Video Interview Tips That Actually Help

The video interview tips that actually move the needle are almost embarrassingly physical: get light on your face, look into the camera lens instead of the screen, and turn off the little window showing your own face. Do those three things and most of the awkwardness drops away, because you stop fighting the technology and start having a conversation. Everything else is detail.

That's the part people miss. They prepare answers for hours and then sit in a dim room, eyes darting to their own reflection, wondering why they felt off. The content was fine. The setup wasn't. Let's fix the setup first, then talk about staying present once the camera's on.

Light your face, not the wall behind you

Bad lighting is the most common thing that makes a smart, capable person look tired or shifty on camera. The fix costs nothing.

The rule: light comes from in front of you, falling onto your face. The worst setup is a bright window or lamp behind you, because the camera exposes for the bright background and turns you into a dark shape. If a recruiter can barely make out your expression, you lose all the warmth that helps you connect.

A few ways to get this right with whatever you have:

• Face a window. Daytime interview? Sit so the window is in front of you or just off to one side. Natural light is soft and flattering.
• Use a lamp as a stand-in. No good window? Put a desk lamp behind your laptop, pointing back at your face. Bounce it off a wall or shade it so it isn't harsh.
• Kill the backlight. Close the curtains behind you. One bright source at your back undoes everything else.
• Check before they join. Open your camera app and look. Can you see your eyes clearly? Is one half of your face much darker? Adjust until it's even.

You're not building a studio. You're making sure your face is visible and your expressions read. That alone puts you ahead of a surprising number of candidates.

Eye contact means looking at the camera

Here's the small mental shift that makes the biggest difference: on a video call, eye contact happens when you look at the lens, not at the person's eyes on your screen. If you look at their face on the display, it reads to them as though you're glancing slightly down and away the whole time.

You don't have to stare at the lens for the entire call — that would feel robotic, and nobody does it. The move is to look at the camera when you're the one speaking, especially during the parts that matter: your opening, your strongest example, your closing question. While they talk, it's perfectly natural to watch their face on screen and react.

Two things make this easier:

1. Drag the meeting window up. Move the video so the interviewer's face sits as close to your webcam as possible. Now the gap between "looking at them" and "looking at the lens" is tiny, and your eyes barely have to move.
2. Raise your camera to eye level. A laptop on the desk points up your nose and pulls your gaze down. Stack it on a few books so the lens is roughly level with your eyes. You'll look more confident and the angle is kinder.

If you only change one habit from this whole piece, make it this one. Camera eye contact is what turns a flat video call into something that feels like a real exchange.

Hide your self-view so you can stay present

You know the feeling. The call starts, and there in the corner is your own face, watching you back. So you watch it. Is my hair okay? Did that smile look weird? Within a minute you're performing for yourself instead of talking to a person, and your answers go stiff.

Almost every video platform lets you hide your self-view once you're connected. Use it. You'll still be visible to the interviewer — turning off the preview only changes what you see. Most tools have a small menu on your own video tile with a "hide self-view" or "minimise" option. Find it before the day arrives so you're not hunting mid-call.

If you can't fully hide it, shrink the window as small as it goes and drag it to a corner you won't naturally look at. Some people put a sticky note over that part of the screen. Whatever stops you from monitoring your own face.

What you'll notice once it's gone is that you breathe a little easier. You can think about the question instead of your chin. Presence is mostly just attention, and you can't give attention to the interviewer and your own reflection at the same time.

Sound and connection: the part people forget

A grainy picture is forgivable. Bad audio is not. If the interviewer has to ask you to repeat things, the whole conversation gets tiring, and tired interviewers remember the friction more than your answers.

Quick wins for sound:

• Use earphones or headphones. Even cheap wired ones beat your laptop mic and stop the echo where they hear themselves.
• Pick a quiet, soft room. Carpet, curtains, and a closed door soak up echo. A bare kitchen bounces sound everywhere.
• Mute notifications. Close other apps and silence your phone. One ping at the wrong moment breaks your train of thought.

For the connection itself: sit near your router or plug in with a cable if you can, and ask anyone else in the house to hold off on big downloads during your slot. Have a backup ready — the interviewer's number or a note to switch to phone audio — so a dropout becomes a ten-second blip instead of a panic. The same calm-logistics mindset that helps on a quick recruiter call carries straight over here, which is why it's worth treating video like its own version of getting ready for a phone screen.

Treat it like a real interview, because it is

The setup buys you a clean stage. What you do on it is still an interview, and the fundamentals don't change just because there's a screen between you.

A few things that matter more on video than in person:

• Slow down slightly. A small lag means you can accidentally talk over the interviewer. Leave a beat after they finish before you answer. It also makes you sound considered rather than rushed.
• Use your hands and face. The camera flattens everything, so energy that feels normal in a room can look muted on screen. A bit more expression reads as warm, not over-the-top.
• Keep your notes off to the side, not on screen. A few bullet points beside the camera are fine. Reading visibly from a script is not. Glance, don't recite.
• Dress the part fully. Yes, all of it. Smart on top and pyjama bottoms is a gamble you don't need to take if you stand up to fix something.

Have the role open in front of you so your examples land where they should. Knowing the job description well lets you steer answers toward what they actually care about, which is the same groundwork behind every strong interview — the broader playbook in our guide to doing well in a job interview applies on camera just as much as across a table.

A simple pre-call routine

Pressure makes people forget the obvious. A short, repeatable routine fixes that. Run this before every video interview:

1. The day before: test camera, mic, and the meeting link. Charge your laptop or plug it in.
2. Fifteen minutes before: close other apps, silence your phone, check your lighting one more time.
3. Five minutes before: open the link, hide your self-view, raise the camera to eye level, and have water and your notes within reach.
4. As they join: breathe, look at the lens, and smile before you say hello.

That's it. None of this guarantees a particular outcome — no preparation can promise that — but it clears away the avoidable problems so the version of you that shows up is the one you actually prepared. If you keep a record of each role you're interviewing for, including your notes and the questions you want to ask, you walk in steadier every time.

If you'd like a calmer way to keep that prep in one place, Erioun's interview prep tools build practice questions from the job description and your own CV and notes, so each video call starts from something solid rather than a blank page. You can try it as part of a 14-day free trial whenever you're ready — no pressure, and your data stays yours to export or delete at any time.