How to pass a remote interview. Tips from a seasoned recruiter

Hi, y’all! My name is Anna. For the last 10 years I have been connecting tech companies with great developers. I have been doing this for the past four years, completely remote and reach out to candidates from all around the world.

I worked for the US, Ukrainian, Swedish, Irish and French firms. I enjoyed working with start up, scale up, big enterprise, and even unicorn companies. I have given thousands of interviews and helped hundreds of people to get hired.

I currently work for the UK startup named, ‘Aula’. The company creates the Learning Experience Platform for Higher Education. Aula [ˈɔ:la] means “the place people come together”. That’s exactly what Aula is about: bringing students, staff, and faculty together in a digital environment that encourages interaction and collaboration. It’s a fully remote company. See what that means.

So, I have collected some tips that I usually give to the candidates that we coach, here at Aula, personally use these tips myself, and offer the same kind of advice to my friends, when going for an interview.

They will make your job hunting process less stressful and more effective.

Before the Interview

1. Research info about the company

Why is it so important to know more about your possible future employer?

Imagine yourself on a date, and the guy or girl in front of you is asking,: “why did you decide to go on a date with me?” After the pause you say, “Oh, I really don’t know. I just need to have a relationship with someone, so…I decided to come. By the way, what’s your name?” Not really good, yeah?

So, what do you need to know?

• The name of the company
• How big the company is
• If it’s an international or local firm, what offices they have
• What their product is about
• What technologies they use
• …etc.

Researching takes no more than half an hour. Make sure to re-check the job description, company’s site, their blog, crunch base page, github page, etc., before the interview.

2. Prepare your own questions.

Why? Interviews are an interactive process. You are a job hunter, not prey. Be confident and curious. Yes, a company will make their choice, but you make your own choice also.

You should have a list of your questions so you don’t miss anything. This also helps you show your interest to the company.

Questions you can ask:

• Details about the company that you need clarified
• Info about the team
• More info about the project, stages of the project, technologies, etc.
• What architecture they use
• What development process they follow
• What they expect from you
• Salary level (fixed and bonuses)
• Any questions that are important for you

One of my favorite questions is, “If I join your company, what will my usual day look like?”

At the end of the interview the last question should be, “What is the next step?” because the hiring process is only efficient when it keeps moving forward.

3. Organize your Environment

It’s important to create a convenient environment for the call.

• Be sure that you have the call in a quiet place. A café is not the best choice.You can use your living room, your kitchen, оr any quiet place in the house where you can close the door
• Choose the best camera angle for your laptop or phone.

• Use a neutral background. If you don’t have one, then you can use a digital background
• Use your headset. It makes the sound more clear and precise.
• Also it can really come in handy to fully charge your device or to have a charger around, because you don’t want to disappear in the middle of the interview.

At the call

Here is the moment. Relax. Breath in, breath out. Nobody’s going to torture you, really. The dream of any interviewer is that you will pass the interview and they will close the position. Give them that chance!

Keep your notes near you. Switch on the laptop if you’re going to have a hangouts/zoom interview, or get your smartphone if it’s going to be a phone call.

It’s not your goal to impress anybody. Your goal is to clarify if this job and the company matches you.

The interviewer from the other side of the screen will be happy to provide you with this information.

Enjoy the call. One of your goals is to get a new positive experience of passing an interview.

After the call

You should reward yourself. Drink a cup of coffee, bite off a piece of chocolate, and have at least five minutes of total relaxation.

You can make some notes for the future. Maybe you forgot to ask something, or you need to be better prepared to present your work background.

Fingers crossed🤞 It’s the best time to find a job that really matches you.If you have any questions or would like to join EdTech startup AULA feel free to ping me 👌 😍