The invitation has arrived, but there's no address in it: the interview is on Teams. Or, stranger still, you get a link where questions appear on screen and you record your answers yourself, with nobody watching live. For many employers a video interview is now a normal first round, and sometimes the second one too. What you say still matters most, but on camera there are things you never have to think about in a meeting room: lighting, sound, where you look, and a connection that picks exactly the wrong moment to drop.
The good news: almost all of that can be sorted out in advance. In this article you'll learn how to prepare for both a live video interview and a pre-recorded one, and what to do if something goes wrong anyway.
Two kinds of video interview
It helps to know which type you're facing, because each needs a slightly different approach.
- Live video interview — A normal interview, just over Teams, Zoom, Google Meet or something similar. There's a real recruiter or hiring manager on the other end, they can ask follow-up questions and there's room for a bit of small talk.
- Recorded (one-way) interview — You log in to a platform, a question appears, sometimes with a short thinking time, and you then record your answer within a fixed time limit. Someone reviews the recordings later. There's nobody nodding along or helping you out if you get stuck, and you often get only a limited number of retakes.
Read the invitation carefully. For a recorded interview it usually says how many questions there are, how long you have per answer and whether you can start again. If it doesn't say, it's perfectly fine to ask the recruiter.
Tech: test everything the day before
Most video interview hiccups can be avoided with fifteen minutes of testing the day before. Run through this list:
- Open the link early. Do you need to install an app, or give your browser permission to use your camera and microphone? Don't find out two minutes before the start.
- Use headphones or earbuds with a microphone. They prevent echo and help you hear the other person clearly. A wired pair has no battery to run flat.
- Make sure your connection is stable. Sit close to the router or use a network cable if you can. Ask the people you live with not to start streaming during your interview.
- Laptop plugged in, notifications off. Close programs you don't need and silence email and chat notifications, on your phone as well.
- Check your display name. In Teams or Zoom the other person sees your account name. You don't want "partyking99" or your flatmate's name showing up there.
Camera, lighting and background
You don't need to build a studio. Three things make the biggest difference:
Camera at eye level
A laptop flat on a desk films you from below: the interviewer ends up looking at your chin and your ceiling. Put your laptop on a stack of books or a box so the camera sits at or just above eye level. Position yourself so your head and shoulders are in frame, with a little space above your head.
Light from the front
Sit facing the window, not with your back to it. Backlighting turns you into a dark silhouette. If it's dark outside, place a lamp behind your screen so it lights your face. Avoid a bright light directly overhead, which casts harsh shadows.
A calm background
A plain wall or a tidy bookcase works fine. A drying rack or an unmade bed is distracting. If you can't avoid that, use the background blur in the app; a neutral blur is usually less distracting than a jokey virtual background.
Eye contact and body language on camera
This is where people often go wrong without noticing. When you look at the interviewer's face on your screen, it looks to them as if you're looking down. On camera, you make eye contact by looking into the lens.
You don't have to do that for the whole interview; it would feel unnatural. A workable habit: listen while looking at the face on your screen, and look into the camera at the moments that matter, such as the start of an answer and your key point. Drag the interviewer's window to the top of your screen, right under the camera. That keeps the difference in gaze small.
Beyond that: sit upright, leaning slightly forward, and let your hands come into frame now and then when you explain something. Nod visibly when you're listening. On camera, a motionless face comes across as disinterest more quickly than it does across a table.
Speaking pace and pauses
Over a connection, sound arrives with a slight delay. If you talk fast and without pausing, your voices overlap and half of it gets lost. Three habits help:
- Speak a little more slowly than usual and articulate clearly. What feels exaggeratedly calm to you usually just sounds clear on the other end.
- Leave a brief pause after the other person finishes before you start. That way the delay doesn't make you interrupt.
- Close your answer audibly. A line like "So that was my approach in a nutshell" signals that it's their turn again. That's harder to read on video than in person.
Structuring your answers
On screen it's easier to drift, and in a recorded interview there's a clock running as well. Structure matters even more. For questions like "Tell me about a time when…" use the STAR method: situation, task, action, result. For the opening question "Tell me about yourself" a short, prepared elevator pitch pays off. And if you want to know which questions to expect, have a look at the most common interview questions with example answers.
A handy trick that only works on video: stick a few sticky notes with keywords around your camera, for example the names of your three best examples. Keep it to single words. Anyone reading out full sentences looks away from the lens and sounds flat, and an interviewer notices straight away.
Specifically for recorded interviews
In a one-way interview you're talking to your own image, and that feels awkward for almost everyone. A few tips:
- Do the practice question if there is one. Many platforms offer a trial question that doesn't count. Use it to check your lighting, sound and timing.
- Use the thinking time to choose your structure, not to write out a script. If you like, jot down three words: situation, what you did, result.
- Keep an eye on the timer, but don't fill it for the sake of it. A clear answer that finishes thirty seconds early beats one that gets cut off halfway.
- Talk to someone. Imagine you're telling the answer to one person, for instance the recruiter who invited you. Your tone becomes warmer by itself.
If you're unsure how your recordings will be used, assessed or stored, you're entitled to ask. A serious employer can explain it.
When the technology lets you down
Even with good preparation your picture can freeze or your wifi can drop. That says nothing about you as a candidate; how you handle it does. Here's how to deal with it:
- Say what's happening. "I can't hear you very well, I'll switch my camera off for a moment to save bandwidth" is absolutely fine. Stay calm and friendly.
- Rejoin if the picture really freezes, and when you're back, briefly recap where you were.
- Have a plan B. Note the recruiter's phone number beforehand. If you can't reconnect within a few minutes, call or send a short message and suggest continuing by phone or rescheduling.
- In a recorded interview: take a screenshot of the error message and email the recruiter straight away explaining what happened. Don't just wait and hope nobody notices.
Practise beforehand, on camera
The best preparation is watching yourself back a few times. Record two or three answers on your phone or laptop and watch them twice: once with the sound off, to see where you look and what your hands are doing, and once with sound only, to hear your pace and filler words. It's uncomfortable at first, but in a few minutes you'll see what would otherwise take a whole interview to find out.
Want to practise in a more focused way? The MARA Interview Simulator gives you questions tailored to the role you're applying for, and with Interview Pro you practise your answers out loud with audio or video and get AI feedback on things like pace, filler words and structure. You can repeat until your answers flow, without a real application depending on it.
Conclusion
A video interview isn't just a normal interview with a camera in between, but it isn't rocket science either. Test your tech the day before, put your camera at eye level with the light in front of you, look into the lens at the moments that matter and speak a little more calmly than usual. Prepare your answers with a clear structure and practise them a few times on camera. Then during the interview your attention goes where it belongs: to what you have to say.