Why the room is part of the interview
A recorded interview shows two things at once: what you say, and every decision you made about how to present it. A candidate framed from the chin up, lit from behind, in a room with a television on, has told the employer something before saying a word.
The good news is that this is the cheapest part of the whole exercise to fix. It takes about fifteen minutes, needs nothing you do not already own, and once your corner is set up it is set up for every future recording.
Camera: height first, everything else second
The single biggest improvement most people can make is raising the camera. A laptop on a desk points up at you from below, which is an unflattering angle nobody chooses on purpose. Put the laptop on a stack of books until the lens sits at eye level or a touch above.
- Framing: head and upper chest, with a small gap above your hair. Not a portrait of your forehead, not a wide shot of the room.
- Distance: about an arm’s length. Close enough to read your face, far enough that gestures stay in frame.
- Stability: anything the camera rests on must not wobble when you type or lean.
- Orientation: follow the employer’s instructions. For a standalone phone recording, landscape is a useful starting point unless another format is requested.
Light: one window, facing you
Face the light. A window in front of you, slightly off to one side, is a useful starting point if it provides soft, even light. A window behind you is the most common mistake in home recordings: the camera exposes for the bright background and turns you into a silhouette.
- If the room has only overhead light, add a lamp in front of you at face height and bounce it off a nearby wall to soften it.
- Mixing daylight and warm bulbs makes skin tones go strange. Pick one.
- Record at the same time of day you plan to submit, so the light you tested is the light you get.
Sound: the thing people notice only when it is bad
Poor audio is more tiring to watch than poor video, and reviewers give up on it faster. You do not need a microphone — you need a quiet room and a short distance between your mouth and whatever is recording.
- Close the window. Traffic and birdsong are louder on a recording than they are in the room.
- Move away from appliances or fans you can hear in the test recording. Close unnecessary applications if your computer fan is working hard.
- Silence notifications on every device, including the one you are not recording on.
- Soft rooms sound better than hard ones. A room with a rug, curtains and a sofa beats a kitchen with tile.
- Wired earbuds with an inline microphone are a genuine upgrade over a distant built-in laptop microphone, and they look unobtrusive.
Background and wardrobe
A plain wall is perfectly good. A shelf with a few books is good. What you want to avoid is motion and mess: a hallway where someone walks past, a drying rack, a bed, a bright poster that pulls the eye off your face.
On virtual backgrounds
Use one only if the real background genuinely cannot be fixed. Edge detection still slices off fingers and hair when you gesture, and that flicker is more distracting than the room ever was.
On what to wear
Solid mid-tone colours, one step above the everyday dress of that workplace. Tight patterns shimmer under video compression. Pure white can blow out under a bright window and pure black loses all detail in a dim room. Check that you are not the same colour as your wall.
A two-minute pre-flight check
Record fifteen seconds, play it back, and look for these before you record anything that counts:
- Is the lens at eye level, and am I framed from the chest up?
- Is my face brighter than the wall behind me?
- Can I hear a hum, a street, or a fan under my voice?
- Is anything in the background moving, or private?
- Is the device charged, plugged in, and set to not disturb — and is the browser using the camera I think it is?
- Is there water within reach, out of frame? A dry mouth is audible.
Use your test recording to choose one fix
Requt organizes video feedback into setting, attire, content and delivery. Use those categories to review a take: check the frame and light, whether clothing distracts, whether the answer supplies evidence, and whether the pace is easy to follow. AI feedback is a coaching aid, not the employer’s assessment or a prediction of a hiring decision.
For example, if a test take has a clear voice but a bright window behind your head, move to face the window and record the same answer again. Keeping the answer the same makes the lighting change easier to compare. This is a practice example, not a measured customer result.
Once the setup works, use the four-part answer structure to plan what to say. For an employer-hosted recording, also check our HireVue practice guidance.
Recording the take itself
Sit forward slightly, with your weight off the back of the chair — it keeps your voice supported and stops the slow slouch that creeps in over a few minutes. Look at the lens, not at your own image. Start about a second before you speak and stay still for a second after you finish, so the recording does not clip your first and last words.
During practice, try recovering from a stumble and finishing the answer. Review the whole take before deciding whether to repeat it. In the actual interview, restart only if the platform and employer allow it.
A few more things
Common questions
Is a phone good enough, or do I need a webcam?
A recent phone camera is usually better than the webcam built into a laptop. The catch is placement: a phone has to be propped at eye level and held completely still, so use a stand or lean it against books on a stack. If the interview runs in the employer’s platform inside a browser, you may not get to choose the camera at all — in that case the laptop webcam plus good light is the whole game.
What should I wear?
Dress one step above what people wear in that workplace day to day, and choose solid mid-tone colours. Avoid tight stripes and small checks, which shimmer on video compression, and avoid anything the same shade as your wall or you will blend into it.
Does the background matter that much?
It matters more than most people expect, because it is on screen for the entire recording and it is one of the few things you fully control. It does not need to be styled. It needs to be tidy, not distracting, and not a doorway people walk through.
Should I look at the camera or at myself on screen?
At the camera lens. Looking at your own image reads on the recording as looking slightly down and away from the viewer. If it helps, cover your self-view or move the window directly under the lens so your eyeline stays close to it.