be a nice pest but be persistent so that you can fill that void in your knowledge.

You may not get a response and you will probably never know why. More often than not, being a pest will get you a response.

Have you been a pest? Has it paid off for you?

Marc Miller  

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The Purple Cow Job Description – Should I Apply? [Updated]

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Purple Cow Job Description?

Purple Cow Job DescriptionI guarantee you have read a purple cow job description. It’s one of those that, when you finished reading it, you said to yourself:

I am not qualified for this job but…is anyone?

They are looking for the purple cow. The ideal candidate does not exist!

I am going out on a limb to say that most job descriptions are badly written.

In my last corporate job, I had an open position to fill. I had to write a job description. Did I know how to write a job description? NO!

I went onto Indeed.com and searched for openings with the same job title. When I found one I liked, I copied it!

Did I know what a good description should look like? NO!

I am sure that the job description I picked was as vague as any other one I had ever seen.

I was expanding my team for a training and certification program. I wanted a technical trainer who was familiar with the program and was already certified. We had certified less than a thousand people worldwide. The candidate needed to have five years of technical training experience and be located in Austin, Texas.

The odds of finding someone who was certified in the topic, had five years of experience as a technical trainer AND lived in Austin, was close to ZERO! No, it WAS ZERO.

I was looking for the Purple Cow!

Did I write the job description saying I wanted everything? YES!

Note: This post was originally posted in August of 2014 and updated in September of 2018

Dissecting the Job Description

We will want to look at:

  • High-level job description
  • Responsibilities
  • Requirements/Qualifications
  • Education

(More: Is the Resume Still Relevant? )

High-Level Job Description

Can you honestly see yourself in this job? One of the problems with high-level job descriptions is they are so vague. Do not write yourself off even if it does not look like a fit just yet.

Perform a Google search using the high-level job description and see what comes up.

Responsibilities/Description

Read through this section carefully. Have you actually performed more than half of the responsibilities described? If so, you are probably qualified.

More importantly, do you want to have all of these responsibilities? For those of us in the 2nd half of life, we do not want the grind of lower-level tasks.

Requirements/Qualifications

Check out each item in the requirements/qualifications section of the job description:

  • How many of the requirements/qualifications do you have? Make sure you meet at least half of the requirements/qualifications.
  • Do you have equivalent requirements/qualifications? Do you have existing skills that you can map to what is in the job description? How long would it take, given your current experience, to attain what is needed?

Take some time to diagram out how your experience directly relates to these requirements. Creating a visual will help you determine whether this is a good fit for you, and give you a way to explain why you are a good fit.

Education

Do you have:

  • All of the required educational credentials?
  • The preferred educational credentials?
  • The experience that can be substituted for any of the credentials?

One way to get around having all of the educational credentials is to put in your resume a statement like the following:

20 years of experience in xxxxxx…in lieu of an MBA.

This will often get you past the applicant tracking systems and at least get you a phone interview for you to prove your worth.

(More: What Does Your Resume Say About Your Age? )

Gender

Havard Business Review recently published an article Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified. Basically, the author opens the article with the statement:

You’ve probably heard the following statistic: Men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them.

Women appear to be especially susceptible to the Purple Cow job description and will tend not to apply.

Ladies, is this true based on your experience?

Do Not Be Afraid of the Purple Cow

The purple cow job description is an outgrowth of the explosion of technology that has been injected into the hiring process. The fact is, most companies do not use this technology effectively, or to be blunter, they do not know how to hire. You may want to read my post on 5 Things You Will Never Know About the Hiring Process on how broken the hiring process is at some companies.

Lastly, if you are following a targeted job search strategy, you will have an internal contact within the company. Ask your contact to find out what the hiring manager is really looking for!

Your next job is going to come via a relationship.

Have you encountered a Purple Cow job description?

Marc Miller  

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Over 50 and Unemployed? Your Next Gig will not be Your Last.

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Your Next Gig will not be Your Last

Your Next Gig
Copyright: dmitryguzhanin / 123RF Stock Photo

You heard me right when I say your next gig or job will not be the last. It will likely be temporary; to assist you to get your bearings and get you back on your feet.

I have had this discussion with several individuals in the Career Pivot Online Community in the last several weeks. They are over 50, and sometimes over 60, have been unemployed for over 6 months, and are still looking for that ideal job. They are starting to show what I refer to as unemployment fatigue.

The stress of being unemployed at this time of life is starting to get to them. This shows up in speech patterns, weight gain, sleep problems, and other signs of stress. They need to go back to work to re-establish patterns and give them a sense of self-worth.

This is especially prevalent among individuals who come from industries that are in a downward spiral or being affected by creative destruction. I explain to them that their next gig or job will be suboptimal. They just need to go back to work.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

From Wikipedia:

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review.[2] Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow used the terms “physiological”, “safety”, “belonging and love”, “esteem”, “self-actualization”, and “self-transcendence” to describe the pattern through which human motivations generally move. The goal of Maslow’s Theory is to attain the sixth level or stage: self-actualization needs.[3]

When you are unemployed without the financial assets that allow you to live without employment income, i.e. you are able to retire or you have enough FU money to do what you want, then you need a job to meet the bottom 2 levels of the pyramid. You need an income to feel secure, put food on the table and have a roof over your head.

If someone offers you a job in your area of expertise, you will take it. It may not be exactly what you want, but you will take it.

I know, I know, many of you will push back and say, “But what if the right job shows up a couple of weeks or months in the future? You will have blown it!”

You will take the job, but you will not stop your job search.

Hey, what about loyalty to your employer?

Will your employer be loyal to you? NOPE!

Why should you be loyal to them?

Next Gig Example #1

Larry is a project manager, over 65 and has been unemployed for 18 months. He has managed many large complex technology projects throughout his career. The major employers who he has worked for over the years have abandoned the city where he lives. There is little work for him and he needs to reinvent himself if he wants to continue to work.

Out of the blue, a contract project managers job was presented to him in a related industry but it was in manufacturing and not development. It was for half the money he made previously.

Should he take it? The answer he got from just about everyone was not just yes but H*LL YES!

Larry needed to go back to work. Get up every day, put on work clothes, and re-establish patterns.  Going back to work is a great time to re-establish patterns in our life. Almost immediately, I saw changes in Larry that he did not see. He was clearer in his communications, walked with a little more life in his step and just appeared happier.

This was just his next gig and not the last gig.

He will be a much better candidate and hopefully land the job he wants after he has been on the job for a few months. This is an intermediate position and not the final position.

Next Gig Example #2

Sarah had been unemployed for 18 months and was reinventing herself as a business analyst by attaining a BA certificate from the local community college.

She was courting a variety of staffing agencies looking for a contract business analysis position and she got a call from one of the agencies that had a temp position for a spreadsheet jockey. The local hospital chain had been acquired and they were moving the entire accounting function to another city. A large consulting firm was brought in to manage the project and they need someone with good MS Excell skills to grind through data. It was a grunt job from Sarah’s perspective.

Sarah took the job with my encouragement. Like with Larry, she put on her work clothes every day, went to work, worked with smart people and started to rebuild her self-esteem.

This was just her next gig. It was 5 months before she was offered a full-time contract business analyst position with a large technology company. I do not believe she would have gotten the job if she had not been working at the “grunt spreadsheet jockey” job. Her attitude improved, she presented herself with confidence, her basic needs in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs were being met.

Your Next Gig Will not be the Last

Sometimes when you have been unemployed for an extended period of time, you need to take what is available to rebuild your self-confidence. This makes you a better candidate.

I know, I know you do not want to take a step back but sometimes you need to ‘suck it up’ and take what is available.

The key message is: do not stop looking as it is not your last gig!

Marc Miller  

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Waiting is not a Job Search Strategy [Updated]

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Waiting is not a Strategy

waitingMost of you are waiting on a:

  • Job to be posted
  • Recruiter to respond after submitting your resume to a job posting
  • Recruiter to respond after a phone screen
  • Hiring manager after an interview

I know, I know you do not want to be a pest or appear to too forward. Well…be a pest. Be a polite pest – but be a pest. Pursue what you want.

Most importantly…STOP WAITING!

Waiting for a Position to be Posted

Approximately 80 percent of positions are never posted. So why are you waiting? The days of thinking you are going to get a job by applying online are over for most of us in the 2nd half of life. If you were 20 years younger and looking at junior positions, then maybe applying online might work.

The hiring process at many companies is broken. You will want to check out my post 5 Things You Will Never Know About the Hiring Process. Your belief that that the system is fair and equitable is very outdated.

Your next job will come through a relationship. Go work your network, work your network and then … work your network some more.

Use the Targeted Job Search approach by targeting companies and quit chasing “the job.”

Build a list of companies who are capable of hiring you. Use LinkedIn advanced search to find companies that hire people with skills like yours. Approach potential peers and hiring managers, telling them about the problems you solve.

Stop waiting for a position to be posted!

Waiting is not a job search strategy!

Waiting to hear from Someone after Submitting Your Resume

Immediately, seek out a company contact if you see a position posted or hear about a job through your network as a huge percentage of positions are filled through referrals. Do not wait and find a referral first!

At the same time, very aggressively, reach out to recruiters or HR professionals in the company to find out who is hiring for the position. Your goal will be to have a discussion with the hiring manager.

Waiting is not a job search strategy.

The strategy of my fellow Launch Pad Job Club board member, Jim Adcock, was to reach out to recruiters and ask, “I wanted to make sure you received my resume. The sexual nature of my last name sometimes causes my resume to get caught in SPAM filters.”

Yes, this strategy works!

Waiting for a Response after a Phone Screen with a Recruiter

It is very common for recruiters to have up to 60 positions to fill at any one time. Call the recruiter 24 hours after the initial phone screen. Be courteous but persistent. You want to stay on the top of their mind.

Be a pest, a polite pest but a pest none the least.

The important point here is to call them. Leave them a voicemail if they do not answer.

I know, I know you sent them an email and you have not heard back. When people are getting hundreds of emails every day, it just makes sense to call the recruiter and be persistent. If you do not hear back, call them again in a day or so. Do not wait a week to call them back. Be persistent.

Waiting is not a job search strategy!

Waiting for a Response after an In-Person Interview

Make sure and get business cards and contact information from everyone you interview with. Ask for their business cards at the beginning of every interview. If they decide you are not the right candidate during the interview, they may not offer you their business card at the end.

Similar to waiting for a response after a phone screen, you want to follow up quickly and be persistent.

If you do not hear from them after several weeks, use the Take-Away Closing Technique  by calling the hiring manager and leaving them the following message:

I am presuming that you are no longer interested in me for the XYZ position. If you have not found your ideal candidate, I would be happy to recommend someone else for the position. Let me know if I can be of any help to you in filling this position.

If the hiring manager is still interested in you, they will reach out to you quickly. Earlier in my career, if I wanted someone to call me back, I would leave the following message:

Hey Larry, could you call me back about the planned gold shipment.

Larry would usually call me back because he wanted to know about this supposed gold shipment…which was fictitious.

Be Persistent and Quit Waiting

The idea for this blog post came from a presentation by Gary O’Neal, who presented at Launch Pad Job Club.

You may want to listen to my interview with Gary on the Repurpose Your Career Podcast called Gary O’Neal on Looking for a Job in the 2nd Half of Life [Podcast] where Gary talks about how he would approach a job search. He would not be waiting but be proactive.

Gary made it very clear that recruiters and hiring managers would like to respond to every applicant. The reality is that they have way too much on their plate. For every job posted, on average, there are 180 applicants.

The hiring process is broken at oh so many companies. Technology has made it way to easy to post and apply for positions that there is a glut of information that clogs up the system.

If you want to get hired for a job in the 2nd half of life, you need to quit waiting, be persistent and be a pest!

Marc Miller  

Be sure to check out the Career Pivot Client Testimonials Page

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