5 Video Interview Strategies that Make You the Obvious Choice

These are the strategies no one talks about that will allow you to ace any video interview because I hear what these interviewers are saying about you when I read their feedback. And I will give you 5 things. Number 1 and 3 are super judgmental, but once you know them, you won't make these easy mistakes. Number 2 and 4 are ways to make the interviewer love you that are actually a bit counterintuitive. And number 5 will make the interviewer in all caps, right? This interview was amazing in their feedback notes, and none of your competition is doing it. And if you've been on my channel before, you have seen the ungodly amount of success stories from people who have landed offers from my interview strategies and from my book Reverse the Search. So let's make you the next success story. Strategy number 1: your outfit. You would not believe how how many job interviewers comment on the candidate's outfits in their feedback after a video interview. On one hand, they will remark how great it was to see the candidate in a blazer, clearly taking this interview seriously. On the other hand, interviewers sometimes can't get past the fact that even it's for a job in technology or a more casual job such as not an executive role, if you were wearing a t-shirt or something, it's seen as not appearing or lacking professionalism. Listen, we can sit here and say how annoying it is to be judged by our appearances, but welcome to the world, honey. Everyone is judging your appearance in all situations, and that's the trouble with working with humans. I say when in doubt, wear a shirt with buttons on a video call. Maybe a blazer if it makes sense, but skip the tie. Put in the comments, what do you wear to video interviews. I'm very curious to hear what's popular. Strategy number 2, lead the interview. Something to make the interviewer become obsessed with you— why are you so obsessed with me?— is to actually lead the interview a good bit yourself. Such as, have you ever gotten into an interview and they ask you, tell me about yourself? That is already a sign that the interviewer likely wants to be led. The reason being, if they had prepared properly for this interview, they wouldn't have asked you that question because you already told them about yourself. Your resume and on your job application gave them tons of information, and potentially there's previous notes from other interviewers. Yet they're asking you this because they are context switching from other interviews or other things they're doing, and they need you to position their perspective so they're all caught up with who you are and why you make sense for this role. Already it's an invitation for you to set the frame, Picasso. So for sure, do this for this question, and I will also link a worksheet to help you craft the perfect answer to tell me about yourself for free. But then I want you to also curve your answers to other questions they have. They ask a question, and then yes, you answer it, but you also make sure to bring up information that you specifically plan to share for the interview to ensure that they can see you as the right fit for this role. Now, this is referring to later video interviews. You typically wouldn't do this in a first round interview with a recruiter. They usually have their set of questions they just really need to get through. I'm more talking about the second or third or later round interviews. And for a deeper dive into strategies like this, I will link my free Unshakeable Interviews masterclass below. Strategy 3, your energy. There are 3 energy frequencies that can consistently get a job candidate rejected in a video interview, and it's likely that you're doing one of them. Number 1 is having low energy, which is super common because normally in conversations, that's how you talk. And here's an example from Love Island of this low energy frequency. I'm learning about you every day. I appreciate it. I feel like you, you know, I believe what you say. The people in this clip find this energy frequency to be normal, but in a job interview, it is seen as essentially being bored. In a video interview, sure, the camera adds 10 pounds, but it subtracts 2 cups of coffee. So you need to bring more energy and excitability than you normally would, or else that interviewer's notoriously inaccurate gut feeling is going to clock you as someone who doesn't like their job and isn't really interested in working here. The second energy frequency is nervousness. Humans possess mirror neurons, which means that we tend to echo body language and even the mood of the people who we are looking at. Therefore, if you are nervous and anxious, subconsciously it makes the interviewer uncomfortable and they associate that feeling with you. And I have quite a lot of videos on how to shake these nerves, and I do dive into it deeper in the Unshakeable Interviews Masterclass, which I've linked below. The third energy frequency, which is an offshoot of the first two, is inauthentic energy of sounding rehearsed. The interviewer will immediately get the ick if they feel you are reciting, or worse, reading your interview answers. And when you do this, you don't sound like a real person, a real coworker. Our brains are trained to detect this inauthenticity, and these interviewers will subconsciously dislike you as soon as they hear that sing-songy rhythm that you often have when reading a script. And at this point, the interview is dead in the water. Strategy number 4, research the interviewer. Oh my gosh, interviewers will not shut up about how tickled they are that you read their blog post from 3 months ago and mentioned it in the interview. Really, showing any intentional research you did on the interviewer scratches that classic self-interested itch that so many of us have, myself included. First, ask your recruiter the name of your video interviewer, and this is such a normal question, and often the information is given ahead of time anyways. And come into the video interview having looked up how long they've been at the company. Even that is a conversation starter where no matter how long they've been there, you can ask a good question such as, I saw you started within the last 5 months. How has that been going? Or, I saw you've been here for 4 years. There's been a lot of growth during that time. How much has it changed for you? Look at where they've lived, if they have any posts online on LinkedIn or articles or anything they're promoting about themselves. Interviewers don't want to be asked, what's your favorite thing about working here? For the 4th time today. No, God, please no. But they do want to talk about themselves and feel like you notice them. Again, I know how ridiculous this all sounds, but you're here to play play to win, right? Strategy number 5, bring assets. This last video interview strategy makes interviewers absolutely lose their mind. I did this in an interview with a CEO over a decade ago, and he still brings it up whenever I see him as one of the things he will never forget about me. And I even ended up working for him for years, becoming his friend and everything, going to his wedding. So He has plenty other memories of me to choose from. This strategy is to bring materials you have prepared into the video interview. And this could be work samples, it could be a competitive analysis you created, it could be a lot of things. I've actually created an AI tool that helps you come up with these ideas and build it. I also dive into a ton of ideas and how to best execute this in my book, Reverse the Search. But what you essentially do is you bring those assets into the video interview, and then you offer to share your screen when they ask a question that makes sense to transition from that question to sharing your screen. And this is actually quite easy to do. And then they can actually see your thought process and the way you work instead of you trying to convince them with your words that you're a good hire. Yes, this does take effort, but it is not an overdone strategy in the least. I continue to ask in workshops I do with a lot of hiring managers, how many times have Has someone done this in a job interview? And the most common answer is usually zero, or maybe that it's happened to them one time out of the thousands of interviews they've conducted. So give it a try. You've got this. Wi-Fi high five.