How to Make Your Skype Interview a Success

As a student, you should also learn effective professional and business communication. One important part of this is how to apply for jobs after graduation. You also use this knowledge and skills now as a student to get jobs to help you pay for your education and even living costs.

Whether you are applying for a job as a student or as a graduate, one important part is the interview. And in today’s modern times, technology plays a crucial part and the job application interview may now also be conducted through high technology means. Some jobs require that, or are better off if, the competing candidates are screened and selected through, along with other means, an interview through Skype or audio-visual means in general.

Skype Interviews

Interviews through video or Skype specifically – on top of testing the required or preferred level of computer skills and modern communication skills of applicants – also help employers to save time and travel costs. Company officers who need or want to interview applicants for a far off-site location of the company now do so by means of the video or Skype interview.

Video or Skype interview have developed a significant and continuing usage by employers. According to a Right Management survey tracking technology’s growing role in job hunt, 19% of hiring managers and recruiters have started using video interviews starting 2012.

Being a student, learning how to prepare and do Skype interviews is part of being ready for applying for graduate jobs especially for those who are in the last term of their degree programmes. The same is true for those in the lower years who are applying for student jobs now.

Learn now how to prepare and do Skype or video interviews, be ready to succeed in any video interview that will come your and get that job. Here are some tips on how to make your interview through video or Skype a success.

Good Web Cam and Internet

A good web cam is very important. The video or Skype interview is the new version of the face-to-face interview. Thus, it should be able to facilitate the same or almost the same effect. You need to have a web can that is good enough to capture and show your face to the interviewer clearly. Position your web cam properly to be more effective. A good internet connection is also necessary so that you and the interviewer can hear each other clearly.

Video Background

In a Skype or video interview, you are also the host of the venue of the interview in a way. Your background during the interview will be seen by the interviewer and may affect your chances for success in getting the job. It will give an impression about you. See to it that everything that will be caught in cam is clean and orderly and that you and your background is clear.

Prepare

Prepare your computer and connection. Aside from preparing your set up to make sure that the background is clean and orderly, the place is appropriately lit and your face is clear to the interviewer – you should also make sure that your computer and internet is ready.

Conduct a test run with a friend on each of the two days before the interview and on the day itself on each of the two hours before the interview to make sure that everything is ready and also still have time to make adjustments if needed.

Be Honest

During the interview, if you experience difficulties like not being able to hear the interviewer clearly or at all, you should honest with them and tell them. This way, they can fix the problem at their end.

Dress Properly

The Skype or video interview is just as formal and professional as the face-to-face interview. So, just the same, be professional and appear professional. Wear the appropriate attire.

Wearing the right outfit during a video interview will not only enable you to appear professional and serious about the job, it will also enable you to think better and answer questions better because of your feel of your attire.

Your better performance is enabled by the feel of what you are wearing and the better posture to which it contributed. With the proper attire, you will be more confident and appear to be so in the right way. This also leads us to another set of tips and what they do to help you.

Posture and Gesture

As the right attire contributes to appropriate positive posture, it also does with gesture. With the proper outfit goes the preferable gestures also. Gesture is important in communication. Wearing the proper attire is a gesture of your professionalism and your interest in the job. And aside from this, you also need to show more gestures and develop a good communication relationship with the video interviewer.

An interview through Skype or video can be short and, so, you should develop and establish a positive communication relationship with the interviewer as quick as possible. You can do this by sitting up straight, making eye contact and smiling. Not only does these show your courtesy, they also show some more confidence. During your trial runs with a friend, you can practice your posture and your gestures. The right posture will enable you to talk better, in a clear voice. And again, this leads us to another tip.

Voice Tone

In the audio-visual setting of the Skype interview, sound travels faster and more cohesive than images. More than your gestures and actuations, you can make better advantage of your voice. Make the tone of your enthusiastic and excited about the interview for the job. It will make the interviewer feel that you are an approachable person.

Further, such enthused tone will show that you are interested in what the interviewer asks and says. This, in turn, will make and keep the interviewer interested. There is a guiding principle in marketing and interpersonal relationships that goes “To be interesting, you should be interested.” Again, you can incorporate in your test runs practising talking with the right voice tone.

Practice

As mentioned, you need to prepare your computer and connection by conducting test runs with a friend and you can incorporate practising the right posture, gestures and voice tone. These are best done with practising with real top interview questions which includes, among others, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” and “What do you know about the company?” So go research what these questions are and how to answer them and research about the company you are applying at.

Outside the Home

If you cannot have the interview at home, see to it that the substitute venue is quiet and there will be no distractions. If it is in a public place, inform the interviewer ahead so that you can set for a time when the venue is quiet as possible.