How to protect yourself from distractions during a Skype interview?

Last week, the man was in the headlines of all the newspapers, when his child intervened in a video interview with the BBC. Remote workers can perfectly understand this situation. Regardless of whether the concerned children intervene, restless pets or just street noise, it is very difficult to maintain professionalism when various distractions accompany your online conversations or a Skype interview.

Set Limitations

The simplest way to deal with distracting factors is not to let them manifest themselves. Set certain limits for your family members and tell them when you can not be bothered at all. Also you can place a sign on your door when you are negotiating with someone. Often you can have not only relatives, but also neighbors who can knock on you to say hello and chat a little. And although they can be the nicest and most pleasant people, it does not matter if you are in the process of important negotiations. Therefore, such a tablet can help you: it also works with postmen and couriers. Also, you should strategically plan your online meetings. Of course, if you have an interview with the BBC, it's hardly possible to schedule its duration and put conditions on the day of the week. However, your colleagues, clients and employers are likely to be a bit more flexible in this regard. If possible, plan your conversations at the wrong time when you have to deliver the parcel when your children return from school and so on.

Think of the coworking space

Judging by the fact that an angry woman appeared at the door of the man who was trying to drag the children out of the room, the professor most likely tried to set certain restrictions, however, as everyone knows, children do not always listen to their parents. Even if you set limits, the situation can get out of hand. Perhaps your neighbor decided that it was time to listen to "Metallica" at full volume, or your dog saw a squirrel outside the window and wanted to tell her everything that thinks about her. If you have a very important online conversation planned and you want to make sure that nothing is distracting you at all, you may need to move to a different place. Many coworking spaces will allow you to rent a room for meetings, even if you do not have a permanent contract with them. Also special cabinets are also available in libraries, and you can reserve them if you contact in advance.

Reduce background noise

If you have a phone or video interview, you need to have quality headphones and make sure that they are attached to a working microphone. This will allow you to minimize background noise during a call. In addition, you can reduce the level of background noise emanating from your computer. To do this, you will need to open the sound settings and on the tab, dedicated to the microphone, find an item that allows you to reduce background noise.

Talk to management

It may happen that the house management plans to renovate the neighboring premises or stairwell, so you have to put up with the noise on an ongoing basis. However, if you work at home, then you are unlikely to like it. Therefore, you should contact the office and agree on a convenient for all schedule, within which you can conduct conversations on work, without worrying about the fact that the wall at any time again begins repairs. However, not always management or neighbors are so responsive. Therefore, you definitely need to report your situation, namely, that you are working. In this case, people usually pay more attention to what you say, and are more inclined to cooperate.

Recognize this and move on

Your cat jumped right in front of the camera while communicating with the client. It was generally quite nice, but it still greatly frightened your client. Naturally, you feel uncomfortable. What should you do? Just apologize, maybe joke, to defuse the situation, and then continue to talk about what you talked about before that. If you find yourself in a similar situation, you should admit that something went wrong. Otherwise, the situation will become even more awkward and distracting. Here are three steps that you should do when confusion occurs:

1. Take responsibility for what happened. Do not transfer it to other people.
2. Explain why it happened, as politely as possible. People feel more comfortable when they understand why something happened.
3. Do not inflate anything that happened. Your reaction can make the situation even more awkward than it was before.

Do not be too strict towards yourself, mistakes happen to everyone. If they did not happen, then on the Internet there would not be such great videos. But if you are properly prepared, you can ensure the calmness and professionalism of your online conversations.