Going Wireless for Your Interview: Can You See Me Now?

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Online videoconferencing has been around for years but until now has been used chiefly by corporations with deep pockets for collaborative or distance-meeting purposes. That's changing as traditional videoconferencing systems are also being used as a cost-effective and logical way for employers and candidates to meet and greet each other. Locations at which formal videoconferencing systems are found include the following:

• Corporate offices
• College career centers
• Hotels and airport
• Recruiting and staffing firms
• Public room vendors and brokers
• End-to-end commercial conferencing firms

As a job candidate, never pay for the costs of a video job interview. That expense belongs to the employer.

Moving away from traditional videoconferencing facilities, some employers are engaging video interviewing service firms such as HireVue (www.hirevue.com) to handle the employment screening process from A to Z. HireVue records the interview either at a company office or offsite with a Webcam (or sends the Webcam to the candidate) and provides a tutorial on the technical aspects of the video interview. Each candidate for the same position is asked the same questions. Typically a candidate is given 30 seconds to read a question and about two minutes to answer it. Hiring managers compare recordings of the sessions to see how each candidate answers the questions.

In addition to traditional videoconferencing facilities and independent video interviewing service firms, Webcams at home are the breaking news for job interviews. The reason is cost and available technology.

In the 1980s, color cameras required studio lighting and maintenance costing $5,000 to $100,000. Today a basic Webcam runs as little as $25-$30; pretty good models can be had for $60-$75; and advanced models go for $100-$150. Laptops increasingly come with Webcams built in. Although Webcams keep improving and are better than they were, the picture quality isn't as good as film, and there's still a slight audio delay of a second or two, sometimes causing a lip-sync lag.

What is a video interview?

Video interviewing (a form of videoconferencing) is a live, two-way electronic communication that permits two or more people in different geographic locations to engage in face-to-face visual and audio exchange. Miles separate them: sometimes few, sometimes many, and sometimes oceans.

In the new Webcam-dominated world, the caller and the person on the receiving end need only a computer and a monitor, a Webcam, a microphone and Internet access to do a job interview. Or a more ambitious job interview can be conducted on more sophisticated equipment, such as a television camera (rather than a Webcam) and projected on a television screen (rather than on a computer monitor).

Either way, interviewing skills are front and center in a video version.

The gamut of video interviews

Here's how the who and how of video job interviews shake out:

• High end means traditional technology and assistance used in permanent set-ups (like a TV set) in conference centers, corporate offices, and public rental rooms. High production values typically include costly equipment and professional staff to handle all technical concerns.
• Mid-level includes intermediate technology outsourced to a specialty video firm by an employer. The middleman contractor may invite job candidates into an office, operate with traditional equipment, or send them a Webcam to use at home for the interview if the candidate does not own a Webcam. Video firm staff provides instructions and tips to job candidates.
• Low end refers to new Webcam technology used directly between an employer and a candidate who turns a Webcam on himself or herself with no guidance or technical assistance. This is the category where the vast majority of job seekers find themselves: raw beginners at technically setting up or using Webcams. And after mastering the technical aspects, video newbies are inexperienced on the performing requirements.

Consider video interviewing as a new skill set to master. If you can afford it, get video job interview coaching. If not, practice early and practice often, using friends as interviewers. Study TV personalities for presentation behavior. And read and relish the how-to-do-it suggestions in the upcoming section "Rock the Video Interview."