I am terrible at Hirevue, or... am I?

After every Hirevue I have this dreading impression that it went awfully. I prepare and train, though always think I could've done better and I messed up. 

There are two possible reasons: either I really screwed up, or I am too critical of my performance.

How to come over this impression? Are there any perfect hirevues recorded on the internet?

6 Comments
 

Used to be the same for me. Hirevues are just weird. Talking to a camera knowing no one is behind just doesn’t seems right. Makes things awkward af.

 
Most Helpful

As someone who has watched hirevues for recruitment (yep they're watched by real people) I don't want a "perfect" hirevue. Because to me that conjures up an image of some motionless robot reciting a pre-perfected script with fake enthusiasm. It's off-putting and feels disingenuous. What I want is someone who sounds prepared (involves being prepared without learning a script necessarily), sound legitimately enthusiastic about what they are doing but can also communicate. Honestly I'm barely listening to the actual content of your answer. Or rather how you say your answer does a lot more for me than the content of it. I also actually like when people gesture (in small ways) or move their fcking face lol. Basically, the more you feel like an actual real person, and not a script recitation robot, the more I'll like you. You'd be surprised how few people actually can get over that very low bar.

Aside from that, just have some sort of logic to your answers and some sort of structure to your speech (STAR method) and I don't really care.

Everything else like wearing nice clothes and looking into the camera or whatever is table stakes. 

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As for how you get past your impression, for your former reason you can practice and for the latter, there's no quick solution - it involves a big mindset change in how you treat yourself in general.

 
nutmegger189

As someone who has watched hirevues for recruitment (yep they're watched by real people) I don't want a "perfect" hirevue. Because to me that conjures up an image of some motionless robot reciting a pre-perfected script with fake enthusiasm. It's off-putting and feels disingenuous. What I want is someone who sounds prepared (involves being prepared without learning a script necessarily), sound legitimately enthusiastic about what they are doing but can also communicate. Honestly I'm barely listening to the actual content of your answer. Or rather how you say your answer does a lot more for me than the content of it. I also actually like when people gesture (in small ways) or move their fcking face lol. Basically, the more you feel like an actual real person, and not a script recitation robot, the more I'll like you. You'd be surprised how few people actually can get over that very low bar.

Aside from that, just have some sort of logic to your answers and some sort of structure to your speech (STAR method) and I don't really care.

Everything else like wearing nice clothes and looking into the camera or whatever is table stakes. 

-----------

As for how you get past your impression, for your former reason you can practice and for the latter, there's no quick solution - it involves a big mindset change in how you treat yourself in general.

hey can I ask about a few things:

  • How is eye contact perceived? There's contradicting views that you have to be constantly looking at the camera and not be able to e.g. look at the timer and some firms say you can take a second to look away from the camera (MS). Is it too big of a deal as long as it's a glance and not a full 5 second read of the notes?
  • How about hand gestures? I like to use hand gestures and move my body slightly when talking in order to engage with people. 

Thank you for your comments on WSO by the way!

 

As I said, be an actual real person. You can answer these by answering "what would a real person do?"

Actual real people do not make uninterrupted eye contact for like 2 mins at a time. That said I can tell when someone's reading notes vs breaking "eye contact". Do I penalise you? Only if it's excessive, same as if you were doing a real life presentation.

Already discussed gesturing.

Caveat is, this is all my opinion. Some people are far more lenient, some are are more strict. It's random. We're given no training really so it's just personal opinion.

 

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