In 2020, job interviews changed forever. So many truisms we strongly believed in until then – such as, you have to have the perfect hand-shake – disappeared from the face of the earth. My clients, most of whom are senior executives, found themselves lost without the ability to access the opportunities that had, up until then, helped them advance in their careers. No more face-to-face coffee catch-ups with their mentors and professional network. No more industry events, where they could attend and meet their peers or, better still, be on the panel to show off their skills and experience. And definitely no more easy, opportunistic access to decision-makers who could speed up their promotion or hiring process.
As a career coach specialized in job-hunting, I was honestly only a few hours ahead of them, learning about the pivots in recruitment trends in real-time, mostly from my own clients as they progressed in the selection process. Recruiters were also very generous in sharing with me what their reflections on types of candidates would be most attractive for organizations looking to shape their post-pandemic strategies. And how to hire well, in a timely fashion, when everyone keeps getting sick, and in a world with very little stability.
By May 2020, experienced C-level candidates were being asked to submit 5-min direct to camera videos answering questions. I remember clients feeling completely bewildered and lost at the request. They thought – and at that stage, so did I – that direct-to-camera job interviews were for junior professionals. By the end of 2020, senior managers were being interviewed by chatbots and bot calls. It was the end of recruitment as we knew it, and it was time to seriously pay attention to and prepare for the new ways of selecting candidates.
I recently worked with a client who had to prepare for a case study job interview that was going to be held online. Traditionally, case study interviews, which are common in the consulting world, rely heavily on the candidate’s ability to use pen and paper or a whiteboard, showcasing their ability to use frameworks to solve a problem. Doing this process online would require my client to feel familiar with digital whiteboards or, alternatively, be able to express and present her ideas verbally in a well-constructed, concise fashion. Thankfully we worked together and prepared for this interview for over two weeks, and she got the job. But for professionals doing it alone, I wonder, do they know how to prepare and what it means to perform well in an online interview format?
For those going for face-to-face interviews, the etiquette is also very different. Many of my clients have been interviewed wearing masks by masked panels. Preparing for such an experience requires practicing voice projection and ensuring facial expressions can be perceived with the minimal real-estate you have outside of your mask!
Two years on, I have found that professionals looking for work are still unaware of these new job interview practices and how to prepare for them. So, I have recorded an episode of The Job Hunting Podcast (ep. 142) to support and educate professionals on what to expect in job interviews in 2022 and beyond. I hope it helps. And if you or anyone you know needs help with their interview preparation – or job search – I’d love to work with them. Click here to learn about my services.
Warm wishes
