Practicing for a Pre-recorded Interview

Typically in a pre-recorded video interview, a candidate can practice as many times as he or she wishes before submitting the final interview to the interviewer.

If you are a candidate, how, exactly, should you practice?

Here are some tips:

Ask yourself if, based on your practice videos, you would hire you. If not, why not?
Show your practice videos not just to family members and loved ones, but also ideally to professionals in the industry who can be objective and constructive about what’s missing.
Check that you are conveying the impression, in your practice answers, that you have taken the time to do thorough research on the employer and the industry.
Refine the content: are you answering the questions directly and using specific stories or anecdotes to illustrate your points?
Refine the delivery: are you making too many broad hand gestures (which tend to appear larger on camera)? Are you making enough “eye contact” with the camera? Are you speaking slowly and clearly enough, without “ums” and “you know’s”?
Refine your appearance: do your practice videos scream out “bad hair day” and are you wearing noisy jangly jewelry or distracting stripes?
Refine the technical aspects: is there too much glare or too much background noise in the videos?
Don’t over-practice. You should appear fresh and spontaneous in the final video, and not as though you are reading from a teleprompter.
Use your practice videos to build up your confidence. It will shine through.

On first glance, you might think that there’s really nothing to practice in a pre-recorded video, because you can simply re-record as often you as you like. Nothing could be further from the truth. Much like an “open-book” take-home exam, where students have access to their notes and the questions, it takes time and work to deliver a final solid product. Your video interview should be nothing short of that.

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Ziggeo lets you quickly and easily pre-screen candidates by watching their videos. Candidates simply record short videos of themselves for your own private viewing.