No Interview After Hirevue Advice

Ah... the dreaded hirevue. I actually did a deep dive into Hirevue before, so let me brush up some notes. 

Hirevue is NOT an Interview, it's a monologue!

now, I'm about to type up my playbook for the Hirevue process, but above all else, the one thing to remember is that the hirevue interview can be thought of as a video blog / monologue style format. This is very different, and for many, much harder than a standard interview because they ultimately use a different set of skills when speaking to a person. They can read non-verbal cues, break the ice with small talk, and guide the conversation more naturally than they can in a monologue. 

The Little Things Matter for the Hirevue

It may seem cliche, but small things like the video placement, dress code, and audio quality do matter for the interview. A recruiter has to go through hundreds of Hirevue monologues, so they look for easy things to ding as way to move on with candidates. There's the content itself (which I'll dive into later), but the easiest way to get dinged, and the quicekst, is for poor technology setup. 

Practicing the Pitch

For most firms, all of the big accounting firms and pretty much most large investment banking firms, you'll be able to find a common set of hirevue questions and most times, they're not position specific. They may be firm culture oriented, they may just ask "What do you know about our firm/what we do" or "what do you know about investment banking?". Because they often cover some predictable themes, it means you can practice for hirevue interviews by simply searching the firm name + hirevue on Google or Youtube. 

Once you have a set of questions, you want to prepare a story of presenting content. A classic example I like to give is the standard "What is an LBO?". Now, you could go into the specific jargon of how LBO is short for a Leveraged Buyout Offer, a method of acquiring a company primarily through debt and selling the company at a profit with the proceeds and cashflows generated used towards debt repayments, great. That's technically accurate, but the more compelling story would be to showcase the content through an example of a house purchase. The goal here is to present the content in an intriguing way by diving into an example and not going too granular into the details (since you only really have 60-90 seconds per question).

Practice, practice, practice

In the same way you'd run a mock interview with your friends for an investment banking interview, record yourself delivering monologues for Hirevue interviews. Make sure to track your overall time, pacing, and pauses to sound as natural as you can talking directly into a camera. One reason why most folks do poorly in a hirevue is simply lack of practice. It's one of the only times in an entire interview process you're holding a one-sided conversation. So naturally, you'll have to work on that skillset. I assure you this: the best Hirevue interviewees are folks who've made Youtube videos before since a typical Youtube video follows the same principles as a Hirevue interview. 

HireVue is not End-All Be-All

I'll never forget this Hirevue interview I submitted for a Pension Fund. I submitted it at 9:11 PM and 15 minutes later, received an automated email stating I received the first round interview. This reminded me that Hirevue may receive some focus and attention, but the processes differ by the firm, position and applicant pool, so you want to take this with a grain of salt.    

Final Note - my advice and tactics may be a bit dated, so if anyone has seen something else work, or thinks something I mentioned is inaccurate, I'm all ears.