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Your home office can be a quiet corner of your living room or a spot on the dining room table. Anyplace that lets you work distraction-free can double as your home office.
Rather than pushing on working hours, ask your candidates their usual methodologies and tools. Focussing on the quality of deliveries and due dates, rather than counting every minute, is a better strategy to help your team members manage time and avoid distractions. In addition to listing the types of technologies you’re familiar with, you should also be prepared to explain how and why your team used them. “Be prepared to describe a variety of practices to make remote work effective,” Leech says.
Ensure you have a fast, reliable internet connection
Not only will you not have to worry about technical glitches, but you also won’t be making clicking sounds as you type. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it could be a bit annoying to the interviewer. If you’re using something battery-powered, make sure your device is charged. Or, conduct the interview while it’s plugged into a power source. If that’s not an option, make sure you have backup batteries on hand in case the interview goes long. Even if “randomly stacked pile of paper” is your preferred filing method, don’t show it off during the interview.
This question helps you get to know your candidate better, including what they like to do outside of work and how they spend their personal time. It also gives you insight into how they manage work/life balance to avoid the dreaded burnout. It can be challenging to work from home without the buzz of an office environment and the energy of your colleagues to keep you going. Ask this question to uncover how your candidate maintains their focus and balance. Look out for answers that mention taking reenergizing walks and regular breaks—this can signal their ability to maintain work/life balance.
Have a backup internet plan.
This gives you a visual reminder that you need to look at the webcam. What’s great about this is that the interviewer will never see the sticky note. At least 10 minutes before the scheduled interview, ensure everything is in place—including you! Being out of breath because you ran to get the phone doesn’t exactly show the person on the other end that their call is the most important thing going on during your morning. Similarly, a lousy webcam gives the impression that you’re just not on the top of your game.
Discussing what you learned can be incredibly valuable, so if you don’t have a glowing success story, it’s OK to share an example of a time things didn’t work out the way you’d hoped. As interesting and relevant as those examples may be, the goal is to keep the focus on your conflict resolution skills. If you can do a trial run for your video interview setup with a family member or a friend over Skype or Google Meet, you’ll have a better idea of how you’re comfortable listening and speaking.
Adjust Google Meet bandwidth settings.
Something you would wear to a nice dinner out with your in-laws, rather than the sweatpants you live in all week. And build your online personal profile so that if they look for you online, you have a digital footprint. Cheeky Scientist, a platform that helps people with Ph.D.s transition remote interview meaning into meaningful, high-paying industry careers. I now have a pair of the Bowers & Wilkins On-Ear Headphones and I must say, I’m pretty pleased! On-ear headphones are new for me, so I use my AirPods as a first choice, and these for when I’m in the mood (good for music).
