1) Lighting – buy a usb ring light and skip the glasses on interview day as the reflection can be distracting. Real plain neutral tone backgrounds are best, otherwise use the blur feature. Remember you want to stand out, not stick out.
2) Prepare – look up the interviewers the day before the interview. Download and run teams, zoom, and webex and familiarize yourself with basic features. Set a professional headshot as the background for when your video is off.
3) Keep yourself muted during presentations or when there’s more than one applicant in the room, keep your mic on during the one on ones.
4) You have to really pay attention to the interviewer. Give them plenty of time to finish their thoughts because you won’t get the same type of cues as you would in person.
5) I went back-and-forth wearing a tie or just button down with jeans depending on if I had patients to see that day. It’s probably better just to go tie. It doesn’t look good when the interviewer is dressed more professionally than the interviewee.
6) You want a location where you will not be interrupted. If you’re using a call room or an office at work put a note on the door that says that you’re interviewing and not to disturb. Forward your pager etc.
7) Make sure that if you want to talk about something that you put it in the hobbies section of your application because that’s one segment that every single interviewer will ask you about. Conversely if there’s something you don’t really like talking about that doesn’t inspire you leave it out of this section. If there are any time gaps in your CV this will also come up.
(Affiliate link above for ring light)
Isaac Goldszer MD 