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> Google meet If a company was sincere about wanting interviewees to feel comfortable and to perform their best, they would ask the interviewee (ahead of time

> Google meet If a company was sincere about wanting interviewees to feel comfortable and to perform their best, they would ask the interviewee (ahead of time of course) to choose what videoconference software they'd prefer. It's a joke being forced to download MS Teams or Skype or whatever just for a single interview, and then not have the ability to do a "test run" in advance to make sure your mic/camera/bluetooth are all working correctly and to become familiar with the UI.

bradknowles 5y ago
Oh, I always download whatever the software is in question, and then do practice runs with it to make sure I know how it operates. You can’t always do that with whatever whiteboarding or shared IDE solution they might want you to use, but at least with the chat/shared screen solution, you should definitely be able to do that. Find friends or family to help you, or whatever it takes to practice that. The in-person equivalent would be knowing exactly how to get to the building where you’re going to interview, know where parking is, etc…. You do a dry run and see what it’s like. Maybe also take a moment to look at people going into the building to see how they’re dressed. Make sure to fully review any material that HR or the recruiter gives you before the meeting. Review it again just before the meeting. If they have any suggestions on interview techniques or the kinds of things you can do to help explain your experience, make sure you can do that in spades. Beyond that, I would encourage you to be authentic. Be your best version of yourself, sure — but still be true to your core nature. If they don’t like you, then you’ve probably dodged a bullet. For all my references, I ask them to be radically transparent and honest with their discussion of me. I wouldn’t ask them to be my reference if I didn’t trust what they were going to say in the first place, so I would prefer that they don’t whitewash anything they would say about me. If my references scare off a potential employer, then again — they’ve helped me dodge a bullet.

bradknowles 5y ago

Oh, I always download whatever the software is in question, and then do practice runs with it to make sure I know how it operates. You can’t always do that with whatever whiteboarding or shared IDE solution they might want you to use, but at least with the chat/shared screen solution, you should definitely be able to do that. Find friends or family to help you, or whatever it takes to practice that. The in-person equivalent would be knowing exactly how to get to the building where you’re going to interview, know where parking is, etc…. You do a dry run and see what it’s like. Maybe also take a moment to look at people going into the building to see how they’re dressed. Make sure to fully review any material that HR or the recruiter gives you before the meeting. Review it again just before the meeting. If they have any suggestions on interview techniques or the kinds of things you can do to help explain your experience, make sure you can do that in spades. Beyond that, I would encourage you to be authentic. Be your best version of yourself, sure — but still be true to your core nature. If they don’t like you, then you’ve probably dodged a bullet. For all my references, I ask them to be radically transparent and honest with their discussion of me. I wouldn’t ask them to be my reference if I didn’t trust what they were going to say in the first place, so I would prefer that they don’t whitewash anything they would say about me. If my references scare off a potential employer, then again — they’ve helped me dodge a bullet.