The Four Technical Things
Do all of this the day before, on the same platform, in the same chair. Audio matters most — poor sound makes people sound less competent than they are.
Lens at or slightly above eye level — raise the laptop on books if needed.
Clean the lens; a smeared webcam softens everything and looks like poor equipment.
An external webcam beats most built-in laptop cameras, but position matters more than either.
Close other apps that hold the camera, or the platform may open with a black frame.
Face your light source; never sit with a window behind you.
One soft light in front and slightly above eye level is enough.
Avoid a single harsh overhead bulb — it casts shadows under the eyes.
If the interview is in the evening, test the setup in the evening, not at noon.
Wired earbuds with a microphone outperform most laptop microphones and eliminate echo.
Test on a recording, not from memory — you cannot hear your own room.
Sit in a room with soft furnishings; bare walls and hard floors create reverb.
Silence the fridge, the fan, the dishwasher, and every notification on every device.
Wired ethernet if it is available; otherwise sit close to the router.
Ask others in the house to avoid large downloads or streaming during the call.
Have your phone charged as a backup, with the interviewer's number saved before you start.
Join five minutes early — that is when connection problems reveal themselves.
Framing and Eye Contact
Camera when you speak, screen when you listen. Everything else is geometry.
Your eyes should sit roughly a third of the way down the frame, with a small gap above your head. Too close reads as intense; too far reads as detached.
A laptop on a desk points up at you, which is unflattering and makes you appear to be leaning back. Raise it until the lens meets your eyes.
Sit in the middle of the frame with a similar amount of space on both sides. Off-centre framing is subtly unsettling over half an hour.
Drag the interviewer's window to sit directly beneath your webcam. It shrinks the gap between looking at them and looking at the lens.
This is the closest approximation of natural eye contact that video allows, and it becomes automatic after one rehearsal.
Natural gesture reads as warmth on camera. Hands entirely out of shot make delivery feel stiff and disembodied.
What Is Behind You
Check the whole frame, not just your face. Most background mistakes live at the edges.
A blank wall, a clean bookshelf, or a plant. Anything the interviewer starts reading is attention you are not getting.
Drying laundry, an unmade bed, and a full bin all appear at the edges of shots people thought were fine.
A door behind you means someone can walk through your interview. Face the door if you can, and tell the household when the call is.
If your space needs help, a light blur is stable. Image backgrounds tear around hair and hands and draw attention to themselves.
A dark top against a dark wall leaves a floating head. Choose a shirt colour that separates you from the background.
Plan for them rather than hoping. If something does interrupt, acknowledge it briefly, smile, and carry on — every interviewer has been there.
On-camera clothing has its own rules — solid mid-tones, no fine patterns. Full guidance in what to wear to an interview.
Delivering to a Camera
Video flattens expression and punishes long answers. Eight adjustments that compensate for both.
Video lag makes long answers harder to follow and harder to interrupt gracefully. Ninety seconds, then check in with a look.
It prevents the double-talk that latency causes, and it reads as thoughtful rather than hesitant.
'Two things there — first...' gives the listener structure that they cannot pick up from your posture on a small video window.
Video flattens expression. A little more smile and a little more energy than feels natural reads as normal on the other end.
It is the only feedback the interviewer gets that you are following. A completely still face reads as disengagement on camera.
Hide your own self-view if the platform allows it. Monitoring your own face is a genuine drain on concentration.
A sticky note beside the camera works. Anything requiring you to look down is visible and distracting.
Video endings can be abrupt. Have your closing line ready so the call finishes on your terms rather than on a frozen frame.
One-Way Recorded Interviews
No interviewer, no warm-up, and often no second attempt. The hardest format, and the most improvable with one rehearsal.
Preparation time, recording limit, and whether retakes are allowed vary by platform. Read the instructions fully before the first question loads, because the clock usually starts immediately.
Record yourself answering 'tell me about yourself' once on your phone before you open the platform. Without a conversation to settle into, the first answer is otherwise cold.
The question text on screen pulls your eyes away. Read it, look up, then deliver the whole answer to the camera.
A twenty-second answer to a two-minute question reads as underprepared. A rambling two minutes is worse. Aim for the middle and stop when you are done.
There is nobody to prompt you, so name your structure: 'The situation was, what I did was, the result was.' It keeps you on track with no interlocutor.
If retakes are allowed, review the first one for audio and framing rather than for perfection. A slightly imperfect answer that is clearly audible beats a polished one nobody can hear.
When the Technology Fails
Something goes wrong in plenty of video interviews. Recovering calmly often leaves a better impression than a call where nothing did.
Rejoin immediately. If you cannot: "Apologies — my connection dropped. I am on 07700 900 118 if it is easier to continue by phone, or I can rejoin in two minutes."
Have their number and yours ready before the call. Speed of recovery is the whole impression.
"Can you hear me now? I will switch to my earbuds — one moment."
Have the backup audio device physically next to you rather than in another room.
"I am getting you in fragments — would you mind repeating the last part? It may be my end."
Say it early. Guessing at a half-heard question produces an answer to the wrong thing.
"Sorry — one second." Then handle it briefly, return, and say: "Apologies, back with you. You were asking about the migration."
Brief acknowledgement, no extended apology, and restate the question to show you kept the thread.
Email or call within the first two minutes: "I am having trouble getting into the link — could we try a phone call, or could you resend it?"
Silence is what looks bad. Reaching out immediately looks like competence under pressure.
"Let me start that again — the clearest version is..."
Restarting cleanly is far better than trailing off. Interviewers barely register a reset that is done confidently.
Six Avoidable Mistakes
Test the day before on the same platform, in the same seat, in the same light. An hour is not enough time to solve a driver problem.
The most common video error there is. Turn the desk around so the window is in front of you.
Wired earbuds cost very little and remove echo entirely. Audio quality affects how competent you sound more than video quality does.
Eye movement is unmistakable on camera. Bullet points beside the lens only.
Same clothes, same preparation, same attention as an in-person interview. Being at home changes the setting, not the assessment.
Phone charged, their number saved, a second network available if possible. Technology fails; being ready for it is the differentiator.