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When You Can't Be There in Person

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By Jean Dowdall

Academic search committees that want to save time, money, or both often consider using electronic alternatives to the traditional face-to-face interview.

Instead of having candidates come in for a preliminary meeting, a telephone interview may be arranged in which the full committee, or a subcommittee, sits clustered around a speakerphone talking to a series of candidates for about an hour each. After the phone interviews, the committee typically will reduce the pool of candidates and then invite a few people for on-campus, face-to-face interviews.

Some committees take this same approach but use a videoconference instead of a telephone call. Although the cost is usually higher and the arrangements are more complex, committee members like feeling that they have seen the candidate, albeit not in person.

Another twist involves the creation of a permanent electronic record of a job interview, using an audiotape or videotape. Taped interviews give absent members of the committee, or others who need to be involved, a chance to hear or see the candidates. For search committee members who were present for the real interview, the tapes can be helpful in reviewing what the candidates said.

Each of these situations involves a special variation on the normal interview, and for most people, each of them is also associated with heightened anxiety. As a candidate, how can you do the best possible job within this electronically mediated format?

In a phone interview, the greatest challenge is the absence of visual cues. You can't see your audience looking confused, amused, bored, or (hopefully) actively involved in what you're saying. Having been part of many of these kinds of interviews, where everyone has eye contact except the person being interviewed, I've noticed that there is also a tendency, when things aren't going well, for the "audience" to take a mocking stance toward the one person who can't see the rest of the group.

It is a high-risk situation for the person being interviewed, and to be successful you have to be extremely alert to cues. You need to monitor how fast, how loud, and how clearly you are speaking, whether you are going on too long, whether people are understanding you, and whether you're actually answering the question you were asked. Your goal is to create a sense of your presence and a sense of genuine communication; that will go a long way toward a positive evaluation by the committee. Content still counts, but tone and style weigh heavily. Some suggestions:

• Listen very hard. Try to hear the cues that you can't see. For example, is a committee member asking a question that seeks factual information, or is she asking for a reflective response?

• Be especially careful not to "talk over" others. If you have the sense that someone in the meeting room is talking, stop talking and listen.

• Try to learn the names of the people you're talking to, and try to recognize their voices. One of the few advantages of a phone meeting is that you can more easily make notes -- so keep a list of committee members' names and try to remember who asked which question. If you can refer back to something that someone said a few minutes earlier, and if you can name the person who said it, you personalize an impersonal situation and make yourself more a part of the group.

• One of the greatest hazards is talking too much. If you were in the room, your audience would be polite, or you might pick up the signal that they understood your point and had heard enough. On the phone, it's harder for those signals to be exchanged between you and your audience, so there is a tendency for the audience to send the signals of boredom to each other, undermining your presentation without your knowing it, while you continue elaborating on your initial point.

• Don't allow yourself to go off on tangents. Staying focused is always important, but even more so if you're on the phone. Remember the question you were asked, answer it, then stop. If your answer has several parts, number them -- for example, "I have three different ideas to suggest: First ..., second ..., third ... ." Or, "Let me answer each part of your question in turn."

• Try to keep your voice strong and steady, and articulate clearly since the audio equipment often makes your voice sound fuzzy, or its volume control is inadequate and your own voice must compensate.

• Try to communicate energy and enthusiasm in your voice, since you can't do it with your expression and body language.

• At key points, you can ask for feedback: "Have I given you enough information about that point, or would you like me to say more?"

Sometimes search committees conduct interviews via a videoconference. This poses somewhat different challenges. I have to admit that I am a great fan of video meetings; when the search committees I work with are at the other side of the country, a videoconference saves a lot of money for the client and a lot of travel time for me. I very quickly learned how to move the camera so I could see whichever committee member was speaking. Again, a few suggestions:

• Realize that there will be a slight time lag -- i.e., after you speak, it takes a couple of extra seconds before the people at the other end respond. This can be disconcerting initially, but you can quickly get used to it and take it in stride. Pause after you speak to allow time for the people at the other end to respond.

• Try to set up the video at your end so that there is a small inset box at the bottom of your screen that shows you the image of yourself that is being projected to those at the other end of the conference. Use this visual feedback to be sure you're positioned in the middle of the screen, sitting up tall, and generally making a good appearance.

• Don't fidget, don't move around more than you have to, don't talk with your hands. Behavior that might seem fine in person is exaggerated on a video screen. Watch the TV news anchors and see how still they generally are.

Each candidate will find his or her own strategies for dealing with this challenging interview setting, but these suggestions provide some starting points.

Finally, what should you say if you're asked to allow a video or audiotape to be made of your interview while you are face-to-face with the committee? Unless you have a good reason to decline, it's probably best to agree and then focus on presenting yourself as effectively as you can to the people in the room, hoping that the electronic audience will have a good response as well.