The video interview is an integral step in the hiring process. Before your next video interview, please read these tips:

​1. Have a clean background
You want the interviewer to focus on you, not what is happening around you. You don’t want your weird poster to distract the interviewer. It's always better to have a clean background so that you are the most interesting thing on screen.
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2. Different screen widths
Even if you have a clean background, you should remember that Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, and FaceTime all have different screen widths. So, even if your background is clean on a FaceTime call, when you use Skype the blanket you have crumpled up in the corner of the room might be visible. Be sure your background is clean in all video mediums.

3. Put the computer at eye level
Most computer screens are below your chin, which is one of the most unflattering angles possible. Instead, raise your screen so that the camera is at eye level. You want to mimic an in-person conversation as much as possible. Real conversations happen at eye level.

4. Don’t wear stripes
Small stripes are hard to for a camera to capture. You don’t want to look like your shirt is vibrating on screen. Stick with solids or simple patterns over stripes or dynamic patterns. You want the interview to focus on you, not your wardrobe.

5. Plug in your laptop
Video streaming takes up a lot more battery than normal. The last thing you want is for your computer to die during your interview. Always make sure it is plugged in.

6. Have notes
Have your resume, information about the company, questions to ask the interviewer, and any other notes you need easily accessible. Be sure to take advantage of the fact that you can set up your interviewing space however it will benefit you the most.

7. Have water nearby
It’s always better to have water nearby. You don’t want to get a tickle in your throat during your interview and have to go into another room to get a drink of water.

8. Do a test run
Technology is amazing. It’s also notorious for breaking down just when you need it the most. Be sure to test your technology in the room (and in the clothes) you are planning on using for the interview.

9. Look friendly as the call connects
If you are staring at your screen and intensely watching as the call goes through, your face can look worried or frustrated. Instead, as soon as you go online, try smiling so that the first thing your interviewer sees is a friendly face.

10. Know how to share your screen
Sometimes people will ask you to share slides from a presentation. This means you will need to know how to give them access to your desktop. Know where this feature is, and how to use it. You also want to be sure that you minimize any tabs before sharing your screen.

1. Presentation Preparation: Feel Bigger Than You Are 
Normally people practice their presentations hunched over in front of the computer. If the main way you’ve practiced saying these words is sitting down, talking quietly to a screen, it will be hard to feel comfortable standing up tall in front of a crowd. In order to effectively command a room, you need to practice feeling bigger than you are, not smaller. An easy way to practice this is to rehearse your speech standing on a stool or chair. Notice how your perspective, posture, and vocal power change.
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2. Before You Walk Up: Tense and Release
When you are worried about a presentation, your body reacts by slowly tensing up. This tension accumulates and will affect your performance. Therefore, before your speech, as you’re sitting in your chair try squeezing your feet, legs, stomach, and hands. After about ten seconds, release. Feel that ease. By adding in extra tension and then releasing, you remind your body that it can relax. This will help your nervous system go back to neutral.

3. As You Begin the Presentation: Fully Exhale
Most people hold their breath before starting a presentation. They are so worried about remembering their content, they forget to exhale. To calm yourself down, I suggest exhaling as you walk up to give your presentation. You want to start speaking with a full breath, rather than with one you’ve been holding. You can even think of saying “Hello” as a sigh. This way, you’ve incorporated multiple ways for your body to relax before you give the presentation.

By practicing your speech standing up tall, releasing the tension in your body, and exhaling before you begin, you can start to overcome the nerves you feel before giving a presentation.

With so many people working remotely or traveling for work, they often find themselves having to give presentations over the phone. They either send their PowerPoint ahead of time for their audience to download or don’t use slides at all and give an oral update on their current project’s status. While it can be more convenient to do this, it comes with a unique set of challenges. 
Here are 3 things to help you deliver a captivating presentation over the phone.
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1. Don’t lean over to speak into a phone or mic
If you are giving your presentation into a phone or Bluetooth conference speaker set, try not to crouch down when delivering your speech. When you hunch over, it affects your posture, which in turn, affects your voice. If your voice is the main tool that you’re depending on for the speech, you want to make sure it is as clear and powerful as possible.

2. Move around  
​Since you don’t have the benefit of seeing your audience, your presentation can sometimes feel a bit static since there isn’t anything happening in the room. Therefore, try adding in movement. Pretend you’re walking down the hall with someone, or try standing up in your room as you deliver your ideas. Adding movement can help energize your presentation.

3. Visualize the person
It is very hard to give a phone presentation to someone you haven’t met. That’s because you don’t have an image in your head of what they look like. Part of your attention is focused on that unknown. One way to help this is to look up their photo beforehand. Or, if it is a large group of people, decide what a few people look like ahead of time and visualize speaking to them. Then once your meeting starts, you won’t be trying to imagine what these individuals look like, you will have already figured that out.

As phone presentations become more common, you want to be sure you have a box of tools to rely on. Keep these tips in mind next time you have to give a presentation over the phone.

During a speech, speakers use certain phrases over and over again. Unfortunately, many of those expressions do not help presenters. Below I’ve listed five popular phrases to remove from your repertoire to make your presentation more effective.

1. “Don’t look over here.”
We are all little kids at heart and the instant someone tells you not to do something, you do it. Instead of telling people not to look at a certain area, block it out. Then, when you are ready to reveal that information, you can.

2. “I have a lot of slides.”
If you know you have too many slides, edit them. Saying this notifies the audience that they are about to hear a data-dump. You are your best critic and if you think there are too many slides, take out the extra ones.

3. “I’ll talk quickly.”
People try to talk quickly so they can cover a lot of material. However, speaking fast doesn’t give your audience the opportunity to absorb your information. It’s better to distill your presentation ahead of time. 

4. “As you can see.”
While you may think the graph or information is obvious, it may not be obvious to everyone in the audience. You don’t want to risk making someone feel unintelligent. Therefore, instead of saying “As you can see”, I suggest simply describing the information. That way, in case it isn’t clear to someone, they still understand what to take away from the image.
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5. “I’ll talk about that later.”
If someone asks you a question and you plan on covering that topic later, then this is a completely acceptable phrase. However, many people use this phrase without being prompted. When they do that, the audience is reminded of how much longer the presentation will be. If you’re going to bring it up, talk about it now. Unless you’re using it as a sales tactic, it just disrupts the flow of the speech. It’s better to keep the audience focused on you and the ideas you are revealing.

Next time you are giving a speech, instead of relying on these phrases, explore if there is a more effective way of presenting your information.

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on 15 mock interviews for graduate students and postdocs. While a list of standard interview questions was provided as a resource, each interviewer was encouraged to bring their own spin to the interview process. I was able to take notes and compile the questions below. If you are a student who is about to go on the job market, hopefully these questions will help you prepare.

Questions About Previous Experience

• Tell me about your experience as a grad student.
• Did you always know you were interested in this type of work?
• Tell me about your background.
• Have you written any grants yet?
• Can you tell me about your most exciting project in your research career?
• Tell me about how you got into this.
• Tell me about what you’re currently working on.
• Tell me about your history and then I’ll tell you about my lab and we will go from there.
• What kind of skills are you bringing to the table?

Questions About Teams & Mentoring

• What kind of supervising style do you do the best under?
• Can you describe your experience on a team?
• Have you had any mentoring experience? What has that been like?
• What strengths do you bring to the table in your lab?
• How do you prioritize the ideas you have?
• What is the best mentoring style you respond to well?
• Are you a person who likes to prepare ahead of time or do you need deadlines to inspire you?

Questions About Challenges

• Can you describe challenges you’ve overcome and how you worked through them?
• What’s the most challenging aspect of your work?
• In this position, you don’t get to publish. Is that going to be a challenge for you?
• From your experience in working in different environments, you’ve probably encountered different interactions styles. Have you had conflicts with colleagues? How did you deal with them?
• Your boss comes to you and says this person is causing friction in the lab and needs to be talked to. How, as their supervisor, would you deal with that?
• Do you have ways to deal with the stress of this job outside of work?
• How do you take criticism?
• Have you ever made a mistake? How did you deal with it?
• What kind of plan do you have to learn from your failures? What process do you go through?
• You want a marketable portfolio. What are you doing to make yourself more marketable?
• I’m trying to get a sense of how you handle group situations. Can you explain how you are in a group?
• How do you handle the dialogue in collaborations between authorship?

Questions About the Future

• How are you helping bring innovation to your lab?
• What experiences are you looking to have in my lab that will prepare you for the next step?
• I want you to dig a little deeper into what you expect from yourself. What will you do to make yourself more competitive?
• For this project, what people and what resources do think you’ll need to move forward.
• Hypothetically, say you found the answer to your research. What would you do next?
• Knowing your background, what do you see yourself teaching?
• What areas would you prefer NOT to teach?
• What are your long term goals?
• What kind of impact do you think your work will have?
• What are the most important aspects of a job to you? What do you look for?
• What do you bring to the table in my lab and what are you seeking to learn to get you to the next step?
• What are some ways you are trying to further your own professional development?

Laser pointers have become a primary tool for presenters. While their original function was to help the audience follow a presentation and absorb content, they have started having the opposite effect.

Most presenters end up performing what I call the “laser dance”. This is when they circle (over and over) a word, a bullet point or a section on a graph. It is very hard for the human eye to follow a small dot moving at an erratic rate. It is almost like trying to track a fly in a room. It is unsettling and starts to make you feel anxious. An audience shouldn’t spend their energy trying to track a small dot. They should be focusing on the content the presenter wanted to highlight.
Using a laser also causes the presenter to face the screen rather than facing the audience. The screen becomes more important than the people listening to the talk. An audience can sense this, and starts to disconnect with the speaker, and therefore doesn’t listen to the content.

Instead of using a laser, use animations. Try animating a circle around the part you want me to focus on. Or, block out the other part of a graph you don’t want me to see. You can also try bolding a section of text you want me to see.

By utilizing animations, all a presenter has to do is push the advance button on a clicker. They can face their audience and make it easy for the audience to focus on a particular area of the slide. This helps the speaker effectively communicate with their audience. 

Before any interview, you want to feel prepared. Not only should you have all your materials ready (resume, notepad, outfit), but you should feel confident answering basic questions about your qualifications.

Click here to read my post on the Top 5 Interview Tips. 
 
However, what many people forget to bring to an interview are stories. Stories allow people to demonstrate their qualifications through actions rather than statements.

Whenever I coach someone before an interview, I ask them if they have stories that demonstrate how they

• Overcame an obstacle
• Learned a valuable lesson
• Had to switch strategies based on new evidence

Most people who are interviewed have 1 or 2 stories that instantly come to mind. But once they use up that story, they end up struggling later on in the interview. Or they end up having to use the same story to answer multiple questions. Of course, once they go home, another example might occur to them. If they had only taken the time to think about their history before coming to the interview, they could have impressed the interviewer on the spot.

I have my clients brainstorm 3-5 stories that showcase how they push through complications, think outside the box, and evolve in their job. That way they don’t miss an opportunity to demonstrate why they are the right candidate for the position.

Networking is critical in today’s world. However, in a networking environment, many people don't know how to start a conversation. I've written out a number of options to help you get the ball rolling.

OPENERS
Cold openers are often the most intimidating. My advice is to keep it simple. Some effective openers are:

— Hello, I'm _________. 
— Hello, I'm _________ and I'm here for _________. What brought you here today?
— Hello, I don’t know many people here, so I thought I’d introduce myself.

EVENT
​When you are at an event, it gives you a unique opportunity to connect over the specifics that brought you two together. Try commenting on the event itself by asking:

— How’d you hear about this event?
— Did you hear _________ speak? What did you think?
— What a beautiful venue, have you been here before?

ROOM
Think about commenting on the environment you are in. Look around you, what do you see? Bringing up your environment can help you identify an easy way to open up a conversation. For example, you can ask:

— Have you tried the mashed potato bar (or any of the food at the event)?
— I’m going to go and get a drink, care to join me?
— It’s packed in here, mind if I join you over here where it’s quieter?

GROUPS
Breaking into a group is easier than you think. Look for groups where the conversation seems relaxed. These are the ones that it is easy to step into. When you do come up you can ask:

— May I join you?
— Did you all come together, or did you meet here?
— You seem to be having a good time, mind if I join you?

​Keep these phrases in mind when you are at your next networking event. You never know what connection you could make. 

No matter how hard we try, there will always be instances when we have limited time to practice a presentation. In this situation, it’s critical that you don’t panic or scold yourself for failing to carve out enough time beforehand. Instead, focus on the following game plans:
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1st Level: No time to prepare
​If you haven't rehearsed your speech, try to stay relaxed. Walk up to the front of the room, breathe and smile. Introduce yourself (if someone hasn’t introduced you). Then, look at your first slide, say the point of the slide, and then go into the details. When you click to the next slide, pause, breathe, and then say the point of the slide and then explain the details. The pattern of 1) Point of slide and 2) Details is very effective if you want to stay on track and look confident as you present.

2nd Level: A few hours of time to prepare
If you only have a little time to prepare, the first thing you should do is practice your introduction. It’s the first time people hear you and it is your premium opportunity to establish a solid connection with your audience. The second thing to do is figure out your transition sentences. When does one idea end and another begin? Plan out each transition and practice it out loud. Last, practice your conclusion. An audience won’t know you haven’t practiced very much if your introduction, transitions, and conclusion are smooth.

3rd Level: At least one day to prepare
When you have a high-stakes project that you are presenting, it is critical to leave time to prepare. For these presentations, in addition to the introduction and conclusion, I suggest knowing the first and last sentence of every slide. This will drastically help the flow of your speech sound professional. If you can look at any slide and know how it begins and ends, you are ready to present. 
For more communication tips or to book a workshop, please visit www.activatetocaptivate.com.