Find a quiet space with no ambient noise where you won’t be disturbed. Spaces with rugs or soft furnishings are ideal to dampen the sound and help with overall audio quality. Remember, the interview is audio-only so you can be somewhere comfortable (and your bedhead is no problem.)

Turn off or silence devices and notifications that could interrupt the recording.

Use a pair of headphones or earbuds with a built-in microphone. If you have wired ones that came with your phone, those will work great. Apple Airpods work great too. (And if you don’t have headphones, get really close to your computer or phone mic.)

Right before your interview begins, you’ll be prompted to test your audio to make sure the quality sounds great. After you record your test audio, a prompt to “Listen to your recording” will appear. If the recording does not sound clear, play around with where you’re sitting or your mic setup. If you can’t hear yourself at all, go into your device’s settings and make sure you have the correct input (i.e microphone) and output (i.e. headphones) selected. Do not continue the interview if you cannot get a good recording.

When you begin your interview, Sam will start talking, give you some info, and ask you a warm-up question. You’ll press “Next Question,” and Sam will keep asking questions for the duration of the interview. It’s really easy to follow along. (Sample interview questions here)

If Sam seems to get confused, says something that doesn’t make sense, or doesn’t respond quite how you’d expect, pressing the “Next Question” button usually Sam back on track. You can click the feedback link at any time to send feedback.

If there are any issues along the way, you can stop the interview and resume later. Let us know at [email protected]