Online Interview versus In-Person: What is Best for You?

By: Together Abroad 25-02-2016 9:33 AM
Categories: * Job Interview ,

When finally you get through the gruelling first step of the recruitment process you may find yourselves confronted with an ominous email from the company stating interest and asking for an interview with you. But you’re not out of the water yet, you may have gotten past the ATS and human resources screening, now you’ve got to impress the person directly responsible for your employment: the hiring the manager. The question remains, what’s the most optimal way to get in contact?


In-Person

Oft-times, people apply for work close to their immediate location. It’s a practical method, as many employers want to see their (potential) staff face-to-face. In such cases, if you live within the general vicinity of the company / business, it’s almost always more valuable to have an in-person interview. Your employer has most likely already shortlisted only the people that could feasibly visit them on short notice, so showing a lack of interest in attending, particularly if you live close by, already paints you in a bad light and indicates to the employer that you aren’t willing to work hard if given the position (the argument being, that if someone can’t attend an interview 5km away, how could you rely on them to perform 8 hours of quality results daily?)


Online

In some cases the work you’ve applied to is abroad and physically far from you, so if an employer expresses interest in interviewing you, they most likely already know the score and will agree to an online interview, for the sake of practicality and to save on costs. Even if you don’t live significantly far away, there are many industries and businesses that are completely fine with the idea of an online interview such as publishing, editorial work or contract programming.


Online and In-Person

For more established corporations and very large companies, the recruitment process is an entire saga in itself – for good or worse. Candidate screening is intensive, as often hundreds of CVs and resumes are submitted for the same position which have to be short listed down to perhaps ten or twenty, so expect the interviews to be as gruelling as the preliminary stages. In fact, you should expect 2-3 interviews If applying for an international company, with the first usually being online and the latter being in-person, regardless of whether you live nearby or not.


At the end of the day you need to consider that you may be required to conduct interviews both online and in-person, so think on how you could use each model to emphasize your strengths more than your weaknesses. A firm hand shake and a friendly demeanour may go far during an in-person interview, but having a poorly configured microphone and wearing a greasy tank top during your online interview may ruin any chance you have at impressing the hiring manager and getting the job you want.

By: Alexander Droujinine

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