Remote VS/TC Interviews and Assessment Centres

[Karin]

Hi everyone!

I know there has been quite a incredibly useful advice from @Alice G about video interviews (thank you so much!), but I thought that it would be good to create a dedicated thread to remote interview experiences, given how many of us will be doing their vac scheme / TC interviews remotely now.

I know many people have already done their interviews online, others are preparing. Can you share your experience, tips, tricks, things you wish you had known before your interview?

Good luck to you all and thank you!

 

[Alice G]

Hi everyone!

I know there has been quite a incredibly useful advice from @Alice G about video interviews (thank you so much!), but I thought that it would be good to create a dedicated thread to remote interview experiences, given how many of us will be doing their vac scheme / TC interviews remotely now.

I know many people have already done their interviews online, others are preparing. Can you share your experience, tips, tricks, things you wish you had known before your interview?

Good luck to you all and thank you!

Good idea!! Always good to have a variety of insights!

 

[RB99]

Hi everyone!

I know there has been quite a incredibly useful advice from @Alice G about video interviews (thank you so much!), but I thought that it would be good to create a dedicated thread to remote interview experiences, given how many of us will be doing their vac scheme / TC interviews remotely now.

I know many people have already done their interviews online, others are preparing. Can you share your experience, tips, tricks, things you wish you had known before your interview?

Good luck to you all and thank you!

I successfully did my AC for Latham's summer scheme a few weeks ago. I personally felt that doing the interview from home made the experience a lot simpler and relaxed. The stress of reaching the office on time or walking into someone else's office can often hurt your focus. There are generally gaps between the various elements of the AC (or at least for mine there was), so it's good to just take a 10-15 minute break before the next assessment starts.

The key skills to do good in a video call interview is not too distinct from a real one for obvious reasons. Do not seem too over-prepared, give honest but succinct answers, and smile. However, a make or break skill is to definitely look into the camera (which you might have practiced while preparing for one-sided video interviews anyways). Do not be tempted to continuously look at the interviewer's reactions by staring at the screen instead of the camera. This skill is very important because many competent candidates still struggle with maintaining camera eye contact. A TCLA mock interview is a good way to practice this.

In terms of logistics, be sure that your internet connection is strong, have a neutral background, sit in the quietest space possible, and some water handy (standard stuff). Lastly, get used to handling the video calling software you will be using before hand. Do a test call with someone before the AC to check your audio and video, and close all unnecessary tabs/windows during the interview. Know how to mute the call and other standard commands for group tasks. Happy to help with anything else!

 

[Alice G]

I successfully did my AC for Latham's summer scheme a few weeks ago. I personally felt that doing the interview from home made the experience a lot simpler and relaxed. The stress of reaching the office on time or walking into someone else's office can often hurt your focus. There are generally gaps between the various elements of the AC (or at least for mine there was), so it's good to just take a 10-15 minute break before the next assessment starts.

The key skills to do good in a video call interview is not too distinct from a real one for obvious reasons. Do not seem too over-prepared, give honest but succinct answers, and smile. However, a make or break skill is to definitely look into the camera (which you might have practiced while preparing for one-sided video interviews anyways). Do not be tempted to continuously look at the interviewer's reactions by staring at the screen instead of the camera. This skill is very important because many competent candidates still struggle with maintaining camera eye contact. A TCLA mock interview is a good way to practice this.

In terms of logistics, be sure that your internet connection is strong, have a neutral background, sit in the quietest space possible, and some water handy (standard stuff). Lastly, get used to handling the video calling software you will be using before hand. Do a test call with someone before the AC to check your audio and video, and close all unnecessary tabs/windows during the interview. Know how to mute the call and other standard commands for group tasks. Happy to help with anything else!

Brilliant advice and thank you for being reassuring about your experience- I’m sure that'll definitely allay some natural anxieties and worries about this unfamiliar style of AC.

congratulations on securing the Latham scheme too! It’s a brilliant firm and everyone I met there was just lovely so I’m sure whatever format it takes, you’ll really enjoy it and get a lot from the experience

 

[Karin]

I successfully did my AC for Latham's summer scheme a few weeks ago. I personally felt that doing the interview from home made the experience a lot simpler and relaxed. The stress of reaching the office on time or walking into someone else's office can often hurt your focus. There are generally gaps between the various elements of the AC (or at least for mine there was), so it's good to just take a 10-15 minute break before the next assessment starts.

The key skills to do good in a video call interview is not too distinct from a real one for obvious reasons. Do not seem too over-prepared, give honest but succinct answers, and smile. However, a make or break skill is to definitely look into the camera (which you might have practiced while preparing for one-sided video interviews anyways). Do not be tempted to continuously look at the interviewer's reactions by staring at the screen instead of the camera. This skill is very important because many competent candidates still struggle with maintaining camera eye contact. A TCLA mock interview is a good way to practice this.

In terms of logistics, be sure that your internet connection is strong, have a neutral background, sit in the quietest space possible, and some water handy (standard stuff). Lastly, get used to handling the video calling software you will be using before hand. Do a test call with someone before the AC to check your audio and video, and close all unnecessary tabs/windows during the interview. Know how to mute the call and other standard commands for group tasks. Happy to help with anything else!

Thank you for the tips and congrats!

I really need to practice the eye contact, as I find it very odd to look into the camera and not see the person I am speaking to, their reactions etc. I read somewhere that you could move the video of the person as close to the camera on your screen so you could better see them. What are your thought? Do you have any tips?

 

[jan28]

Know how to mute the call and other standard commands for group tasks

Thank you so much! Also, could you please explain how you did the group tasks virtually? I would’ve thought that part of the assessment would be scrapped so just intrigued

 

[RB99]

Thank you very much Alice! Latham truly has been super nice at every event I went for before applying!

Brilliant advice and thank you for being reassuring about your experience- I’m sure that'll definitely allay some natural anxieties and worries about this unfamiliar style of AC.

congratulations on securing the Latham scheme too! It’s a brilliant firm and everyone I met there was just lovely so I’m sure whatever format it takes, you’ll really enjoy it and get a lot from the experience

 

[RB99]

Thank you for the tips and congrats!

I really need to practice the eye contact, as I find it very odd to look into the camera and not see the person I am speaking to, their reactions etc. I read somewhere that you could move the video of the person as close to the camera on your screen so you could better see them. What are your thought? Do you have any tips?

I personally developed this because I used to practice for my initial in-office ACs using a webcam/mirror as well. So after a few ACs and couple of TCLA mock interviews, it became a reflex action for me to look only into the camera when it was my turn to speak.

I am not sure how effective moving the video closer to the camera is considering the video tabs in video calling softwares are generally quite big themselves. That being said, I think it's worth noting that you do not have to compulsively stare into the camera because you would not necessarily do that in-person with eye contact either. Feel free to quickly take like a 5-10 second break to look away from the lens and look at their reaction. These short breaks can be useful to just gauge if they want to stop you and ask you a follow-up question, or if they want you to keep speaking.

 

[RB99]

Thank you so much! Also, could you please explain how you did the group tasks virtually? I would’ve thought that part of the assessment would be scrapped so just intrigued

My non-interview tasks were a written exercise and a presentation. The written exercise was clearly the harder one to facilitate virtually but it went quite smoothly. They emailed the document bundle to us a few minutes into the video call and timed us on the writing from the moment everyone had opened their document successfully. Then we wrote our responses into a word document and sent it back when the time elapsed. As you might imagine, doing this on your own computer is much easier because you are used to typing on it and can now grammar check/format it thoroughly before sending it.

The presentation was basically like an interview with me just presenting for a large chunk of it. Then there were follow-up questions on my presentation just like in a commercial awareness interview. I had also had the opportunity to e-mail them presentation handouts before the AC. Nothing new here.

For other types of tasks that I did not have, like a group discussion maybe, I cannot imagine it will be too hard to emulate those on Zoom conference either.

 

[Ar2016]

Has anyone else had a remote interview recently? Any further tips and advice would be great (Mine is coming up with a role-play/written exercise and partner case study)

 

[AnnieK]

Hello!

I received an email saying that I have a Virtual Assessment centre just 4 days later, which is a really short amount of time. Are there any techniques I can use to optimise my preparation? Thank you!

 

[Zoë Stainton]

Hello!

I received an email saying that I have a Virtual Assessment centre just 4 days later, which is a really short amount of time. Are there any techniques I can use to optimise my preparation? Thank you!

Hey! I was in a similar position to you in January. I found out on a Monday I had an assessment centre on the Thursday. I would say don't panic and plan the next few days. Decide how you will split your time.
I decided to first spend time researching what the AC involved. So is it an interview/presentation/ group work/ written exercise?
This may look different to what you might have heard in the past because it will be virtual. Look at all the advice on how to succeed in a virtual AC and look at the thread of previous AC experiences at the firm - these were really helpful for me.
I wrote some notes of the advice I had found on different threads on here so none of these are my own advice so big thanks to TCLA! Hope they are helpful! (again - they might not all apply because of it being virtual)

Group Exercise

- Checking the time and prompting the others how long is left

- Refer to everyone by name

- Sustain open body language

- Lots to digest – start from the back in the event people didn’t have time to finish

- Deliberately not enough time to discuss everything – some of the issues had ‘very important’ on them so maybe suggest to the group to discuss these first.

- Real life examples

- Don’t be afraid to stick to your guns to appease the group

- Focus on listening to the group

- Make active contributions only when necessary

- Support the suggestions of others but don’t be afraid to speak up to express your concern or recommendations.

- Make two or three well thought points and spread them across the activity. Spend the rest of your time listening to and acknowledging your peers.

Analysis Presentation

- Commercial case study (links to the group exercise but not exactly the same)

- They gave you an information pack – contains all sorts of information on a fictional company – position in the market, financials and employee info) and you have an hour to analyse it and devise a future strategy for the company based upon it.

- The focus is to come up with a strategy for ‘Business X’ to increase profitability.

- Manage your time carefully – they spent 30 minutes reading through the info and 30 mins writing down my strategy.

- Don’t be afraid to be very specific and make sure you can provide justifications for each of your recommendations.

- You have 10 minutes to present your strategy to a partner and 5 minutes or so after to response to questions.

- Structure it

- Present it in a coherent manner – importance of structure.

- Wrote down notes that they glanced at.

- EXCEPTIONAL AND CLEAR THOUGHT OUT STRUCTURE.

- You need to show common sense

- Don’t be afraid to stick with your guns if challenged at the end.

- Stay calm during the presentation

- Make sure you’ve got a coherent structure

- If you recommend the company does a certain thing in the future, just make sure you can justify why you are advising this.

Other:

- Be yourself

- When being escorted from room to room be conscious that you’re still being assessed.

- Take the opportunity to tell graduate recruitment how much you’re enjoying the day, ask them about themselves, and just be as enthusiastic as you can.

I would also recommend reading around the big business stories of the last week and maybe even the last month if they have been updated and changing. Read the commercial awareness threads on here to fully understand the bigger picture and how you can use those stories in an interview.
Also my biggest tip would be to follow a very particular new story so during one of my ACs, the US and China trade war was massive at the time and constantly changing so that was the story that I followed the most and knew so well. I then read briefly around other stories. A good idea would be to look at a particular sector as well such as tech etc.

Practice being virtual on zoom or whatever platform they use. Practice eye contact, looking into the camera. Make sure you are set up way before the AC with a clear background and no noise. Check the microphone and speaker!
You could even practice on zoom with a friend!

 

[Simon Evans]

Hello!

I received an email saying that I have a Virtual Assessment centre just 4 days later, which is a really short amount of time. Are there any techniques I can use to optimise my preparation? Thank you!

Who is the AC with?

 

[KamTM]

This thread has been super useful! - Does anyone have any specific tips on how to approach a virtual case study interview/what to expect?

 

[Karin]

This thread has been super useful! - Does anyone have any specific tips on how to approach a virtual case study interview/what to expect?

I think these can vary greatly depending on whether you are provided with materials to read in advance or whether it is more "on the spot" case study.

I had the "on the spot" case study where the partner was just telling me bits and pieces of the story and always asked me a question i.e. what do you think the general counsel needs to consider here? (we were talking aboot easyjet data breach). The story then kept on expanding and I was asked more questions as the case study developed.

As for preparation, I would prepare in the normal way you would prepare for a case study, but some other tips:

• try explaining some of the concepts that you may get asked about (e.g. asset purchase vs share purchase) to yourself out loud or even to a friend so you know how to speak about it
• have a paper and pen to hand so that you can make some notes if needs be
• ask questions if you need some additional information / help and keep on trying to get to the answer. In my interview, there were loads of moments where I was completely lost and I told them that I actually didn't know but "let me think about it again", reiterated all the facts and tried to just say whatever I was thinking out load so that they can see your thought process even if you don't necessarily get the answer!
• don't be too afraid to admit that you have no clue!

Hope this helps a bit!

 

[KamTM]

Thanks @Karin, that really helps! Feeling less pressure hearing that it is okay to ask for some time to think when you may not know exactly what the answer is.

 

[Ananya]

Hey! Can someone who has done an AC with HSF recently give some insight into how to go about it if it were virtual? The components are the same - competency interview, scenario 1 and scenario 2. Thanks!

 

[Karin]

Hey! Can someone who has done an AC with HSF recently give some insight into how to go about it if it were virtual? The components are the same - competency interview, scenario 1 and scenario 2. Thanks!

I am pretty sure that HSF had only a virtual TC interview as all Spring/Summer ACs were run when in February/March before lockdown so I don't know how it will be done going forward.. sorry if this is not that helpful!