I interview regularly. If I wanted to give some tips to candidates:
1. Audio, audio, audio... It doesn't matter how good or good looking you are if I can't understand any of your eloquence. Using microphone on your phone or webcam may or may not be adequate, you should test this. There is test call functionality in almost every web conferencing software.
In general having microphone close to your mouth and distant from any noises is safest choice. Headsets are cheap and effective.
Also turn off any feature that changes volume dynamically, this can cause volume to change suddenly to painful levels. For example zoom can pick up distant voice and increase volume suddenly. As an interviewer I am already setting the volume as high as I can before it becomes uncomfortable because I don't want to miss anything you say, having the volume change suddenly makes my life this much more difficult.
2. Just because it is remote interview doesn't mean savoir vivre is out the window. Be on time. Don't interrupt. Don't insult the interviewer (yes, I had this happen to me recently).
3. Don't be obvious looking up answers to my technical questions on the internet. And if you need to google something, try to put it in your words rather than read word by word, because maybe I can do the search myself, too. Yes, this also happened to me recently.
4. Make sure you have peace and quiet for the duration of the interview, before the interview and also some margin after. Set the time aside and remove any distractions. Try not to create perception you have something more important to do. It doesn't look good if are jumping from one meeting to the interview to another meeting.
If you are the type of person who insults others at work, please...please insult me in the interview. It's so much better to find out this type of thing earlier rather than later.
I give this as advice because I don't really care if the candidate likes me or not. What I care about if he can control himself and behave befitting the occasion.
If you can't do that on an interview there is no way you can do that later during normal work.
And I have clear, strict no asshole policy. We come to work to solve problems which does not require insulting each other. There is going to be problems and there is not going to be any insults because we understand we all want the same thing even if we have different capabilities, approaches and value systems.
I understand this doesn't mean people don't want to insult each other. There are always going to be tensions and what not. But I want workplace to be safe space for everybody. There is already enough stress, no need for people to be additionally miserable by asshole coworkers who can't control themselves.
I would guess naive, because I have had the same issue in the past. Employees do not all feel the need to be our friends, and it is not realistic to believe they will become such. While it’s important to get along with your coworkers, it should never be necessary that they “like” you. Personally, I like everyone at work that is a competent and dedicated worker; a rising tide floats all boats. Want to make friends with me at work? Be part of a team that consistently exceeds my expectations.
Trying to get everybody to like you can override your ability to say what needs to be said and act when you need to act. Also, it is usually impossible to please everybody and by trying to do that you can easily turn everybody against you. Trying to get people to like you can easily impair your objectivity (as if there wasn't enough occasions for that), play favor game and get people to dislike you for playing the game.
Now, just because I don't like somebody or somebody doesn't like me does not we can't behave civil and discuss and try to resolve our differences. Or even agree to disagree but still keep cooperating on this and other matters.
It also doesn't mean I have to go out of my way to get people to dislike me. I am trying to be reasonable, fun, I smile and compliment and I try to find and expect good in everybody until I am proven wrong. It is just I try keep this separate from ability to think straight and cooperate with people.
I'd generally say this is good. Companies with a lot of experience with their process don't seem to realize that the process doesn't stop when they have alienated the candidate, they just start to get bad market information in exchange for good market information.
Interviews should consist almost entirely of this dynamic: a conversation, a dialogue, an exploration, of a number of topics, processes and attitudes. Oh, and both ways of course! If you're interviewing for senior position and you don't have anything to ask the interviewer, you're putting a huge red flag on your head (if you've already asked everything in previous interviews, just bring up something in the answers that you found interesting.
Well... I don't think it is on the interviewee to do this (ie start a discussion).
A lot of interviewing advice tells candidates to only speak when they are spoken to and to only answer the questions they are given. It is also a cultural thing, in some cultures candidates will absolutely not volunteer any information on the interview. I can't really fault a candidate for doing that.
On the other hand I can create opportunities for discussion, especially when my interests or expertise and the interests or expertise of the candidate intersect.
> I don't think it is on the interviewee to do this (ie start a discussion)
Sorry I probably didn't explain myself - I mentioned it goes both ways: the discussion should be encouraged by the interviewer (vs "here's a problem I'll check my phone while you whiteboard it"), but the candidate should also seek to do the same - especially if they are senior and good, I expect them to interview me/us. However it's true that it's on the interview to establish an atmosphere where the candidate can be comfortable doing that. I start all my interviews emphasizing this as well as I can, and lead the candidate into questions with stuff like "is there something you would like to know about how we do X here?"
Also, I never said this is my advice. In general I like to volunteer information during interview when I am the candidate. I think it lets me control the situation a little bit better and move to ground that I have much more expertise in.
I am just saying that I can't fault candidate for not doing this.
I mentioned it. If you red the post carefully enough you would notice I meant this as advice you can read on the Internet. Not something you would ever hear from me and especially on the interview.
I've seen this mentioned in past discussions, and this is definitely the way to do interviews.
Show the candidate a piece of code and let them review it, something they'll actually be doing frequently. You'll get an insight into their understanding of the code and how they communicate improvements.
For a follow-up/bonus round ask them to suggest changes and fix it. A candidate that does this unprompted and well is a positive signal in and of itself.
No stressful whiteboarding and trivia questions. Just a relaxed conversation with their peers that they'd regularly have during work.
It’s really annoying to have an annoyed rude interviewer insist your answer is wrong for 10 minutes until the second interviewer awkwardly explains to the first that you were right, and then act defensive the entire rest of the interview. Some candidates have just gotten tired of the disrespectful interview process. If you intend to test how well we put up with disrespect in the interview, just say so ahead of time so we can cancel and apply elsewhere
goodness, it wasn't disrespect. I actually thought the code was incorrect.
I'm also not questioning something I know is right.
Mostly, I just let them code. When they're done, I always say ... are you satisfied? some go back and check, others stand pat, but this lets them take a fresh look.
I then have the opportunity to question something I think in my heart is wrong. I the example, he was right and I was wrong.
For things that look ok, I sometimes start a discussion about embellishments they could add or other techniques.
I really try not to be that guy. I just want to get to know them.
I had an interview once where I felt like the interviewer really didn't even know the answer to the question they were asking. I was surprised because of how confidently they were giving me the wrong answer. Instead of insulting them I just took it as a red flag to not work there. Or maybe re-interview a few years later.
> confidently they were giving me the wrong answer
This cuts both ways. Interviewers are not by default right. So likewise an interviewer that doesn't know what he's talking and doubles down on it, I'd rather find that out at the interviewer because it points to a dysfunctional organization.
Seems like exactly the sort of "trick" an interviewer might try to use: 'can this person correct someone in authority who is blatantly wrong?'.
Most organisations, it seems, would be served well by people who constructively handle bullshit/misunderstanding from senior people; for some it's absolutely vital.
We will occasionally mix one of these in. We are really looking for folks that can actually say 'no'. In some cases, we will keep tossing out absurd requirement on a 'how would you' project. One that some use is asking for a method that does not exist -- we are hoping they know the language well enough to say 'you mean this or this?' or how they can actually say I don't know, but I know where I could look it up.
It's gone both ways for me. I had one interview where the interviewer got very mad at me, and another where the interviewer was very impressed and was pleased to learn something. I got an offer from the latter company, and accepted.
Correcting the interviewer and insulting him are two different things.
The difference is whether you aim at correcting the information or whether you are aiming at the interviewer. I want the first one, not the second one.
> Audio, audio, audio... It doesn't matter how good or good looking you are if I can't understand any of your eloquence. Using microphone on your phone or webcam may or may not be adequate, you should test this. There is test call functionality in almost every web conferencing software.
If you’re going to be permanently remote, consider buying a low end podcasting or streaming setup. The quality will be fantastic comparative to cheaper options, and it won’t be that expensive to buy.
I have a couple of decent microphones, a mixer and mic stands, which were bought second-hand primarily for karaoke at parties. I've got all the input gear, another friend has a big PA setup, good fun.
Most of the time, those mics and the mixer just live in a bag in my closet, so I thought "why not use them?"
The sound quality from an AKG D5 (a decent, but not fancy mic) through a small mixer with a bit of compression applied is just miles ahead of anything you could get from a headset or a webcam mic.
It is a little hard to avoid getting the mic in the picture, but with a bit of creativity, it works well enough when placed just above the top of the frame.
My mixer is a small Behringer QX1002USB. Two mic inputs, parametric EQ and one-knob compressors. You can crank them and get that radio host imposing bassy voice, if you want.
It's amazingly good and versatile for such an inexpensive piece of gear.
> It doesn't look good if are jumping from one meeting to the interview to another meeting.
My day is full of other responsibilities. If you don’t like that I don’t think we’ll be a match regardless.
That said, I’d like to add.
Nr 5: Do not use a custom zoom video background, seriously, I do not want to see you sitting in the middle of a city with people walking by, repeating the same pattern every 10s.
Eventually I end up paying more attention to that guy with the hat than you.
Zoom backgrounds were cute the first few times they were being used on calls a month or two into video conference land. But, especially unless the lighting and actual physical background are right--and the person keeps relatively still--they're very obviously fake and are very distracting.
> My day is full of other responsibilities. If you don’t like that I don’t think we’ll be a match regardless.
Why are you looking for another job then? Are you the type that is just all motion and can't ever stop and focus on something properly?
Why do you want to join our company? If you want to join us why is this interview that you have with us less important than the two meetings you have around the time?
Yes, you are right, we would probably not be a right match. We are looking for candidates that want to get the job.
Imagine you ask a girl for a date. You are 2 minutes late telling her you had to clean up your flat. Then at the end of the meeting you say you can't stay longer because you need to do some shopping.
Two perfectly valid reasons and 2 minutes late is not that much late in itself.
But if I was the girl I would think "this guy is probably not a good match, he just doesn't care about me".
People are probably taking time off out of their workday for the interview. They might very well have other meetings, especially is they are in a senior position.
Taking their current job responsibilities seriously is a good sign for when they'll later work for your company.
That isn't how I see it. I don't want you to work for me if you don't want to work for me.
If you do not want to work for me, that is fine. I don't mind.
But if you come to interview I want to see that you really want to work for me.
You, yourself, probably would want to see the company wants to hire you rather than being completely lukewarm about it.
People want to see they are taken seriously and they are wanted.
Would you come to a company that organized your interview in some dinky place in the basement with unkempt junior dev who got late to the meeting and at the prescribed time tells you he doesn't have more time for you and you are maybe going to hear from them?
Why do you think companies like Google pamper their candidates and later developers at every possible occasion?
Why the hell are you comparing having back to back meetings around an interview with "organizing your interview in some dinky place in the basement with unkempt junior dev who got late to the meeting"
If you asked for an hour of my time, you'll get an hour of my time. If you want an extra 15 minutes to chit chat after, that's fine, just ask for it ahead of time so I can plan for it.
Whatever expectations you hold a candidate to should be reciprocal. So if you're going to hold candidates responsible for blocking off extra time before and after their interview to sit and chat, then you should be doing the same. Which means you should decline any meetings that are scheduled to start within 15 minutes of your interview ending. If you do that, then great, that's wonderful for the candidates who have more time to spend. You should also then tell the candidate up front to allow for 15 minutes on either end of the interview.
This whole idea that a candidate must have a buffer around their interview with you or they don't want to work for you is nonsense. It makes no more sense than saying if I have a 10am, 10:30am, and 11am meeting then that means I don't want to meet with the person at 10:30am. People have other things going on in their life. Employers who realize this, and respect candidates during the interview process, are going to have an easier time hiring good candidates that will also treat them well in return.
Except I am not asking you for an hour of your time. This is not an audience.
I am asking if you want to work for me for next couple of years.
> Whatever expectations you hold a candidate to should be reciprocal. So if you're going to hold candidates responsible for blocking off extra time before and after their interview to sit and chat, then you should be doing the same
Of course, I do the same. I spend time researching what I can find about the person, looking through their CV, getting acquainted with the report from screening. I am looking through your CV to figure out what kind of questions might be good to ask and what are waste of time and generally how to best make use of the time that is available.
Then after the meeting I meet with the manager who would most likely be present on the interview and we discuss our observations and try to figure out if they are or are not a problem and whether we think you can fit our team. We also discuss what did go or did not go well during the interview so that we can improve our interviews in the future.
All of this happens immediately before and after the interview so 1,5h interview can easily take 2,5h of my time. I am never late to the meeting and I always set aside time after the meeting in case our discussion overruns.
And you know why? Because hiring is extremely important, important enough that it is worth to put everything else aside just so that I can do it right.
And if you are a candidate it should matter to you where you are going to spend couple of years.
When I interview as a candidate I put everything else aside for that day so that I can be rested, fresh, calm and focused.
You want to be treated specially and shown that I want nothing in life except the job you are offering. I want to be certain my children have food on the table when my savings run out next week. Do you see the difference?
I understand your point that someone acting like they need to bounce from the call can be irritating to deal with, but it is a reality that several candidates might have a whole lot of interviews lined up as closely as possible to maximize their chances of actually landing a job. Add to that the increased commitments of a household, and I don't think it is unrealistic to expect a little empathy from the person on the other side of the call.
It is fair advice to say the candidate should try to remain calm and "not create the perception that you have something better to do" as you initially suggested. It is not fair advice to ask them to free up their entire day and not have any commitments other than a single interview.
What about people who go for full day of interviews for Google, Amazon and so on? Do you want to tell them they must be "ridiculously privileged" to be able to do so?
> If you want to join us why is this interview that you have with us less important than the two meetings you have around the time?
The other meetings mean I get paid? They provide me with a roof over my head?
If you were guaranteed to hire me by virtue of me attending the meeting, I’d probably peg it a little higher in the order of importance, but as it is it’s very likely a waste of my time.
So yes, I guess you could say I’m not committed enough, but that’s because 99% of the dates that I showed up on time for were secretly courting another guy and just ghosted me.
I think I’m ok, when some life trickles through, while I’m interviewing others. With people not always having the comfort of a separate room to hide in. A remote setup with 2 toddlers running around is sometimes a necessity. And I wouldn’t want to reject someone solely on that basis.
Peace and quiet is so that you, candidate, can focus on the answers. I personally don't care if your kids organize the party in the same room, but I care if it causes you, candidate, to not be able to fully focus on the interview and then me, the interviewer, to have trouble understanding whether your behavior was due to disturbance.
Interviewing is an expensive investment. I spend a lot of time doing the interview and I want to use what little time we have to the fullest extent.
Yes. Even in television broadcasting, they consider audio the most important element. You can got a few seconds without the picture as long as there's audio.
For an interview... we're over a year into the pandemic, if you don't have your audio quality figured out by now then you are not getting the job. I tell the person right away at the start of the interview if their audio is not good, giving them the benefit of the doubt to fix it.
> Even in television broadcasting, they consider audio the most important element. You can got a few seconds without the picture as long as there's audio.
I don't know who 'they' are because that's unfortunately opposite to what I have been witnessing for 1 year. Utterly useless but always present pictures, and a terrible, janky sound has become the standard of remote interview/consulting on TVs. Also don't forget that the new generation of field reporters is the generation who grew up used to favour convenience over quality, so they don't see a problem delivering lives which are barely understandable and, even worse, recorded reports which absolutely should be subtitled (the combo facial mask + bad sound take + bad Internet sound transmission) but which aren't.
Even worse, even on the national radio (the French equivalent of the BBC) which is supposed to have top sound standards; they obviously started using Internet-based public solutions streaming and they didn't give a damn about the sound: very bad and unstable quality, a LOT of lag causing a catastrophic mess of interactions, unreliable (connections very frequently dropping). It's a blessing when they have to drop to phone as they had been doing for decades, at least you know what to expect and there is no lag. Apparently they didn't consider the pro solutions which have been in use for 10-15 years (even my local associative radio had one!), which gave good sound with no lag, and which are a perfect fit at least for regulars; no, they all went using the crappy public app of the month...
> I don't know who 'they' are because that's unfortunately opposite to what I have been witnessing for 1 year.
Agreed. I was speaking from an academic perspective, and you're right -- this past year has been terrible. It seems that all best practices have gone out the window as everyone tries to figure out how to do remotes with consumer grade tools.
My point was, even in a medium that we mostly consider visual, audio is still more important to communicating the message than the picture. We can take this (pre-pandemic) best practice from television broadcasting and apply it to zoom conferences/interviews.
Good audio is really important. It's hard to be taken seriously when they can't understand you. And good audio quality definitely gives you more presence and relatability. I feel like it's the modern equivalent of being well spoken.
I got an XLR microphone with a boom arm during the pandemic, and I've also gone full OBS for zoom meetings. It's nice to be able to draw on the screen, share my screen or a picture during a meeting, without having to share screen.
I also bought a microphone with a boom arm and shock mount (something like [1]). The sound quality seems good, and less typing noise is caught by the microphone than with a mic on the desk or monitor.
> I've also gone full OBS for zoom meetings. It's nice to be able to draw on the screen, share my screen or a picture during a meeting, without having to share screen.
It sounds awesome. Could you describe it in more details?
OBS Studio (runs on linux, mac, windows) has the virtual webcam. This allows you to make your video output into a webcam device to hook up to any video software. Then you can do all the normal stuff like in OBS, like putting images on, overlays, animations, screen sharing, movies, etc.
A great thing to set up for yourself is audio feedback. Hearing yourself back with the levels as they are in the outgoing mix basically eliminates half of the talking-over-each-other problems. It's quite amazing how much it improves communications.
Couple of months ago I got a candidate that, if you just looked at his CV, was well overqualified for the position.
We were looking for a senior Java dev, we got a guy who had two degrees, 25 years of experience, and started no less than 3 companies. He also never sticked to anything for more than 2 years.
The insults started with his first sentence, before he or we even got a chance to greet each other.
We had some conferencing issues, the company just changed conferencing technology. In the previous any person could start the meeting but in the new one only the person who set up the meeting could start it. So there was some commotion to change the room.
When we joined (about 4-5 minutes after planned start) he said something to the effect that we must be new to this interviewing thing.
Nevermind, I continue the interview.
I ask him why he wants to work as a developer, given so much experience. He said he hasn't been programming a lot recently and wants to "dirty his hands" again. Hmm...
So we go to the technical part where he started manufacturing some false answers and after I pointed out what he says is factually incorrect he decided to critique the difficulty of questions he was getting.
I explained that we give same questions to all candidates for the position. I reminded I said at the start that candidates are not expected to know answers to all questions and that it is perfectly fine to tell us and to skip to the next question.
I sometimes tell the candidates (jokingly) that I give 5 points for telling me he doesn't know the answer. Though I did not say this in this case.
It only got downhill from there after couple more questions. After he gave another nonsense answer I did not say anything but he looked at me and said "WHAT NOW!" And then started tirade that I am not qualified to interview him and can we maybe set up an interview directly with my manager.
It sounds like you were asking a 25 year senior who has proven themselves able to start multiple companies leetcode style questions to decide if they are competent. The sort of questions that candidates have to waste months drilling for. That is insane and disrespectful towards the candidates time. Younger people put up with this but seniors know it’s nonsense and he was probably just tired of it all. You didn’t want to hire a software developer, you want a leetcoder
> Younger people put up with this but seniors know it’s nonsense and he was probably just tired of it all. You didn’t want to hire a software developer, you want a leetcoder
Senior here! I'm doing the leetcode grind and in preparation of interview rounds at companies that ask those sort of coding questions: I don' think it's a waste of time, it so happens that those companies pay very well, if you're willing to run the gauntlet. Preparing for the interviews is a signal in itself, as someone who sat on the other side of the interview table, I know the hiring companies needs every last signal it can get.
I hope other seniors keep snootily refusing to do such interviews, for at least the next few months, that way, I'll face less competition :-)
At my employer, we deliberately have a junior person interview senior candidates. It helps us understand how stuck the candidate is about their seniority, whether they can explain something to an interviewer who clearly doesn't have the same exposure as the candidate.
This could be fun but there are just too many reasons not to do it.
One is that you need to understand the technical questions perfectly so that you can ask deep probing questions, spot when candidate tries to wing it, etc. All the while evaluating various aspects of the answers and trying to figure out if you are getting all different aspects you need.
After all, the best way too interview is to have a discussion with the candidate. If you just have a list of closed questions you could give him a test to fill out.
You also need to be quite self aware of your own limitations and be able to distinguish between objective and your own preconceptions. As an example, I may like strongly typed languages and the candidate may have other preference. You need to be able to recognize that this is only your preference and try to objectively evaluate regardless of this. Otherwise you run the risk of hiring people that are exactly like you which is interviewing mistake #1.
Often the “leetcode” interview gets tedious. Im not a demon coder, I just seek local minima and reuse things. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
Then I imagine what Aphyr would do and start giggling. It’s often downhill from there. "You have, in fact, heard this one before. In your browser, search for “fizzbuzz solution”, and pick the first link that looks promising. Copy and paste. You are a real engineer.” [1]
First, you would be surprised how many candidates can't do something like fizzbuzz correctly.
Second, if I ask you coding question I am not going after your existing knowledge but rather about how you deal with problems to which you don't know the solution for.
After all that is what development is -- building something without necessarily knowing the solution when you start.
Third, I don't care how good coder you are (well, I do a little). What I do care when I ask you coding question is that you can think logically, ask right questions, work with me to find a solution to the problem and also that you can use the tools that are at your disposal.
Development is a lot of abilities and if the only thing you know is how to write more code then that is how you are going to approach every problem. As they say, if the only thing you have is a hammer...
Most corporate software is extremely simple (or at least it should be). Writing REST API to run couple of agreed rules on objects in a database, call an external service or send a message over network is not a pinnacle of technical achievement.
Arriving at the right solution in a large and complex organization, with many forces around you, people trying to overcomplicate your solution, stakeholders trying to drive your design or speed up development because refactoring is for pussies, on the other hand, is.
Now, I interview only senior engineers and up. I expect senior engineers to be able to arrive at a workable solution in a real organization. Coding should not be something that is any kind of problem for you, it is just one of the tools you use to achieve the result.
>> What I do care when I ask you coding question is that you can think logically, ask right questions, work with me to find a solution to the problem and also that you can use the tools that are at your disposal.
Well, I can’t fault your perspective. As an interviewee I’d like to complain about interviewing fads and about silly questions with dubious rationale. But I have to agree with your premise, as an interviewer I’ve also tried to make the best of it understanding that my reasoning about such things is imperfect.
I bought an expensive microphone just for work, and then people complained that it was taking up all their bandwidth, they asked me to go back to using the phone.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. Wouldn’t that entirely be up to the codec used to encode? Why would shitty audio encoded with the same codec use substantially more bandwidth than cleaner audio? If anything I’d expect noise to be harder to encode.
Your video takes way, way more bandwidth than audio ever could.
You should not believe everything people complain about.
Also, you don't need expensive microphone. You need decent one set up correctly.
Most microphones are actually pretty decent in that they can record your voice pretty well provided they are set up properly and that is where usually problems are. You need to have correct geometry so that they can do their job of picking your voice and rejecting noise and you need to ensure correct software audio settings because mismanaging these can cause voice to be distorted or sprinkled with clicks and cracks.
Yeah, in fact, when I'm recording a podcast and we're having any sort of bandwidth issues, I'll usually have us turn off our video. But I want people to use good mics. (Though the difference once you get to decent is very diminishing.)
I would add mics have nothing to do with bandwidth. It is the client / OS settings that decide how much bandwidth is going to be used.
Actually a microphone with good noise rejection may help depending on how exactly the audio is being compressed. Less noise will usually cause either less bandwidth used for the same quality or better quality for the same bandwidth.
I have a fancy microphone, but when I’m away from home in a low bandwidth situation I often phone in audio to zoom because it lags less. Lagging video and non-lagging audio seems to bother people less than both lagging.
I think it's the classic case of "when customers tell you something is broken, they are usually right. When customers tell you WHAT is broken, they are usually wrong".
I have an expensive microphone and picked "use original audio" in Zoom, which says that it takes more bandwidth and compute resources for the receivers. Of course, you could just not click that if people complained.
I haven't heard anyone complain. Rather, everyone else also bought expensive microphones and enabled original audio, and the results are excellent.
(Unsolicited tip: some sort of noise gate is really nice so that when you unmute, it doesn't raise the noise floor for the call. I ended up using Krisp, which seems to work quite well. Yeah, it's a subscription service for something your audio interface could theoretically do, and they market it as AI but it's not really AI and that's kind of scummy, but it doesn't take up any space on my desk, and it's not that expensive, so whatever. Sometimes it works too well -- people will apologize for their dog barking, or a fire truck driving by, and it's just met with confusion because that all got filtered out.)
I didn't tell them, "I'm about to switch to the microphone", I switched to the microphone and they told me to stop and they claimed it was using all their bandwidth and to go back to using the phone instead of the microphone.
I'll take the downvotes, that's fine, but how did the people complaining know I had switched to the microphone and what were they complaining about?
I interview a lot of candidates over zoom for remote positions. For me, few to none of the specific details matter. What's important is if the candidate demonstrates that they've had the empathy and self awareness to consider how their call setup affects others' ability to communicate with them. All the suggestions in the linked article seem painfully obvious for anyone working in 2021.
I actually prefer when the candidate has some sort of uncontrollable distraction that comes up during the interview. It provides a good opportunity to see how they handle the real world challenges of remote work. For anyone not sure how to handle this, interrupting with "excuse me, I'm going to mute for 20 seconds while garbage truck passes" is completely reasonable, even in a fairly formal situation.
Yeah, every so often I'll encounter someone who somehow still hasn't figured out basic conference call courtesy, and it boggles my mind especially given how we've all been remote for over a year. That should have been plenty of time to smooth over any rough habits...
But still there's the odd meeting where, with 30 people attending, one person shows up and blasts everyone with heavy breathing, dog barks, screaming kids and forces the presenter to say "hey, we've got some background noise, can everyone make sure they're muted?"
In my mind this kind of thing is akin to failing at basic hygiene, and it probably infuriates me more than it should.
The other factor is that, once calls start getting large enough, it's highly likely that you've got people on who don't do many group calls or video chats, or don't often use the program the organizer's chosen so are more likely to not notice they aren't muted, or not realize that this one doesn't join muted-by-default like their preferred one does, or whatever.
I've noticed a strong preference for actual conference calls, as in, calling a phone number, in certain companies, and I think consistency-of-interface and the fact that no-one, including people from outside the org, need to have a certain program available or installed, is part of the reason.
We use Webex a lot in this way, personally, I get very little or no value from seeing video. The novelty of seeing people in the grid wore off pretty quickly.
I was totally embarrassed the first time I was "that guy" whose eating noises were audible on a huge call. Thankfully someone chatted at me, and I was able to mute. I consider it equivalent to having something in your teeth at this point, and I treat it as an opportunity to do that person a favor by letting them know, instead of condescending to them.
Background noises happen. People take notes using a keyboard.
People cough. If it's a few people interactively chatting, sure, leave things unmuted. In a big group call where someone's presenting, please mute however leet your audio setup is.
Well I use a an actual Shure dynamic mic and unless you get close 3 inches or so it pics up nothing - this is not you crappy laptop mic or 19.99 headset.
This happens a lot, and I'd recommend as a baseline having a microphone with a hard mute. My cheap Sennheiser USB headset has one; my XLR microphone is inline with a Rolls MS111 because it doesn't.
I had an in-person interview for a job a couple of years ago, and I'd turned up with my two year old son.
I later heard that the way I dealt with him helped enormously in getting a good impression of me.
(Not the first time I've taken a child to an interview; people generally seem to take it in their stride here in Finland, which is a little odd to me as a Brit.)
> the candidate demonstrates that they've had the empathy and self awareness to consider how their call setup affects others' ability to communicate with them
This, a hundred times. It your software mutes mikes when someone else is talking, you need to notice and adapt with an awkward silence to let others speak. This is good.
The most blatant example of this to me and somehow invisible to others was my previous boss. He had a lot of remote calls that he would take in the open office. Because of the isolation from his head phone, he spent six hours per day berating people, yelling in the open office. That, everyone noticed. But there generally was signal issue, lag, etc. and he would always say “There’s a problem on your side.” The assumption that the other side had to fix something, that presumption… It hurt me more than him trying to address a wifi issue by yelling louder for the following 55 minutes.
> how they handle the real world challenges of remote work
But an interview is not normal work, if I'm in a meeting with my colleagues and my kids start screaming it's ok to mute myself and tell them off, possibly drop from the call.
During an interview I could do the same but that would also stress me out a lot at a time where I'm already stressed out. I've interviewed people who freaked out because of a bad connection.
Ask an interviewer, be graceful and supportive when that happens, and affirm to the candidate that it's OK to pause the interview and then calm things down and restart.
Your mention of “uncontrollable distraction” reminds me:
When I was interviewing for my current job, my son was 4 at the time and we were both at home. About 10 minutes into the 30 minute interview he came into my office and proceeded to climb over and around my back for the remaining 20 minutes of the interview.
The fact that my interviewer handled this with total calm impressed the heck out of me, and she later relayed that my ability to continue interviewing while this was going on impressed her as well
Yesterday I had a candidate late for her interview (senior tech recruiter position). What happened next was absurd: she joined from her phone, in her bra. A moment later her partner was running in the background naked. She realized the situation and in panic turned off the video and then (like in comedy movies) faked her wifi was breaking and was faking her voice as if she was in a tunnel. Then she just quit the call and I haven’t heard back, no response to my email request to reschedule.
Not my weirdest experience, but the lack of professionalism for such a serious role just caught me off guard.
Guy from China logged into a video tech interview. Fully nude, only wearing sunglasses, and behind him a huge swastika. That was an instant disconnect for me and a rejection email to the candidate.
Edit for concerned folks: it was a Nazi swastika. Red flag, black tilted swastika.
The naked thing, sure, weird, but maybe the camera was on by accident.
The swastika is used in some countries as a religious symbol, among other things. Tourist maps in Japan when I was last there still used it to represent temple locations.
I’ll generally never get naked in front of where my webcam is, but I’m also fortunate to have enough space where I have a dedicated office separate from my living space.
Honestly, I’ve felt really weird the few times I wore a tank top, and it wasn’t even an interview.
All sorts of weird stuff happens. I worked for a place that used awful body shop contracts and people would play all sorts of games to sell fake candidates.
Usually the company would underbid to get some placements, and have a small, smart team back in India or Russia do the actual work remotely. The guy on site would be a fake person who would say yes to anything and ship work to the guys in the backroom.
The interviews were… interesting. People with disguises, dark rooms with grainy video feeds, etc.
>The naked thing, sure, weird, but maybe the camera was on by accident.
I have the advantage of a separate office but one reason I'm basically never in my office, much less even on a video muted call, unless appropriately dressed. (To be clear this needn't mean dressed up but at least T-shirt and gym shorts.) Too easy to hit a wrong button or otherwise have something on that you think is off.
I think the newer Logitech ones do; I have an older one. I think my point still stands though. You can make a mistake. Of course if your computer is looking at your bedroom, not much you can do other than be careful about your camera not being on and/or privacy shield down.
In India, one of the first things that a Hindu priest does as part of religious rituals is draw Swastika. I’m not a religious person but had to perform house warming ceremony to keep my immediate family happy. My house still has like half a dozen swastika drawn by a priest a decade ago.
In fact, it’s very rare come across black color in Hindu religious ceremonies. Black represents inauspicious and evil. Of course there are a few gods who are black colored such as “shani”, “Kaali” (black, literal meaning), Yama (God of death). Most of them have something dark/negative about them but aren’t inherently evil.
Clearly no excuse for being naked with sunglasses, but you should know that the swastika is not a universally bad symbol.
In India you'll see the symbol plastered all around in front of people's home, rickshaws (taxis), and on buildings. Nazis repurposed it for their use but its roots stem from East Asia.
I once got into trouble and had to see the principal in 2nd grade for drawing the swastika while bored in class. It sucks that the Western world is largely ignorant of its positive roots and usage.
I've interviewed about 60 people in the past two months:
1. Interview went really great, no question we were going to hire this guy. Interview is basically over and he closes the application he was presenting with and his desktop background is hardcore porn.
2. Girl reaches up to scratch her head, boob falls out of her shirt.
3. Guy talked nearly the entire time, I had to interrupt him just to get a couple questions in.
4. Person told me they don't really want the job, they're just interviewing for interviewing experience.
5. A long time ago and I was being interviewed for a job. The guy tells me the closest parking spot to the front door is reserved for the employee of the month, and the employee of the month gets to drive the convertible mercedes in that spot for the whole month. "Do you know what that means?" He asked me. "PUSSY!!! And everybody loves pusssssssssssssssy!!!"
Oh my god, I can’t express enough how stupid 4) is. I interviewed so many amazing people I wanted to hire on the spot, instead they tell me they consider this as an exercise. What a waste of my time as well.
No, they were not honest. The interview was for a job that they did not want. They knew that when they took the interview slot. They accepted the offer under false pretenses. They wasted the time of the interviewer and the company’s financial investment in that time slot. How is that not plainly viewed as theft by fraud? I mean, they literally confessed to this fact. If you pulled this crap with me, you would be put on the list of never-hires.
Between juggling a 20+ person team that spans the Globe, hiring for another 20 slots and a 2 yr old at home - I definitely don’t have time for exercises like that.
Maybe it joined video automatically or accidentally? I normally wait until I'm ready to hit that join button, but most meetings at least make you do the extra step to turn on video. Either way not a good look for a job which requires lots of video calls!
Depends on the software and, maybe defaults, when I join with Google Meet, I default to on. Which causes me to screw up on the occasions I use Zoom because I have it set as the opposite.
I'd add that it helps to imagine that the audio is a mostly one-way thing.
Let the other person speak when they are speaking, and make it clear when you're finished speaking. Doing this can avoid those annoying block-outs that occur when sound from speaker "A" is interrupted for a half second, because listener "B" is making "hm" sounds or inserting affirmative or I-hear-you words like "yup" or "right" after every phrase.
Try to develop a habit of waiting for pauses, and providing pauses when you are speaking.
Demonstrate that you understand and value communication. Because, if you don't show this during an interview, you're providing evidence that you won't do it in the job.
PS. this applies to all interviews. Some reporters are so bad at this that their interviews are unlistenable.
> If you must use your phone, set it steady and level, in portrait orientation.
This may be good advice for Zoom, but is bad advice for Microsoft Teams.
When Teams displays your portrait-shaped video in on a computer, it crops the top and bottom to make it fit in the grid view, which has landscape rectangles. So what you're left with is a zoomed-in picture of your nose (or thereabouts).
> Video and audio quality need only be adequate...microphone in your laptop are sufficient
This one's questionable. I've got an external microphone and that the difference is huge. I would suggest people try to record themselves using a voice recorder app (there are websites that do this) and play it back just to test.
Good audio is probably more important than anything else IMO. Sure, some interviewers will have hangups about whether your home is tidy or whether you're dressed well, and these biases might unfairly change their assessment of your skills. But being unintelligible causes actual misunderstandings and slows communication.
Just like being late to a physical interview is a bad signal (sure there was traffic but what does it say about your planning skills?) I feel totally justified "reading" into how people are on their zoom interviews.
Recently I interviewed someone and kept hearing another conversation at the same time. I finally asked him about it and he said "oh yeah that's my wife doing a meeting, let me go to another room." It's hard for me to imagine someone's throught process that led them to think it's fine to have the conversation with another meeting in the room when there was another option easily available, but it was a quick "tell" that this person has bad judgement, low empathy or simply doesn't care - none of which made me want to hire him.
To a smaller degree I judge people's technology. I am interviewing for technical roles and if you are a year+ into WFH and you are still having silly wifi issues or haven't figured out how to sound clear on your mike, it's a bad sign about your ability to troubleshoot and solve problems (or again, low empathy - if you care that your video constantly stutters and your colleagues can't make you out, you'd figure out a wired solution or upgrade your router or whatever)
An interview is an assessment of your capabilities and there's such a thing as basic competence. If you can't nail Zooming after so much time, the whole thing is a little suspect.
I'd take a very different attitude if I was hiring for a non technical roles where solving tech problems is far remote from the job.
Except that this "silly wifi issues" might be unexpectable temporary, but in short time unfix-able issues of your ISP which just popped up recently.
> can't nail Zooming
You kinda imply people use Zoom all the time but they don't, they might use video-conference systems all the time but not necessary Zoom, and Zoom is kinda well known to sometimes have arbitrary issues as long as you are not on a Mac with the native Zoom client.
When doing interviews recently Zoom was the only Video Conference software which sometimes had arbitrary issues which where far beyond "it's selected a non-existing microphone" or similar, i.e. short term unfixable issues. Worse they sometimes popped up out of nowhere even after doing other calls where it worked... (Other conference software which had been used included MS Teams, Google Hangouts, Jitsi Meets. All in the end providing a better interview experience then Zoom, even through zoom might be better if it works...).
So, for a series of video interviews I was conducting last summer through an outside agency, I decided to up my game and use my DSLR given that Canon's webcam software now supported my somewhat older model. Tested it and all. But when I did tech check with the agency they were having some problems with it (which they said were not uncommon) so I went back to my high-end Webcam which was fine.
ADDED: And things like this were the reason that the agency had half-hour tech checks with senior professionals before taping the interviews. (And still usually had us redo one or two segments because of glitches.)
I was also in a workshop last summer. Power was out for a couple of days. I used my cellphone but I have lousy reception where I live so it barely worked. Even drove to my local library to see if I could leach Internet from the parking lot but I couldn't.
I would encourage you to be a bit more open-minded when judging people with technical issues. Debugging WiFi or microphone might seem intuitive to you, but there’s a good amount of people out there that are experts at coding or data science, who haven’t had to deal with any of the scrappiness. Of course, if you’re hiring for a startup and that level of scrappiness is part of the job, by all means, continue to extract signal.
>> there’s a good amount of people out there that are experts at coding or data science, who haven’t had to deal with any of the scrappiness. Of course, if you’re hiring for a startup and that level of scrappiness is part of the job, by all means, continue to extract signal.
I guess in my mind scrappiness (or just resourcefulness, which maybe the same thing) is a requirement for any job I'd hire for. In this day and age of WFH, your internet connectivity is clutch to your ability to do work and whether it's intuitive to you or not, you have to figure it out (same as in the physical space, whether you like commuting or not, you have to figure out some way to reliably show up at the office.)
Even if you're not technical where troubleshooting wifi is up your alley, you could solve the problem with:
1. Money. Go buy the most expensive insane router and see what it does for you.
2. People. Ask your friends whether they have good wifi and how they got there. Pay someone to help you.
3. Brute force. Can't fix the wifi? Run a big dumb cable down your hallway into your office.
4. Get creative. Can you work out of a co-working space? Can you drop by your friend to use their basement?
At the end of the day, you need connectivity to do your job and if you can't figure that out you're gonna struggle at the job as well. So open mindedness is one thing but realism matters too. You just can't be successful in a WFH setup if your job requires meetings and your wifi can't handle it.
I think you could work on your empathy for the candidate. Sometimes the internet drops out for a minute and then comes back. Maybe that happens once a week. Is it worth going to a co-working space (during a pandemic) so there isn't a temporary issue during a Zoom interview? It's a fairly extreme position to take.
Yes look if they have one quick connectivity hick-up or things genuinely go badly in a one-off way, there's ways to handle that (eg reschedule.)
But if people have consistently shitty wifi and they don't bother to mitigate that even for an interview, that's a different story. A professional understands that success takes some prep - and if you have one hour to convey to someone that you're qualified for a job you want, but you don't line up basic things like good connectivity -- it's the same as not bothering to find a clean shirt to wear to a real interview.
>> So... 4 solutions which each amount to "have gobs of money to drop on maybe fixing an issue"?
I don't understand this attitude. If you're "working from the office," you need to make sure you can get to work. Which means moving within walking distance, moving where you can use public transit, or having a car. You can say all of those translate to "have gobs of money" but at the end of the day you need to make sure you're available to do work if you get the job.
In work from home scenario, your connectivity is a basic requirement for your "getting to the office." You are literally unable to do many jobs without it, so yes you need to get it fixed same as you'd have to figure out how to get to the office.
>> I'd hate to see your advice on dress codes.
My advice on dress code is to dress appropriately for the interview and not have your outfit be a distraction to the interview. Which is the same as my advice for having your wifi work.
Office work, for all its many pitfalls, has the value that the company is providing space, infrastructure, and furniture (in both physical and metaphorical senses), which puts all employees on an even keel.
One of the benefits of space, in the sense of a shared common space is that those who are present in it are present in it. Mediated conversations across space don't do that.
You talk of signal. The overarching signal I'm picking up is a distinct lack of empathy.
If your car breaks down, do you already know enough about cars to know where to start? If you get into legal trouble, do you already know a lot of law and procedure to know what to do?
The only reason you have this attitude is because you’re “into computers” so when something goes wrong computer related, you already know where to start. Most people are not into computers. Not even programmers.
The reason why you think it’s so easy to “just be resourceful” is because you have a huge head start and you already know things like what a router even is and what it does.
I can guarantee you that someone can grill you about a subject that you don’t know (being into computers has an an opportunity cost so that means you’re clueless at some other subject) and make a joke of you.
Can't agree with you more. If a candidate is taking responsibility for their internet, what chances do I have of them pushing a feature across a finish line? If it's "not their fault" that they're having an internet connection, is it going to be "not their fault" that they couldn't get an approval on a PR, or "not their fault" that they didn't speed to another team to work out an issue before a deadline?
I have a good office setup with generally pretty decent Internet. I have also had more than one day in the past 18 months when my Internet connectivity was absolutely up and down and my cell phone reception from my house is basically good enough for voice only. So I can fail back to that but really can't handle video over a cell connection.
Honestly, debugging WiFi issues is a nightmare I don't expect anyone to be guaranteed in doing a good job (except someone specialized in Wireless Access Points with specialized equipment).
I have seen more then a view cases where ISP provided Routers sometimes arbitrary caused havoc and in some countries you can't just switch out the Router and the issues might not be limited to WiFi but look like WiFi issues and if you are unlucky they are a temp. problem with your ISP and...
The best choice is to not use WiFi if you need to do Video Conferences, but sadly this is not always the case. (E.g. in my case I only have WiFi due to reasons I can't really change and while it works completely fine I would be very worried if I ever had to do a Conference around 1-3AM in the night, because my ISP tend to has issues (short for max. 10min) around that time from time to time, and all other ISPs I can buy go through that same ISP and have the same issue... Well it's in the middle of the night so luckily not a problem for me.)
If they're interviewing for a remote position, then their ability to use the equipment that allows them to communicate is part of the interview. There might be intermittent problems (internet outage, power outage, etc.) but if they are just entirely unable to manage videoconferencing during an interview then it doesn't bode well for them using it day-to-day.
I get where you’re coming from, but I personally can’t do anything about my bad wifi, because I rent a room in a shared flat and don’t have control over it. The router is in another room and I can’t run a cable there either.
There’s also going to be noise I don’t have full control over, because there are three other people here (who you can sometimes hear despite us being in different rooms), and it’s summer so I either need the window open (my room is on the ground floor near a noisy road) or a fan on.
I’d urge a bit more empathy before coming to the conclusion that people are lazy/incompetent.
Not disagreeing with your general point but, if bad wifi is a problem for you and you can't run a cable, consider:
A) plugging a better wifi router or AP into the existing router, or
B) Using a pair of powerline ethernet adapters, or
C) Same as A, but using a pair of mesh routers, with the main one set in 'access point' mode.
None of these require a cable run between two rooms. Unless the flat is huge or has concrete walls, one of these solutions will work. (I'm assuming the problem is with the wifi connection between you and the router, and not the connection between your router and the internet.)
It was table level. (Now my APs are near the ceiling though.)
Wireless traffic is super dense here. A lot of people are running multiple APs and I guess we’re no better. Some people are also stacking multiple APs on the middle channels.
The only Orbi I've used is the tri-band RBK50 2-pack. The hardware is good, but there's one annoying thing: you can't manually set the channel bandwidth to to 20MHz. This would improve signal strength and range, at the expense of bandwidth.
The 'coexist' setting is meant to switch to 20MHz when needed but, from what I've read, the setting isn't very effective.
If I lived in a place with a lot of wifi APs, I'd do what you did (string cables) or else use an Asus mesh wifi setup, which allows more fine-grained control of wifi settings.
The world isn't black and white, so if someone was in your situation and explained it upfront, I would be fine with it. It's the silent "I am just going to expect the interviewer to put up with all my issues" assumption that really bugs me.
It also depends on what role you are interviewing for. If your role is mainly going to be heads-down maybe it's OK. But if you're interviewing for a role where you'll have to be meeting lots of people all day, then the situation you describe above may actually be unfair to your coworkers.
> Just like being late to a physical interview is a bad signal (sure there was traffic but what does it say about your planning skills?) I feel totally justified "reading" into how people are on their zoom interviews.
Fun fact: depending on your cultural background, one person's "late" is another person's "giving you time to prepare".
It is my understanding that Anglo-Saxon and German education insist on starting a meeting at the time written on the calendar, while some other countries understand the time written on the calendar as the moment the main presenter (or interviewer, in that case) is getting ready, so if you arrive then, you embarrass them and/or prevent them from doing their work.
Coming from a Latin country, it took me some time to understand the unspoken rules for working in a US company. After ~10 years, I'm not sure I still know them all. All along the way, I have been judged for compliance with these rules that culturally make no sense to me and nobody cared to explain. There are dozens of examples I could quote, including different meanings of "Yes" and "No" or "I" or "responsibility".
Where I'm coming at is: please don't be too fast to judge people on unspoken rules, especially across cultures.
I've done business all over the world and understand that the meaning of time is very different between say Switzerland (on time = 5 mins early) and Portugal (on time = sometime same day).
But, that's not relevant to the point I am making as a US based employer who was interviewing for a NYC position. Show up on time.
You should type this up in an email and send it to candidates before interviews so they can judge whether or being judged like this themselves is worth their time. It would be the empathetic thing to do with respect to their time and money, after all.
Actually, it might be helpful for you to understand that an overwhelming majority of good interviewers are evaluating you on far more signals than just the literal correctness of your answers.
The interviewer's job is to assess whether you're going to work out and be an asset to the organization. They also assume that what you're showing in the interview is a much rosier picture of yourself than you'll normally be.
So if you're late for an interview, the interviewer has to assume you're gonna be late to stuff all the time. If you can't solve your connectivity problems, the interviewer has to assume you're gonna have all sorts of other problems that will drag down yours and the team's productivity. It also shouldn't surprise you if you bad-mouth your old employer, the interviewer is going to assume that you're insanely negative and divisive. etc. It's not "being judged" - the company has to make a high-risk high-impact decision to hire you, and your behavior may just "leak" the information that you're not a good bet.
You may think this is unpleasant but it's just fact of the decision making process. If you make it harder for people to say "yes" to you, you will get "no" much more often. Simple as that.
>> to do with respect to their time and money
I don't understand the "money" part. Are you paying companies to interview you? This is a sure sign of a scam.
> Actually, it might be helpful for you to understand that an overwhelming majority of good interviewers are evaluating you on far more signals than just the literal correctness of your answers.
That’s a two way street though. If a candidate gets the feeling that they’re being judged for things that are outside of their control, they might decide that you or your company isn’t worth dealing with. And in this labor market, the candidate might have more options than the hiring manager does.
Some of the things you’re talking about are well within the normal bounds, such as timeliness. But some of the stuff you’re talking about edges up to the “not your business” line. If I felt that an interviewer got annoyed at me for an internet issue, I certainly might come to the conclusion that they’re unreasonable and take a pass.
(I also think your comment is a bit patronizing. I suspect that most people who have interviewed are aware that they’re being judged on more than just their answers)
I live on a houseboat in Seattle. I’m a software developer that’s been working remote even before the pandemic.
It’s great generally, but the worst thing about houseboat life is the crappy internet. I somewhat recently upgraded to 40mbps down, but that isn’t super consistent.
Internet problems don’t always have easy or reasonable solutions. I’m wired in but still sometimes have to drop from calls because it lags and stutters.
Judging someone for their internet problems doesn’t make any sense to me.
>> Judging someone for their internet problems doesn’t make any sense to me
but also:
>> sometimes have to drop from calls because it lags and stutters.
That sounds insanely unfair to people you work with. If you're in a role where meetings are infrequent and unimportant, maybe this flies. But if you work with/for me and you constantly drop calls so the entire group has to wait for you while you freeze, can't hear what you're saying, etc etc etc - that's not a dynamic I want to inflict on my organization.
There's some inherent tradeoff between how you want to live and what jobs you can take on. Back in the work-from-the-office days, you had to limit your housing options by where you can reach the office daily in a reasonable time. With WFH, your ability to connect to the internet is analogous to your ability to get to the office.
If your choice of living on a houseboat means that you can't reliably connect to key meetings, it means you're not able to take on jobs where meetings are key. It's as simple as that and is a totally reasonable tradeoff to make, as long as you're making it consciously.
I just don’t understand why you’re taking such a crazy harsh tone with this.
“Insanely unfair” to your coworkers to sometimes have a problem that causes you to drop from a meeting? Chill out man, life happens. The job gets done.
Coworkers living on land in various neighborhoods across Seattle have their power go out multiple times a year. It’s not “insanely unfair” to me when that happens. It happens. So what, you deal with it.
And since I’m sure you’d expect them to all get generators (based on the other thread), I sure as shit wouldn’t bother if it was just 2-3 times a year, myself.
Yeah. I mean "It's hit or miss whether Joe will drop on a given call" is one thing. "Joe seems to have a day where his Internet is glitchy every month or two" is something else.
Same thing with power, which is more reliable than my Internet. I might have a power outage every year or so and a more extended one significantly less often. I've actually thought about getting a generator but it hardly seems worth it. Only thing that makes me consider it is I live where it gets cold in the winter.
Also can't agree enough. I have someone on my team who lives on a farm in a remote part of India. His area has power outages 1-2 times a week. Does he just let video calls end when the power goes out? No, he got a generator.
It's his choice to live in that area. The amount of money he saves by not being in a major city more than enough covers the cost of a generator.
As an IC it seems like a small inconvenience, but as a manager having other team members and other departments complain about so-and-so for being unresponsive and cutting out of calls constantly is just one more problem I have to deal with.
Yeah, and look no surprise from your profile that you lead an org. It's so funny to me that people are arguing in this thread what should be tolerated from candidates without considering for a second what is actually needed to get the work done and have the team function.
There's such a thing as reasonable accommodation. When we all went to WFH when Covid hit, it was totally understandable that people had bad setups, family complexities, etc. and all companies (that I am familiar with) were totally cool with that, and supported employees through it - eg provided equipment or WFH stipends.
But now it's like a year down the road, and it's basic competency of a professional to ensure that they are able to work productively. Mid 2021, there's no excuse for having consistently bad video meetings if video meetings are at all central to your job. It basically means a combination of you not caring about your productivity, not caring about your colleagues, and not being able to solve problems - which for any medium-seniority and above role is frankly not a good sign.
Your point about the Indian dude with a generator is a good one. I bet he also keeps weird hours so he can overlap with the team (assuming the rest of the team is based outside of India.) It's basic stuff, if you want flexibility of remote work from wherever you want, you also have the responsibility of making it feasible.
Infrastructure isn't something that individuals have the option to fix on their own. Housing across the US, let alone in Seattle, is at absolute crisis levels. And the rise of internet-based voice comms is a recent development (< 5 years) relative to housing and infrastructure development cycles.
There are multiple extant comms technologies which are well established, widely distributed, and work quite well at vastly lower bandwidth than IP telephone or videoconferencing. Look inward to see those who are rejecting the use of technologies which are equitably available, distributed, and adequate to task.
I hear you and if we were talking about poor people interviewing for retail and warehouse jobs I'd agree with you completely.
However we are talking about tech jobs which pay several hundred thousand dollars per year in many cases, and these jobs require a certain level of connectivity, not out of gatekeeping but out of practicality.
Are you hiring programmers or IT tech support personnel?
It’s like naming someone that doesn’t know anything about cars who hears some strange noises coming from the car as “unresourceful” because they don’t magically know what to Google to figure out their problem. Even that person makes $500k/year does not magically give them all the background knowledge needed to start troubleshooting.
Flawed analogy. If I am reliant on my car for a living (eg limo driver) then I can't let my car not work. Doesn't mean I need to fix it myself, does mean I need to find a mechanic, trade it in, whatever. Resolve the problem in some way.
No, it’s analogous to your car making this weird sound but it seems to largely work so you haven’t figured it out yet but you’re still driving people around.
They surely can, but if the interviewee knows his current setup from his/her existing income means the connection may not be stable. The interviewee can
* Email upfront to inform about the situation
* Trying to go to other places with more stable connectivity.
and others.
As xyzelement said, an interviewer, which I am as well, evaluate multiple signals at the sametime, how resourceful, or how the candidate solve a problem, is one of the soft skill that is required.
Yeah, I would be hard pressed to come up with something that I wouldn't be more than happy to accommodate if a candidate emailed ahead of time to let me know.
That's actually my point. There's an overall competency thing about how prepared you are.
A few months ago, I was interviewed over BlueJeans which is a video conf software I'd never used before. I made sure the client installed and detected my mic/camera well ahead of the interview, as well as playing around with various settings for optimal experience.
I cared about the interview and it seemed the least I could do to prepare in this way. It doesn't make sense that someone wouldn't do that - and if they don't do it and the tech blows up on them, that is a bit of a data point for the interview.
OK, but you are going to miss good people over silly IT stuff like this. Google made "techstop" because they want people focusing energy on real work not helpdesk self-support.
Again you are completely missing the point. It's not about "do you have the IT skill" it's about "you have a major problem (connectivity) - can you find some way to solve it"
I think you're missing the GP's point. What you call a major problem (connectivity that doesn't interrupt a video call) isn't a major problem for many (perhaps most) people. Your hiring process seems to favour candidates whose streaming setup is above average; so you're more likely to hire people whose hobbies include YouTube streaming than people who use email to send git patches.
I am on video calls a lot and have even been doing (obviously remote) video recordings. I have "good" Internet, which is to say it is "occasionally" glitchy which is to say less than often but more than rarely. Not often enough to persuade Comcast that something in wrong.
Murphy's Law suggests that that one of the times it glitches will be during something important. (It has done so during a couple semi-important things over the past 18 months.) Absolutely nothing I can do about this although I try to fall back to cell phone--although doesn't really work for video.
I appreciate that, this is always the pattern with recruiting/hiring/comp topics.
It seems like there's a well meaning percentage of the population that has a strong view of how things ought to be (eg "connectivity isn't 100% your fault so you shouldn't be judged for it") without realizing that it's completely untenable ("how can I possibly hire you if I can't hear anything you say because your connection is bad.")
Here’s my anecdote: I have been interviewing before the pandemic for what seemed like 5 years. Rejection after rejection, I really didn’t know how I could improve- my nerves would always take over and sabotage my ability to answer even the most basic of questions.
During my latest bout of interviews, I noticed I was getting a huge % converted to final rounds, and landed 3 offers. I ultimately attributed my better than normal performance in interviews to 2 things:
1. I had to gain the biggest advantage possible among other candidates, so I set up studio lights + dslr as a webcam.
2. I’ve always treated it as a rule to look the interviewer in the eye. So, I didn’t look at my screen during the interviews, but rather directly at my camera lens. I absolutely HATE looking people in the eye when speaking and I think removing this pressure to do so helped immensely.
>2. I’ve always treated it as a rule to look the interviewer in the eye.//
Eye-contact is extremely nuanced. The difference between 'gives and maintains eye-contact', which is usually a sub-conscious positive in conversations, and 'is freaking me out with the staring' is tiny in person. Over webcam it's quite different, you can stare down the camera but you're not looking anyone in the eye.
This leads me to wonder if those with ASD have more success in interviews if the interviewer is appraised of their ASD ahead of time, or if they keep it private (I'd assume the former).
Also, eye-tracking comparisons between in-person and video chat might be interesting.
I've been shooting a fair bit of video on the computer for various purposes since the pandemic. My first couple of takes were total trash. My eyes were all over the place. (I'd worked on this a bit previously with other video but the computer screen and any notes in particular really draw your eyes away from the webcam.) So I've basically trailed myself to focus on my external webcam with maybe a glance down now and then to notes located at the top of the screen.
If you want clear and good communication, the internal mic in your laptop is insufficient. Get a wired headset with a boom mic. Audio is waaaay more important than video.
He also lists a bunch of stuff (grooming? really?) that is standard interview/business stuff and has nothing to do with video calling.
Good video conferencing is simple: good light on your face, wired ethernet connection (wifi off), wired headset with boom mic close to your mouth. Avoid sources of background noise.
If you need to be told to shower and brush your hair/teeth, you probably shouldn't be giving interviews in the first place.
> If you need to be told to shower and brush your hair/teeth, you probably shouldn't be giving interviews in the first place.
Some people are unaware that basic hygiene and appearance matter on video calls. Just look at any virtual class from school or university, you will see people in pajamas, bed-head hair, various states of dress from normal to nearly naked.
> Just look at any virtual class from school or university, you will see people in pajamas, bed-head hair, various states of dress from normal to nearly naked.
The difference being that the students are paying for the privilege of attending classes. As a professional, you are the one being paid and represent your organization. If you were talking about staff and teachers, then their administrators probably would like to have a word with them.
I've done a couple, and they suck - no way around it.
But maybe my biggest advise is that IF you're going to ask _any_ technical questions, do this:
Make a document / powerpoint / etc. with your question and any needed information, share that screen with your interviewee.
A month ago I had a technical interview, where the interviewer (with a poor microphone and room) had a bunch of steps and commands he wanted me to do, and it was a total nightmare. He had to re-iterate almost everything, multiple times. Some questions he just skipped or canceled, due to the poor communication.
I'm the OP, and this is my first time making the HN front page. It's been great fun. Thanks all for the great discussion, and especially for the additional tips listed here!
Thanks to ring lights and Youtube, I'm pretty sure my kids are going to grow up thinking there's some variety of eye-color that features a bright white ring in the center of the pupil.
Several times I've opened a white page full screen on my monitor while doing an interview via Phone or Laptop. That plus the over head light being on but not being in the view helped quite a bit.
The best tip I can give, try to answer specific questions in 2-3 sentences. 1-2 sentences to actually answer the question, then 1-2 sentences on your experience with that topic.
If it's an open ended question, answer as concisely as possible, then ask if you've answered their question.
Also, when they ask you to tell them about yourself, don't go on for 5 minutes about your hobby. Tell them a couple of person details if you wish, and then tell them about your career and only touch on the things that are relevant to the job you're applying for.
Wow, a lot of people power-tripping on interviews in the comments here. Though I guess everyone being “rejected” is dodging some bullets; if someone is an awful person when interviewing then imagine having to work with them every day.
As someone who has conducted several online interviews now using Zoom, I think there’s a lot of value in these comments.
All these things that have happened that we’ve chosen to prejudice against our candidates are things we all need to learn to look past.
I actively try to work around voice issues, I don’t judge people’s backgrounds or personal hygiene, if someone’s really mumbly due to sound issues, it will be brought up to give them the best possible situation.
Sure, active nakedness should be dealt with quickly and might be an instant barring; but, as someone else said, the current financial situation of a candidate is absolutely not a blocker for hire and never should be for a regular software engineer job. Everyone could have been that guy or gal stuck in a 4-person, 2 bedroom apartment on a junky Chromebook. This doesn’t make them bad developers.
If videoconferencing has so many drawbacks and hassles, and adds nothing to the interaction while clearly detracting from it significantly, consider using an appropriate voice-only comms alternative.
This will not only satisfy the needs of the session, but also level virtually all of the differences between those in areas of good or poor Internet service, with long latency, or with different access to technology and equipment based on wealth or circumstances.
Please, please, please do what you can, before starting the interview, to 1) reduce room reverb on both ends. And 2) compare audio levels carefully beforehand so they're close to equal (in headphones monitoring what's going to the recorder).
Reverb : Many interviews I've looked forward to hearing (with those who are living or gone, native speakers or not) have so much reverb (echo) on one end that many words are lost in mud. Tragic. (And have people talk across the mike, not into their mike. 'Plosives'.
Levels : When the two partys' audio levels are very different, the overall volume has to be pushed up to hear the weaker party. Then the other party is too loud! (Software can fix this on the production end ... best IF you record to separate tracks!)
Apparently, it is standard practice in some companies to record your interview for others to review later? At least, that is what I have inferred from other comments on this post.
Even if that were the situation, it's not feasible for the interviewee to "compare audio levels carefully beforehand so they're close to equal".
What is the interviewee to do? Do a test call with the interviewer before the interview? And then listen to the recording to determine which of them should adjust their mic volume and by how much?
Tip from me I keep forgetting: if you've got bad lighting you can't fix and you're using a laptop, turn your screen brightness up to full and it'll help a lot by illuminating your face.
Yep. I'm almost the opposite. I have a good lighting setup and a big dual monitor setup. So if I'm trying to optimize lighting for, say, a video, I'll actually make my second monitor fairly dark (no big docs with white backgrounds) so my face isn't too "hot."
Assuming it's legal in your jurisdiction, consider recording the interview. Mostly so you can go back, cringe, and hopefully note where you could do better next time. But it never hurts to have some documentation of the hiring stage if you need it in the future, either.
If you have a RealSense D455, I made a virtual camera for Linux that does bokeh based on the actual depth instead of the fake segmentation-based stuff.
I'd recommend some sort of headset over the internal mic and speakers, otherwise you end up fighting the echo cancelling when you're trying to get a word into a conversation or interrupt someone.
In general I feel that zoom convos don't flow as naturally as IRL, but they're even worse when a counterpart doesn't have a headset with a good mic.
> You don’t need pro equipment. The camera and microphone in your laptop are sufficient.
I disagree with this. Yes, the built in might be enough to be understandable, but during an interview you want every advantage possible. Personally I think shifting from built in microphones to earbuds should be the bare minimum for audio quality, as this helps reject background noise.
For cameras, positioning is more important than quality. Yes, a separate webcam is drastically sharper than a built in one, but more importantly it can be placed at a much higher height than your laptop screen. This prevents the “I can see up your nose” issue.
It is pretty cheap to get a setup that outperforms built-in laptop equipment. I have one of those knock-off 1080p webcams ($30-40) and it is more than enough for zoom. My lighting is a clamp light which reflects off of the wall behind my monitor.
For sound I have a bottom-of-the-line boom microphone which was probably $10-15 new. Sound quality is merely ok, but it beats a built-in laptop mic.
Then I clean the room and run it through OBS so I can crop the video and know how it looks before I join a meeting. To me it's foolish to not put some effort into the zoom setup, given what is at stake when interviewing for a job you actually want.
I think a lot of people feel that the next step from laptop mic and speakers is a full-on pro studio setup. For <$100 and a little effort, you can do a lot and for maybe $300 you can be set--including whatever background stage management your setting allows.
A lot of the super high end stuff wouldn’t be appreciably different from a lower end podcasting setup for zoom calls. The issue is both diminishing returns, and the fact that pro gear is usually designed to meet standards and tasks that amateurs never need.
For example, a professional mic might need to record a singer or a guitar, which demands a much wider frequency response than spoken word does. My mic might be horrible for a singer, I’ve never tried, but as long as it works in the relatively narrow range where I speak it’s fine.
Lighting seems to be the thing that really matters for the camera second to placement. I just use some smart lights to toggle “meeting mode” which turns off my overhead lamp and turns on the desk lamp. It’s better than the norm, but inferior to the professional setups some people have.
I have two inexpensive desk lamps with daylight bulbs, which I normally use for hobby work, but for video meetings I point them at the white wall behind my monitor, and tweak the white balance a bit in the webcam settings.
It gives a pleasant soft lighting that doesn't blow out.
I have the 2020 16" MacBook Pro, and I've tried the onboard mic array, AirPods (Pro and otherwise), a lamellar mike, and a Sony stereo mike that fits the hot shoe on my mirrorless camera.
The MacBook's onboard mic arrays give the best voice quality, so I've stuck with that. Arguably tied by the lamellar, but that just means I don't have to bother plugging it in, clipping it in place, making sure the battery is off, and then being tethered to my setup.
Much like the speakers, the microphones on this laptop are much better than they have any right to be.
The webcam, on the other hand, is a potato. I set up the mirrorless (α6500 for the curious) and some lighting, even though this is at least ten times the effort. It's worth it.
For raw mic quality in a perfectly silent environment, sure. But background noise rejection is a matter of ratios. The closer the mic is to your face the louder your voice is in comparison to any background noise. The computer can do some computational noise reduction, but that always ends up being a bit like virtual backgrounds; fine, but clearly insufficient.
Personally I use a XLR mic on a boom arm, because I can be a bit extra in these things. But among my colleagues the Airpod Pros are probably the best normal person mics anyone uses. I've never heard any background noise from the people wearing them, even those I know happen to share an office with their significant other and someone who literally had a baby on their lap while they were talking to me.
This is a confident, and wrong, assertion, if we limit ourselves strictly to the array microphones in 16" MBP.
As I said, empirically, those are my best choice. I use the AirPods for voice-only calls through my phone, but I've gotten lag from them through the laptop-to-Zoom pipeline.
Again, the sound quality and noise cancellation from this array of microphones (please note what I'm emphasizing here) is better than it has any right to be. It figures out what's my voice and what isn't, and passes along what it should.
Sure, if I had to make a call from a very loud environment, I'd use the AirPod Pros and hope for the best. But of the options I have, under normal use conditions, the 16" microphone array is simply the best one.
> Again, the sound quality and noise cancellation from this array of microphones (please note what I'm emphasizing here)
I’ll repeat myself; no number of microphones will make the inverse square law go away. You can attempt to use computation to detect human voices and reject background noise, but this will always be an inferior technique to moving the microphone closer to the sound you want and further from the sound you don’t want.
This is the same reason why the speakerphone on your cell will never beat out just holding it up to your head. It’s also why podcasters use XLR mics rather than laptops. Sure, laptops have gotten better, but they’re still not as good as other options.
If you have issues with lag, wired headsets work great. Gaming ones are particularly good, since they’re designed for long periods of use.
Good advice for zoom in general, but I find virtual backgrounds horribly distracting. Besides often messing up the shape of someone’s head, they imply the subject is hiding something.
Definitely clean up and stage your environment. With so many actual human clues removed from equation, the stuff behind you says a lot.
I don't agree with the suggestion of using a Zoom background. "Oh cool, you're sat behind the Golden Gate bridge?", or a fish tank, some clouds...
There are valid uses for backgrounds, I'm sure, but generally speaking it's better to show your real environment. Be it a view of your kitchen, or a wall with ugly wallpaper, I don't care. Superimposing yourself on a faux background enters uncanny valley territory.
IMO they're better than the fake backdrops but still often distractingly fake looking. If your background is really that bad, maybe better than nothing but probably better to try to do something about it, whether a screen or something else.
To be honest, a few things like backlighting windows (and bad lighting generally) are far worse than a bit of clutter.
The warnings around using a second monitor and centering yourself are very real. Even if your interviewer is trying to not be biased by video quality or your video background, there is a subconscious bias to avoid.
Failing to make eye contact will make you seem less trustworthy and less engaged in the conversation. Being low in your frame is the Zoom equivalent of being slumped in your chair, and makes you look like child-like.
You can definitely go overboard with eye contact via Zoom, though. Just as an experiment I put my Zoom feed on a little monitor on my teleprompter and that was a little much.
One thing to look out is what is the microphone that Zoom is actually listening too. I used to have a USB microphone with a mute button that was very convinient. Litle did I know that Zoom was set to the laptop's integrated microphone...
Sometimes you can have even more microphones. External webcams may have a microphone and some monitors as well (when used as USB hubs).
I never could understand why my laptop (Macbook Pro) camera doesn't allow me to do digital zoom to eliminate some background or appear closer to the camera. I assume that this feature is very trivial to implement.
Also there are no free or paid util tool that allows me to do the same.
To my surprise, the OED says both are valid uses, and "mike" actually might predate "mic". Its earliest example for mike is from 1926, while the earliest for mic is 1961.
You're on Air viii., 1926: "The man at the ‘mike’ watches..and tells the audience the type of play."
Singers' Glossary of Show Business Jargon, 1961: "Microphone: (Abbr. mike or mic)."
One more: (might be obvious, but I managed to forget) for longer interviews where you can be expected to talk a lot, have a glass of water within reach. Particularly important if you're not used to talking a lot.
I haven’t had to do much interviewing over zoom, but none of these feel like dealbreakers to me any more than wearing casual clothes to an interview. This industry used to expect candidates show up in suits not many decades ago.
What matters is what has always mattered. Can this person do the job, will they like the job, and will I like working with them. In the end, you can’t figure that out without trying to make a connection with another human being. You can do that with an unmade bed.
> The camera and microphone in your laptop are sufficient.
The mic _might_ be sufficient, but if you don't have at least headphones you run a high risk of feedback, where the laptop mic picks up the output from the speakers when other people are talking. I personally find this extremely annoying and so the first thing I invest in for my teleconferencing setup is always a headset with a mic on it. The mic on the headset is always much better in my experience and it allows you to avoid external noises such as keys clicking when you type. Wanna make notes on the call? I hope you have a headset mic.
> make sure the room behind you is tidy.
> Pay attention to clothes and grooming.
I really couldn't care, my whole house is a mess. Also I have a big bushy neckbeard and I refuse to iron shirts because I think it's a waste of time, particularly if I'm working from home in a non-customer-facing role. These items are more of a signal about cultural expectations: if your company values these things, that's fine, but I'm probably not going to want to work there.
A more important signal for me is if you have an appropriate space to do your job should you pass the interview and be hired. Everyone has their own ideal setup, but knowing that a candidate has a place that they will be truly comfortable in --- somewhere they can focus, with a comfortable or ergonomic chair --- is important, because it's low on the hierarchy of needs for doing your job well. I would hate to work sat in the kitchen in an uncomfortable dining chair, table too high for my arms and too low for the screen on my laptop, so my neck and arms are bent, constant distractions with people around me. I could not work effectively in that environment.
About the first point "keeping the room behind you tidy", your quote is selective. The article says "If you can, use a background. If you can’t, make sure the room behind you is tidy.", I think it is a reasonable alternative to use some plain background than showing the messy room.
It's the only video conference program which sometimes didn't work at all last time I was doing conferences.
Also slack isn't a good choice because its quality is sometimes terrible (for the same internet connection I had experiences like slack being unbearable bad quality and then switching to Teams made thinks work reasonable).
Hangouts is boring and not fancy but works for more or less anyone.
Some of the best experiences I had with Jitsi Meet.
Teams doesn't really work on Firefox, and seems pretty bad for anything but video conferences. But its doing a reliable job for video conferences. Only problem is that the UI/UX can be very different depending on the platform you use it from. And that chrome still hasn't added by-default support for Wayland screen sharing (you need to enable pipewire support and might need to install additional pipewire packages as Chrome uses a old/deprecated pipewire interface, this isn't a problem under Firefox but neither Slack or Teams work under Firefox, mainly because they don't want to, it's not too hard to support).
Zoom has been the best for me. I haven't used Jitsi Meet, I've heard it can be good but an interviewee is rarely the one to pick the call medium.
> Teams doesn't really work on Firefox
Don't use the browser version of any videoconferencing system you use with any regularity, use their desktop app. It would be nice if that you could use any old browser (especially when the desktop app may well be an Electron app) but the reliability isn't currently there. The desktop app is the "happy path," use what works now, not what should work.
> Wayland screen sharing
Ah, a Linux user. You should lead with that, your experience will have little relation to the vast majority of other people.
This list doesn't really have anything to do with interviewing. All of these tips are things that you should do on any professional zoom call (although I don't really see the purpose of advising people that their laptop mic is adequate and that high quality audio is unnecessary - in my experience it makes a huge difference)
I think you should just view it like a podcast or music video. You have full control over the presentation. I wouldn't doubt there is a huge bias in interviews towards the more aesthetically pleasing video.
What I've learned from this thread is that programmers doing zoom interviews have all developed their own personal conflicts with interacting with video conf software and you will be punished if you do not know their weird pet peeves and fractious reactions ahead of time.
Interviewing for tech jobs was already a crap shoot but now it's on a whole nother level.
On the other hand it's interesting to think about how you can game the system to get an advantage, like one user who said they bought/used fancy lighting and a dslr to have an edge.
My big two after my recent blitz of interviewing candidates are:
1) Don't read/write email or do other web browsing activities during the interview. Even if your eyes are never pointed at the camera, it's easy to recognize eyes that are scanning.
2) Dress like it's an interview. Your whole body. It is so so weird to see people in pajamas or workout clothes during an interview. It is even more bizarre to see a clean dressed person get up to close a door and reveal that they aren't wearing pants.
Nice. Has anyone seen a good list of best practices for a zoom instructors? I work at a large special education organization and the instructors are mostly teachers but when it comes to Teams training for staff they seem to forget everything. We're commonly facing wall of text slides, several hours without breaks and monotone monologues :-)
Also, don’t forget about your internet connection. As an interviewer, it is really hard to look past the first impression of blurry and stuttered audio/video. Check if the speed you’re paying for is reasonable and if better service is available (and affordable to you), check WiFi vs. Ethernet speeds, check if other users on your LAN are hogging your connection. If your connection is unavoidably slow, I would suggest being upfront with the interviewer that you’re aware of the situation and that you have put effort into getting the best possible result, instead of leaving me to wonder if you’re not detail oriented enough for the position.
Yes, but at least intelligible. Both Zoom and Hangouts suck and drop audio when the connection is bad. They are also seemingly excellent at dropping the most important words while keeping the most irrelevant words. :)
Clubhouse, which uses Agora for voice, actually does a much better job at this, it buffers the missed audio and then when the connection comes back, it continues playing the audio slightly faster (it uses some signal processing trickery to speed up voice without shifting the spectrum) until it catches up to the real-time stream, and avoids dropping any audio.
What I really want to see eventually, when we have the hardware to do it real-time, is sending minimal data (on the order of just text and a pose) and deepfaking the voice and video on the receiving end during short periods of bad connectivity.
The standard phone system only supports limited frequencies - it's a technological issue not an issue of good or 'bad' carriers.
You can suggest other non-standard technology which may not be available on the other end, but that defeats the point of using a normal telephone line as suggested and you might as well suggest Zoom in that case.
I have a feeling that over then next few years people with apple devices will do disporportionatly well in interviews due to better video and audio components and a attention to presentation (where that camera is located, image processing to handle weird lighting/different skin tones, multi mic arrays with processing to help remove unwanted noise and clarify speech.
In a way its sad, some people dont even know how much better some brands are at projecting you to a viewer, and you would never know unless you study your zoom calls.
Yeah the mediocre webcam on my macbook pro combined with the noise from the fans spinning up to 100% when teams or similar is run surely puts me ahead of the pack.
1. Audio, audio, audio... It doesn't matter how good or good looking you are if I can't understand any of your eloquence. Using microphone on your phone or webcam may or may not be adequate, you should test this. There is test call functionality in almost every web conferencing software.
In general having microphone close to your mouth and distant from any noises is safest choice. Headsets are cheap and effective.
Also turn off any feature that changes volume dynamically, this can cause volume to change suddenly to painful levels. For example zoom can pick up distant voice and increase volume suddenly. As an interviewer I am already setting the volume as high as I can before it becomes uncomfortable because I don't want to miss anything you say, having the volume change suddenly makes my life this much more difficult.
2. Just because it is remote interview doesn't mean savoir vivre is out the window. Be on time. Don't interrupt. Don't insult the interviewer (yes, I had this happen to me recently).
3. Don't be obvious looking up answers to my technical questions on the internet. And if you need to google something, try to put it in your words rather than read word by word, because maybe I can do the search myself, too. Yes, this also happened to me recently.
4. Make sure you have peace and quiet for the duration of the interview, before the interview and also some margin after. Set the time aside and remove any distractions. Try not to create perception you have something more important to do. It doesn't look good if are jumping from one meeting to the interview to another meeting.