Mike Richards leads a group discussion on interview skills for both candidates and interviewers. The call covers virtual interviewing techniques and how to prepare effectively for remote conversations.
Hello, everyone. Hello. Hello. Yeah, I know, I know. I've got a Zoom call. Thank you. Hey, why isn't we playing up? So she's trying to get on. All right, let's see where everybody is. This is why, because I've got headphones plugged in.
Hi, Mike. Hi, everyone.
Everybody. Cam, unmute yourself because you're the best person here today. Cam did his homework, everyone, and he was the one that was watching the video of me. Cam, can you hear me now? Cam, you're unmuted. Say hello. Wave, Cam. Cam. Leong. I just unmute myself. Sorry about. So I can tell you, everyone, Cam was the best person doing his homework because he watched my video all the way through to watch all eight tips and discovered only six of them have been recorded. So shame on all of you. He was the swat and always the loyal fan, mate. Thank you, Cam. Yeah, that's all right. I'll send you the. I'll send you the Twix in the. In the post. But what was great was really grateful because it meant that we. We updated the video. Actually, there was a slightly outdated one. We got all eight tips on there. They are designed a little bit tongue in cheek. They are designed also for more junior candidates, perhaps, you know, first time you might have done interviews, you know, a good refresher to people that perhaps haven't. So, yeah. So everyone's. Yes, nice and warm. Well, we got people. How many people we got here? Quite a few. It's good to see. Now, Avra will be joining us shortly. She's having some difficulties, but that's all right, we don't mind. Let's have a look. Let's minimize me. You still got me there, Carl. You're happy. Jenny Cray, Sagitta, Cyrus. Look at this. What a crowd. Even got Fabris smiling for a change. That's good. Yeah. Lovely bookshelf. All the books she's never read. One day she will read in lockdown. Right, so interviews. Well, when Ayra eventually gets through her technical difficulties, which is an interesting bit, actually. So first one of these. Now, if you've done your homework, great. And had a look at some of the bits, great. If you haven't, don't worry. It was more again to sort of prep you guys for the future, really, to think about preparation and everything else. Now, looking around and I've got a few people here, so we've got a wide range. Ira, she has appeared as if by magic. Let's co host her. Let's have a look. Let's move you down there? Yes, I want. Yes. Where's my speaker view as well. Let's put the chat on there. Chat on the side. So anyone comment as well, questions as we go through and Abra will move those around. Where have you moved to? You suddenly jumped up screen. There you go, you're there. So chip in as well so you can look at the, the chat bar and everything else.
Yeah.
So we spoke earlier, didn't we, about this today? Let's crack on into it. What were we saying about interviews? What was the first thing we were sort of jumping into? Because we looked at interviewees, we went to three sections and we said we're going to go on about if you're being interviewed yourselves, if you're being an interviewer, so you might be interviewing someone. And there's a whole new thing, a couple of you might have heard of it called Zoom and Skype and virtual interviewing are some of the, you know, we've got a couple of really good ones. I like Francesco, he's got a nice virtual background, quite plain, focusing on himself and things like that. And then we've got some other people that perhaps have got some more adventurous background, should we say more cluttered, where people might, their attention might be drawn to. And we'll go into those and talk about some of the, perhaps the things you might want to think about before you do jump into some of these calls. I noticed a few people as well. So for instance, at the moment I've got a front light. That's the front light off. Yeah. Looking a bit more Darth Vader like and everything else. In fact, if I move there. So having a light on the mega of a difference. There you go. And a dog that bounce. There you go. There you go. Keep going with the sound effects. Avrah, go on. We were talking about dragons then, weren't we? And things like that. Or should I just dive in because you're dog?
No. So we were kind of looking at sort of from an interviewee perspective, sort of what the most important areas are. So obviously you've been sort of within the industry for a few years. I mean, sort of, you've probably seen a lot of mistakes. I mean, what would you say are the most common mistakes that you see when people are going in for interviews? And what would you call people up on sort of if you're doing a screening call for preparation with them.
Okay. Probably the first thing after doing this. Yeah. As you say, 20 plus years. The first thing I think about is interviewing is a two way process. And you might think, oh yeah, well that's obvious. That's really obvious. You know, someone's walking in the room. It's not obvious to you lot, otherwise you get it right. And you'd hire someone every time and you'd never make any mistakes. And someone said that to me before, said, well, I know about this. I mean really, once you've hired every person you wanted, they went, oh, no, no we haven't. I said, well, there you go then. You're a bloody idiot. You know, because they're not. What you're trying to. I'm trying to say to you is it's a practice skill. You need to. As we said at the top of this, this is one of the things we did. Let's get it a bit closer. Oh, it goes black. I don't know. Okay. Oh, there you go. Well, that's interesting. I like with the virtual background. It doesn't do it. Oh, there you go. That's better, that's better. That's the interview checklist. You'll find that on the website. And there's one for the interviewee. There's also the one for the interviewer which should have been attached with some reason. It's got detached. We're gonna get up there. But the interviewee checklist is actually valid for both sides. But what we were saying is any interview is a two way process. And nowadays I think when I first started the power was very much more with employers. I think that.
