Two years ago, if someone told you that you’d be interviewing for six-figure roles entirely over Zoom from your home office, you might have laughed. Today, that’s just the job market. The shift to remote and hybrid work has fundamentally altered how companies evaluate candidates, how interviews are conducted, and what skills separate the candidates who get offers from those who don’t.

The good news is that the job market remains competitive in your favor: companies are desperate for talent, and they know it. The less comfortable news is that employers are getting pickier even as they complain about shortages. They can afford to be selective when hundreds of qualified people apply for every opening. This means your interview performance matters more than ever, because you’re competing against people who’ve had two years to perfect the art of the on-camera pitch.

The interview process has changed in three major ways since 2020. Understanding these shifts, and preparing accordingly, will put you ahead of candidates who are still thinking about interviews the old way.

The Video Interview Is Now Standard, Not an Exception

If you’re interviewing in 2022, assume your first round (and possibly all subsequent rounds) will happen over Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or another video platform. This is not a temporary workaround anymore. Companies have invested in remote hiring infrastructure, and they’re keeping it because it works. Video interviews let them talk to candidates across the country without paying for travel, and they’ve found that remote-first interviews actually reveal more about how someone communicates than in-person meetings sometimes do.

But here’s what most candidates get wrong: they treat video interviews like phone calls with a camera, or worse, like in-person interviews they can phone in from anywhere. Video interviews are their own distinct skill, and you need to approach them differently.

Start with your physical setup. Your background should be clean, professional, and consistently lit. This doesn’t mean you need a fancy home office with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves; it means choosing a room where the lighting is neutral and even, where there’s no clutter behind you that distracts the interviewer, and where the background suggests you take the opportunity seriously. Natural light from a window is excellent. Overhead lights alone often create harsh shadows on your face. Position yourself so the light comes from in front of you or slightly to the side, not from behind.

Your camera placement matters too. Mount your laptop or camera at eye level, ideally slightly above, so the interviewer is looking at your face straight on rather than up your nostrils or down at your hairline. A laptop stand costs fifteen dollars and will immediately improve how you appear on camera. Test your setup before the interview: open the video platform, call yourself or a friend, and see what the interviewer will actually see. Most candidates never do this, which means they get mid-interview surprises about their lighting or camera angle.

Then there’s the internet. A wired connection is better than WiFi; if WiFi is your only option, position yourself as close to the router as possible and close any bandwidth hogs (streaming video, downloads, other devices) before the interview. Having to say “can you hear me now?” repeatedly destroys your credibility in the first five minutes.

The other piece of video interview technique is reading the room through the screen. In an in-person meeting, you pick up on body language, facial expressions, and room energy instantly. Over video, these signals are compressed and sometimes delayed. This means you need to be more deliberate about engagement. Make eye contact with the camera, not the image of the interviewer on your screen, so it appears you’re looking them in the eye. Smile more naturally than you would in person; cameras flatten expressions, and what feels natural to you might look blank on screen. Nod when appropriate. Be aware of your energy level. When you’re mildly engaged in person, it reads fine; over video, mildly engaged reads as disinterested.

Take-Home Assignments and Async Challenges Have Replaced Live Coding

Technical interviews have evolved significantly, and the change is worth understanding because it affects how you prepare.

The traditional technical interview, where you code on a whiteboard or in a shared editor while someone watches, created a lot of anxiety and didn’t actually measure much. You can’t use Google. You can’t refactor. You’re under time pressure, and the interviewer is staring at you while you think. That format is still around, but it’s becoming less common, especially for initial screening rounds.

Many companies now use take-home assignments: they send you a coding challenge, you have 24 to 48 hours to complete it, and you submit it back. Sometimes you’ll then discuss your solution in a follow-up call. Other companies use async coding challenges on platforms like HackerRank or Codewars, where you solve problems in their environment and they can see your approach, your code quality, and your problem-solving process without the pressure of someone watching you live.

When take-homes are the standard, your interview approach shifts. You have time to think, which is good; you also don’t have the excuse of time pressure, which means your code needs to be clean and well-structured. Treat a take-home assignment like a code review waiting to happen. Write comments. Use meaningful variable names. Structure your solution logically. If you have a choice between the clever one-liner and the readable four-line approach, pick readable. Explain your approach in a README file or comments at the top; show that you think about the problem, not just the solution.

If you’re doing pair programming over screen share (where you’re sharing your screen, talking through your approach, and coding in real-time with an interviewer), the dynamic is different. You’re demonstrating how you think, how you handle uncertainty, and how you communicate your reasoning. It’s less about getting the perfect answer and more about showing your process. If you get stuck, say it out loud: “I’m not immediately sure how to handle this edge case, let me think through it.” That’s better than silent struggling. Ask for hints if you need them. The interviewer is evaluating whether you’d be good to work with on real projects, not whether you can solve algorithm problems without help.

For all technical interviews, the foundation is solid understanding of the basics. If you’re interviewing for a backend role and you haven’t reviewed database indexing, query performance, and API design recently, you should. If you’re going for frontend work, brush up on DOM manipulation, event handling, and whatever framework the company uses. Read our earlier post on what to expect during a technical interview if you want deeper detail on preparation strategy.

Behavioral Questions Now Ask About Remote Work, Crisis, and Collaboration

Behavioral interviews (the “tell me about a time you…” questions) have evolved too. Interviewers are no longer satisfied with your generic story about overcoming a conflict with a coworker. They want to know how you actually work in distributed teams, how you handle being unable to read the room in person, and how you managed during crisis or rapid change.

Expect questions like: Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with someone across time zones or without in-person meetings. Describe a situation where you had to lead or be productive during uncertainty or significant change. How do you stay motivated and connected when you’re working remotely? When have you had to communicate sensitive information or work through conflict without being able to talk face-to-face?

These questions exist because remote and hybrid work is now standard, and companies want to know you won’t fall apart when you can’t just walk over to someone’s desk. They also want to know you can be productive and thoughtful without constant supervision, which is its own skill.

Prepare three to five stories that hit different themes: managing a remote project or collaboration, handling change or uncertainty (even if it’s pandemic-related, that’s legitimate), navigating conflict through written communication or video calls, and learning something quickly in a chaotic environment. Each story should have a setup, a specific action you took, and a clear result. The STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is older advice, but it still works because it actually structures your thinking.

The Fundamentals Still Matter: Application Materials and Positioning

None of this changes what got you to the interview in the first place: a strong resume and cover letter that actually made the hiring manager want to talk to you. If you’re weak on this part, it doesn’t matter how good you are over video; you won’t get the interview. We’ve written extensively about this in our piece on why your cover letter isn’t working, so review that if you’re still getting rejection after submission.

The competitive job market in 2022 means you can afford to be selective too. Not every opportunity is worth interviewing for, especially when interviews take time and energy. Look at the company, the role, the salary band, and the team. Is this actually a place you want to work? Ask that question before you walk into the interview. Companies want to hire people who want to be there, not people desperately auditioning for any opportunity. If you genuinely don’t care, it shows over video.

What Success Looks Like

A successful interview in 2022 looks like this: you appear professional and engaged on camera; you communicate clearly and concisely; you’re able to think out loud about technical problems or describe your past work with specificity and honesty; you ask thoughtful questions about the role, the team, and the company; and you leave the interviewer thinking you’d be genuinely good to work with.

You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to have a scripted answer for every question. You don’t need to pretend you’re someone you’re not. Companies are tired of interviewing people who show up as performers and then reveal themselves to be completely different once hired. Authenticity, combined with genuine preparation, is what stands out.

The job market has changed, but the underlying skills that make you hire-able haven’t. You still need to show up as the kind of person others want to work with. You still need to demonstrate that you can do the job. You still need to communicate clearly and think critically about problems. The delivery method is different, but the fundamentals are the same. Master the new format, prepare for the questions your industry is actually asking, and you’ll be fine.