Landing the Job: Rock that Phone Interview!
It’s pretty common for hiring managers to conduct initial screening interviews via phone these days because it saves on time and money for both the interviewer and interviewee.
This is your first opportunity to make a good impression and to get one step closer to landing the job. Here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way.
1. Get serious.
Treat this interview as seriously as you would an in-person interview. You need to be just as prepared — research the organization, read some bios, do a google news search for the organization (more on this in a second).
2. Get dressed.
Sure, you’ll probably be in your house/apartment/room, but you’ll feel (and then act) the part if you get out of your PJs and into some business casual wear.
3. Find a Space.
Pick a place where you know your cell phone gets strong signal (unless you still have a landline phone) and create your space. Lay out your notepad, laptop, resume and anything else you might need for the interview. Also, make sure alarms are off, silence your phone once your interview has started, and the dogs are far, far away.
4. Get to Googling.
Don’t skip the Google search. Learn from my mistake. In an interview for a public service position, one of the interviewers asked me what news I had read about the agency recently. Although I had searched the website and read some press releases from the site, I did not google news search the agency!
5. Bring a Cheat Sheet.
Here’s one upside to having a phone interview — you can bring notes. Because a lot of employers like to ask questions based on your past experiences, I make notes on my resume about each of my previous positions. I note anyone I supervised, special projects that I handled that demonstrate leadership or any client work that was memorable. Also, I write the phonetic spelling of my interviewer — just in case.
How do you prepare for phone interviews?
