The signaller recorded video interview

Get through the online assessment and the next stage is a recorded video interview. You read or watch a prompt, then record your answer to camera. There is nobody on the other end.

Applicants report around five questions, with two takes available on each.

What gets asked

Standard competency material, which maps naturally onto Network Rail's eight non-technical skills. Reported examples include describing a time you had to solve a complex problem, and describing a time you had to follow instructions precisely.

Expect variations on: a time you dealt with several things at once, a time you had to stay calm, a time you had to tell someone they were wrong, a time you made a mistake, a time you had to concentrate for a long period. If you have prepared an example against each of the eight skills, you will have something for whatever comes up.

Why the format catches people out

Not the questions — the camera. Without a person to react to, most people do one of two things: rush, because the silence is uncomfortable, or ramble, because nothing signals that the answer has landed.

Both are entirely fixable, and the fix is not more preparation of content. It is having heard yourself do it once. Record a two-minute answer to any competency question on your phone and watch it back. It will be uncomfortable and it will remove most of the awkwardness from the real thing, because the strangeness of talking to a lens is a one-time cost you can pay in advance.

Using the two takes

Use the first take properly rather than as a rehearsal. Most people find their first attempt is better than they think, and the second is often worse — more self-conscious, more edited, less natural.

Re-record when the first take genuinely went wrong: you misread the question, you dried up, you gave an example that turned out not to fit. Do not re-record because you said "um" or because you can imagine a slightly better version. That way you spend your second take making it stiffer.

Practical setup

• Light from in front, not behind. Facing a window is good; sitting with a window behind you makes you a silhouette.
• Camera at eye level. A laptop on a desk points up your nose. Put it on some books.
• Look at the lens, not at yourself. The preview of your own face is the single most distracting thing on the screen. Cover it with a sticky note if you can.
• Somewhere quiet, with a plain background. Nothing needs to be impressive, only not distracting.
• Dress as you would for an interview. It is an interview.

Structure for the answer

Two sentences of situation. Then what you did, and why you chose that. Then the outcome, briefly, and one line on what you took from it.

Aim for around 90 seconds to two minutes. Under a minute usually means you have given the situation and skipped the reasoning, which is the part being assessed. Over three and you have lost the thread of it, and so has the person watching.

The single most common weakness in these answers is describing what happened rather than what you decided. Panels are not marking the story. They are marking the judgement inside it, so say the judgement out loud: "I decided to do X first, because Y could wait and Z could not."