GUIDE TO VIDEO INTERVIEWS:
Video interviews are some of the hardest forms of assessments that you have to face when applying to law firms as it is so hard to understand how to succeed at them. Let me tell you, I had a lot of video interviews last year and struggled to understand how to conduct myself when doing them. It feels very unnatural to talk to a camera for some reason, but I am here to share top tips that might help you feel less nervous:
Treat it as a real interview
I think this is the best advice I’d received when I was applying because it made me feel like the preparation that I was supposed to do was not too different from the real interviews I was preparing for. I think it is important to pretend to be speaking to someone on zoom. In fact, when you do that, you will see how different your performance will be when you speak in front of the camera. You will feel more natural and you will try to impress the viewers as you would with a partner interviewing you. Talking to some graduate recruitment at law fairs made me understand how pretending to be talking to someone was so beneficial and that was something that they recommended heavily.
Do your research on the video interview
As for real interviews, you want to tackle the process as prepared as possible. A way to feel like you know what you are getting yourself into is reaching out to people who have done the same video interviews who can share their experiences on them. When I was preparing for my video interviews, I found it really helpful to reach out to people who were future trainees at the firm or did the scheme at the firm to hear their perspectives and their experiences. More often than not they will share more tangible and effective tips you can work on!
Prepare your answers to the potential questions
There are a list of questions online that video interviews might include such as: why did you decide to be a lawyer? Why this firm? Why commercial law? what are the skills of a successful trainee? These are some of the most typical ones. What I used to do is preparing a concise answer for each question so that if it came up, I knew exactly what to say. This will save you a lot of time for other video interviews you might get along the application cycle so do not lose your answers!
Be succinct with every sentence!
This tip is fundamental. It is important for you to be mindful of the fact that most of the time the video interview will have a time limit of 1 to 3 minutes and so there is no much time to actually answer the question in the most exhaustive way. This means that being succinct and going straight to the point will be key. If you have to mention a list of reasons as to why you want to join the firm for example, pick a couple, describe them and link them back to your experience in a couple of sentences and move on to the next reason and do the same. You do not want to list a lot of reasons but not being able to describe them. Here, less is more.
Dress to impress
This goes hand in hand with the ‘treat it as a real interview’ tip. Since you have to pretend to be speaking to a partner or a member of graduate recruitment, I would dress the part too. This will allow you to feel very confident and secure in yourself, and it will also make you look professional. It is important for you to dress to impress and show your professionalism on the screen.
Bring the energy to the video!
One thing that a lot of people forget to put in the video interviews is their own selves!! I was advised to smile a lot and make the viewer engage with the recording as it will feel more genuine and exciting to look at. You basically have to pretend to be a youtuber and be extremely confident in front of the camera, that is how I see it! What I did to practice being comfortable in front of the camera is recording myself answering why I wanted to be a lawyer and why I was applying to that firm. It was massively helpful to analyse how people would perceive me whilst watching me answering these answers and I was also able to understand how to change my intonation when speaking and what to put more emphasis on.
I hope these tips are helpful to everyone and I hope you have success in your application journeys!
Btw I hope I'm not coming off as too confident, I have just spent so much time doubting myself but that has never helped me, everyone is worth of getting a VS/TC!
