How to Give a Great First Impression in a Virtual Interview

studies have shown that interviewers decide in the first 20 to 90 seconds of the interview whether you're a good fit for the company or not and the rest of the time is just reaffirming the decision they already made bottom line first impressions matter but how do you give a good first impression when it's a virtual interview well today i'm going to show you how [Music] so if we haven't met my name is cassandra and i help motivated professionals build their careers through practical tips to gain that career confidence you need to get the job so let's talk about this first impression i totally understand like how do you make a good first impression when you're online you don't get to be with the person you don't get to shake their hand right oh that's that's gone forever right that's gone forever you know you don't have that energy to get the feel for them and for them to get the feel for you but you still can make a great first impression first thing i need you to do when you have that zoom or webex or whatever virtual software they're using interview i need you to be early okay check your tech issues ahead of time make sure that this isn't when zoom decided oh we have to upgrade your software right now in order for you to join this meeting like get all of that out of the way the day before try to enter make sure it works then come on a couple minutes early not super early because sometimes on their end they're doing the same tech thing you were trying but try and be there a couple of minutes early just like you would show up early in the actual physical interview setting you want to show your eagerness to be there which will give a good first impression by being on the call early you do not want these people to be on there waiting for you to join so be on early so that even if they're putting you in a waiting room you can be there ready and when they're ready to go they can hit you know enter and bring you on and you're just like yeah i'm here i'm ready here we are you're not panicked so be early okay this next one sounds so obvious but i'm on a lot of zooms and people never do this you need to smile and be friendly there is something about us being in our own homes that we forget some of these rules like you're nervous you're just trying to concentrate on the interview and so they bring you on and you're like this hi nice to meet you hi and we don't all really understand zoom etiquette yet of like is it too much just to start the conversation etc no you should just like if you met in person you would smile you would shake their hand and say hi it's nice to meet you now we don't shake hands but you when they bring you on screen you should be smiling and you should say hi it's so nice to meet you all right or it's so nice to meet you depending on if it's a panel or one person so just keep that in mind you need to say hi it's so nice to meet you all thank you for having me today it's going to show confidence and excitement two things that people want in someone that they're looking to hire for a position so make sure you're doing both of those please don't come on and just be like hi nice to meet you nope you need to make eye contact or eye contact right you're not actually looking at them but you need to be i have been doing a lot of practice interviews with clients recently amazon seems to be hiring a lot of people but i've been doing a ton of practice interviews and i keep having to explain to the people my clients in these interviews the same thing they all look over here they're looking over here because they're looking at my picture on the screen or they look right here and they're looking at their picture on the screen i need you to look at the camera on your computer not at the picture of them not at the picture of you or wherever that might be somebody the other day did their interview like this so yeah i really think that this would be a good fit for me blah blah blah and they're looking down the whole time we stopped it very quickly so that they could practice the right way and it's a very natural thing to do you're trying to look at the person you're talking to but in trying to look at their picture you're not actually giving them that connection of looking at them so while i want you to do this obviously through the whole interview make sure that when they bring you on camera you are on screen you are looking at that camera on your laptop okay my tip on this stick a post-it behind it that says look here in capital letters to just jog your memory or stick up print out their profile picture from linkedin and stick it behind there to remind yourself where you're looking but you need to be looking at that camera because if we were in person i'd want you to make great eye contact it shows confidence once again and you don't get to do that in virtual so you need to make eye contact with your laptop camera now similar to what i say in regular interviews i'm not expecting you to stare down this camera for the entire interview and never blink or look away from here how creepy is that but you do need to start by making eye contact and start by answering questions looking at the camera you're getting some bonus advice not just first impressions but definitely on that first impression please be looking here okay you need to still dress the part a huge way you make a first impression in an interview is the way you look for better or worse we're not going to get into it today but we judge people based on how they look it is a non-verbal sign of communication of what you bring to the table so please dress the whole part don't just wear something on top and not the matching half on bottom you need to be wearing a full outfit this is going to remind you i think psychologically that oh yes this is important i'm i'm doing a real interview this isn't some sort of practice or something because i'm in my house it's also going to signal to them okay they understand how we act how we dress etc it's weird but seeing how you dress does make them think about how you would potentially act crazy but when i say dress the part i also mean how your hair looks if you're a woman how your makeup looks i mean men on camera i say this in another video you might want to put on a little powder to not look shiny too i'm just saying those sorts of things all matter we want to give them the best picture of what it would be if we were in person so make sure you're addressing the whole part now there are also some other factors that come into play when you're in a virtual setting to make yourself look good things like background lighting camera angles etc now we won't get into all of that here i want you to go watch the video how to look good in a virtual meeting i'll put a card to it here it might just be the end card in a second uh it'll be in the description box below but that'll give you a couple more tips to really make it seem as much as you're in their space in person rather than virtual so you do these things you're gonna set a great first impression you know they're hopefully gonna bring you back for a round two interview or just hire you at that point and if you need more interview help i have a full checklist in the description box below it's interviewprepchecklist.com it'll help you get prepared for your next interview and feel confident going in so that's it for today i hope you like this one and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Cass Thompson Career Advice

Views: 19,174

Rating: 4.9746032 out of 5

Keywords: cass thompson career, cass thompson career advice, job search advice, job interview tips, video interview tips 2020, zoom interview tips, how to give a great first impression, first impression interview, job interview tips 2020, best zoom interview tips

Id: EnnEb3_P0AI

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 05 2020