Going for an Interview? Don't Do It Virtually

 As if we didn't have enough to worry about, now experts are saying that job candidates who interview virtually are less likely to get the job.

Thanks so much.  In a time when face-to-face interaction is discouraged, this is very, well, discouraging.

"New research provides some of the first solid evidence that people who watch a virtual job interview rate the candidate substantially lower than those who watch the same interview in person," newswise.com reports.

According to CNBC, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused as many as 8 out of 10 recruiters to turn to videoconferencing to screen and interview job candidates. This conveys a shift in hiring practices that may continue long after the pandemic’s impact wears off.


"With this trend, employers and job applicants may wonder how interviews conducted through Zoom, or other video-mediated communication (VMC) platforms, hold up when compared to face-to-face sessions," newswise quotes Dr. Denise Baker, who worked on the project with Dr. Devin Burns and Dr. Clair Kueny, all assistant professors of psychological science at Missouri S&T.  

To try to prove this, researchers created an experiment using a three-person interview paradigm. One member of the hiring committee asked the candidate questions in person, one member observed the interview in person without asking questions, and one member observed the interview through a video-mediated platform without asking questions, according to newswise.com.

"The researchers analyzed 21 job interviews involving 84 participants. They measured the participants’ observations in three primary areas: impressions of the job applicants, such as likability, competence and hireability; perception of “agency” of the applicants, or the degree to which they were capable of emotion, planning and communication; and how much attention the participants paid to the applicants," newswise explains.

The results showed large differences, with video observers rating the applicant substantially worse across all measures. Differences could even be seen in the adjectives participants used to describe the applicant. Face-to-face passive participants chose words like “experienced” and “intelligent,” to describe the applicant, while VMC passive participants used “unprepared” and “unenthusiastic.”

Wow.  So how do you compete in this environment?  

For students and others who are virtually interviewing for jobs, the researchers suggest that applicants make an effort to address all online observers participating the interviews to make more of a real-life connection with them and gain their attention.

“We’re not saying that Zoom interviews are bad,” says Burns. “What we’re saying is that you can’t fairly compare them with face-to-face sessions, and employers need to keep things standardized.”


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