Virtual interviewing is becoming more and more common in today’s job market. While remote interviewing may be more convenient, the distance and technical difficulties can be awkward, or even jarring, to would-be applicants.
Fortunately there are tips from interviewing experts that prospective job seekers can use to get through—and even nail—a virtual job interview. We share some of their key insights and recommendations below.
The Interview Environment: Organize and Professionalize Your Space
You already know you should “dress for success” and make sure that you look your polished best for an interview. But when you’re interviewing from your home, the interview space and background could be distracting, even off-putting, to potential employers. Take the time to make your space look its best, too.
Clean and Declutter: This seems obvious, but make sure you take the time to de-clutter your surroundings, whether it is your bedroom or home office desk. Show your would-be bosses that you quite literally have it together at home, which will make a better impression of being grounded and composed.
Lighting: Proper lighting is a detail too-often overlooked. Be sure to “light yourself” from the front, and not from the back! The latter can create a rather eerie, even sinister visage. Where possible, aim for “cool light,” which is whiter in color, rather than “warm light,” which is yellower. These seemingly small details help put your best foot forward.
Interviewing Skills and Tips
There are countless tips on interviewing available online, but we share a few below that are particularly relevant to remote interviewing.
Keep Any Notes Short and (Mostly) Out of the Way
Like in any interview, try to not over-rely on notes. It is easy to get flustered and lose your place in notes, so keep them sparse and well-organized. Index cards placed outside the viewing area may be especially helpful, with key information and points printed largely and visible to you, but out of sight from the interviewers.
Keep Eye Contact—And Look Into the Camera, Not at Your “Mirrored Image”
Another common mistake is the awkward “stare” that people make when they forget to look into the camera, and instead watch their own reflected image while using the app. You will look less engaged, and even odd, at least compared to applicants that remembered to look “correctly” at the camera.
Watch Your Speaking Pace
Avoid speaking too quickly, a common giveaway of nervousness. Practice and rehearse answers to likely questions, and actually time how quickly you are speaking.
An Interview is a Conversation
Ultimately, an interview is just another conversation. A back-and-forth discussion makes for a much better interview, so be sure to have researched the job thoroughly and come prepared with questions. Look engaged when the interviewer is speaking by maintaining eye contact (see above about looking into the webcam!) and nodding your head occasionally. Don’t miss an opportunity to add something of value to what the interviewer says.
Get Internet You Can Rely On
One last tip: Make sure you have high-speed internet with fast download and upload speeds that you can rely on for a steady connection throughout your interview. (Adequate upload speeds ensure your video is clear for the interviewer on the other side of the virtual table.)
With internet from Northern Lights Fiber, you can video call without fear of a dropped connection or glitchy experience, so you can tackle your interview with confidence.
Every once in a while, we at Northern Lights Fiber get a complaint about call disruption—a formal term for a frustrating concept usually referred to as a “dropped call.” And we totally share in your frustration.
There can be a few reasons why a call may terminate unexpectedly, from standard technical or weather-related hiccups to more complex matters related to different calling networks. Of course, we cannot control or explain the weather!
To start, Northern Lights Fiber’s fiber home phone service, Fiber Talk, is:
Convenient – fast easy calls that are clearer than standard home phone! Also get your phone bill and internet on one monthly bill for easy payment.
Cost effective – our fiber talk package is competitively priced and has loads of features powered through VOIP tech.
Seamless – we transfer numbers, port to our service and you can use existing handsets
Supported – our customer service and tech team is there to help and support you and ensure that your fiber powered home phone is an awesome experience
BUT there are a few things we also want to share with you to ensure that you have the best information and experience possible….
Understanding Voice Over Internet Protocol and Call Termination
To understand why some calls get suddenly dropped or why some calls “don’t go through” in the first place, we need to explain how Northern Lights Fiber’s Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls work.
Firstly, VoIP transmits its signal—your voice and the voice of the other caller—through the internet. After moving at ridiculously fast speeds, the signal (and your voice) then connects to its end point—i.e., a cellular phone—through a process known as “call termination.”
Call termination is the crucial step that lets Northern Lights Fiber keep you connected to family and friends over the phone as well as through email and social media. At its most basic, call termination simply refers to the process of routing calls from one phone company to another.
VOIP will reduce call issues from traditional landline and ensure that you have clearer, better calls across the board.
Dropped Calls Due to Call Termination Issues
Now, as the old saying goes, “it takes two to tango.” With call termination, there are almost always at least two parties (meaning, two companies) involved. And just as with tango dancing, sometimes things can get a bit tangled up—and in this case, that can lead to the dreaded dropped call.
Remember that with VoIP, lots of data is transformed instantaneously and then rapidly moved over the internet before hitting your phone in the form of your voice and the other caller’s voice. It’s a technological wonder, but one that sometimes hits snags over the networks. Hence, occasionally, customers will experience dropped calls due to call termination errors.
When to Call Customer Service
It’s tempting to call Northern Lights Fiber’s customer service when you’ve experienced a drop call seemingly out of the blue—especially when the weather seemed perfect on both ends of the call! But keep in mind that because there are often two calling networks involved in the call, Northern Lights Fiber’s customer service can only assist or investigate when you are the initiating caller—or when both callers are Northern Lights Fiber customers. That’s because any technical problem due to call termination errors is nearly always an issue with the calling network of the person who initiated the call in the first place.
When deciding whether to call Northern Lights Fiber’s customer service number, follow this rule of thumb: if you originated the call and the call was dropped, feel free to reach out to us at anytime; however, if you received the call from another person—and that person is not also a Northern Lights Fiber customer—there is unfortunately nothing we can do to assist with that call.
Please know that we are not trying to discourage you from reaching out to us! But we don’t want to waste your valuable time if the dropped call was initiated on another company’s network.
Just remember: we can investigate and assist with outbound call termination issues—the calls made by youon our network—just not inbound calls made to you by other callers from other companies’ networks.
If you are interested are interested in home phone service, call our customer care and get signed up today at 1-888-236-2947! Current internet customers can bundle home phone service and save money over standard pricing.
As always, please be sure you’re following Northern Lights Fiber’s social pages to learn more about how our high-speed fiber internet can help keep you in touch with your loved ones!
Winter is upon us—and with it are cold temperatures, heavy snowfalls and ice, and dry, chafing air. While parts of the country are lovely in winter, there’s no escaping the fact that colder temperatures and bleak weather can take their toll.
Wintry weather also brings higher energy expenses. Home heating units often pump out warm air constantly just to keep the house comfortable—and at great costs, too.
Thankfully, today’s technology can help make winter more bearable. And utilizing Northern Lights Fiber’s high-speed fiber internet not only connects you to the most reliable network available but also helps keep your home warm and snug.
Together with “smart technology,” it all adds to saving money this winter and beyond!
Below we highlight some of our favorite tech to help you get through the coldest months more comfortably. These unique items will make you and your loved ones feel cozier all winter, from Bluetooth devices to smart thermostats and even smart clothing.
Smart Thermostats
One of the best upgrades you can make to your home this winter (or any season) is to install a smart thermostat that monitors and controls your heating and air conditioning.
Smart thermostats can sense temperature changes in different rooms and can be easily programmed to get warmer or cooler at various times of the day.
Smart thermostats can connect to your home’s internet network, and through Bluetooth, to your smartphone and other devices for easy control.
Even more conveniently, many smart thermostats are controllable through voice-activated technology like Alexa or the Apple Home Kit (using Siri). And according to the federal government’s Energy Star program, which researches and provides consumers with reliable information on energy-efficient products and services, smart thermostats can save homeowners up to 30% on their energy bills.
Several solid options exist, including the Google Nest Learning Thermostat. We’re particularly impressed with Google’s device because, over time, it learns your temperature preferences in each room and at different times of the day.
Using a Smart Thermostat can more effectively heat your home than conventional thermostats—and because of its “smart” features and controls, it saves energy costs, too!
Smart Space Heaters
If you’ve reduced your energy bills by lowering your home’s temperatures a tad, but find that you or others in your household still feel cold, consider adding a smart space heater to those chillier rooms. Smart space heaters are ideal when one or two people prefer the temps just a bit warmer than everyone else or when the temperatures drop drastically.
The Atomi Smart Ceramic Tower Space Heater is among the best options available. The Atomi can heat up to 750 square feet, perfect for small rooms.
Its safety features are also top-notch, including notifying your smartphone if the heater tips over. Then, you can easily shut it off from your phone. It’s base sits evenly on multiple flooring types reducing the likelihood of tipping over at all.
You can also connect the Atomi Smart Space Heater to Alexa or Google Assistant for hands-free voice control through your home network.
Smart Clothing (Jackets and Shirts)
We recommend smart clothing for personal warmth, especially a jacket and shirt.
Smart clothing safely and steadily heats your body in different zones that you can control. And you can even quickly recharge them when you’re on the road with your car’s charging ports.
We recommend the DEWBU Heated Jacket because of its multiple heating zones. It also comes with a convenient 12V Battery Pack that can keep it powered longer on the go.
Also, check out smart shirts from Venture Heat, which make different styles for women and men.
Bluetooth-enabled, you can control Venture Heat’s smart shirts ten-temperature settings with your smartphone, helping to fine-tune the perfect temperature to keep you feeling comfortably toasty on even the most frigid days!
Smart Hats
Growing up, you may remember hearing that you can lose nearly half your body heat just through the top of your head.
While science has proven that that was not exactly accurate, you can still lose around 10% of your body heat off your head alone. So grandma was right—you should keep your head covered in colder weather!
And believe it or not, there are actually smart hats available for you to get the most coverage for your noggin!
We love the iLive Beanie (not only because it’s quite fashionable in a cute, wintry way) but because its Bluetooth-enabled speakers connect directly to your smartphone, doubling as a music-listening and hands-free calling device, too!
The internet and smart technology can’t stop Mother Nature’s annual blast of wintry weather. By utilizing these smart devices and a reliable fiber internet connection like Northern Lights Fiber’s, we bet you’ll cope better than you ever have before!
To learn more about how smart technology and high-speed fiber internet can work together to improve your quality of life and save money, follow Northern Lights Fiber’s social pages!
