ROBERT J.R. GRAHAM: How To Pass A Phone Interview

by: David E. Martin

Because of efficiency, cost and so on, recruiters may be likely to perform a phone interview. Phone interview is the first step for employers and job seekers to contact with each other. Phone interview often used for applying positions at investment bank. Even email is the most popularity method for communication all over the world, telephone is still play an important role.

Different companies will have distinct forms for a phone interview. But in general terms, the interviewer would talk with job seekers via telephone roughly about 10 minutes to 30 minutes. There are two stages for phone interview: self-introduction and question. With phone interview, the interviewer hope to find out the basic ability and experience of the candidate, judge whether the candidate satisfy the basis requirement of applying positions, and thus determine whether to give the candidate an opportunity to be invited to the next stage of interview.

Top 10 phone interview tips

1. Have a clearly career objective

Phone interview is the pre-stage before face to face interview and is a pivotal chance should not be loss by job seekers. Time consumed for a phone interview usually not more than 30 minutes in the most case. We must always believe of we have the ability to turn any ideas, plans, objectives, strategies or programs into reality. Please write down your goals on a slip of paper, read aloud every day and keep a long time, After doing this, you could be most clearly about your career objective, keep in mind the clearly career objective is a base for effective interview preparation.

2. Preparation in advance

After submitting the application materials for your desired position, you should prepare to receive a phone interview at any time, because you could not know exactly what time they will inform you for a phone interview, maybe 8.00 to 9:00am when you are at dreamland, also might be 5.30 to 6:00pm when you are at work, So you should have psychological preparation in advance, maybe you could also find some useful interview information on forums of major job seeking websites.

The way of phone interviews has a little bit different from a normal interview, in the phone interview, you are not actually face the interviewer, he’s not able to see your gestures and your appearance. But do not consider this an advantage. Body language is quite important in communication, you should keep in mind that you must treat phone interview as seriously as face to face interview at all the time. Some practical skills are given as follows:

3. Strategy for being requested a phone interview not prepared in advance

If you are outside for shopping or on the way to go home, or other circumstance that you have not forecast to an instantly phone interview. It is not need to be tensions, dealing with calm attitude and answer question with positive and friendly voice: “Thank you for calling me, would you mind call me again five minutes later as my cell phone does not receive very well here, or you may leave your phone number and I will call you back?”

Usually the interviewer will agree to call you a few minutes later, so you have time to prepare. Of course, in addition to an excuse for bad cell phone signals, there are so many other reasons, but it is must to be a reasonable explanation. After finished the phone call, breath deeply to ease your tension, then find a quiet place, recall the outline of the company carefully, think about the requirements of your desired position, inspect the detail of your resume, If you have prepared an abstract note for this company beforehand, you can review it. When the phone rings again, you should have already done a thorough preparation, keep smiling, answer the question with self-confidence.

4. Always say thank you

In the phone interview, you should always say “Thank you”, for example: “Thanks for calling me,” “Thank you for giving me this opportunity”, “Thanks for your time and consideration. It is really nice talking to you “, with these expressions, you should leave the interviewer a good impression.

5. Remember the interviewer’s name

In the beginning of phone interview, the interviewer will give a consuetude self-introduction, and you should remember his name, in the whole interview process you can refer to his name naturally during your discussions. Thus the interviewer would feel respected.

6. Grasp the opportunity for last question

At the end of the phone interview，the interviewer will ask if you have any questions to ask. You should not relax at this time. If you could not put forward some real significance questions, the interviewer will guess that you are not very interesting on the position and not thinking too much about the job. Therefore preparing 3 – 4 depth questions before the interview is absolutely necessary.

7. Make a note

You can make a note of phone interview, writing down the important information gathered in this interview, these information could be used subsequently at interview. On the other hand, in case the interviewer was interrupted by other things for some reason, as he come back to ask “what are we just talking about?”, If you can answer him very soon and accurately, these should leave him a deep impression.

8. Honest answer

When answer the questions, you should be honest, concise, accurate and complete.

9. Take into account that you should be fully focused on this interview, so eliminate any disturbing element, like TV, other persons, noise, etc.

10. Treat the phone interviews as face-to-face interviews, Verbal, via the words you choose and how you handle the negotiation inside the communication (question-answer, feed-back, straight to the point, conversation without “aaa” or “Ummm”s). Feed back with self-confidence answers like, “Yes, I understand”,” Yes, of course” or other things like that. It is very important to leave the positive impression to the interviewer firstly. Do not talk about salaries and benefits in phone interview.

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