The Best Way To Prepare For A Phone Interview

The Best Way To Prepare For A Phone Interview The Best Way To Prepare For A Phone Interview Well, here’s a bad thing that happened: let’s call our guy, “Mike.” Mike was out to dinner around 6 pm, and his phone rang with a number he didn’t recognize. He answered and it was an HR person from an organization he was interested in in his job search. She wanted to conduct a phone interview. Mike excused himself, stepped into the restaurant lobby, and answered her series of questions. Let’s talk about the several things wrong with that scenario: it wasn’t quiet enough, Mike wasn’t ready, and he definitely didn’t give his greatest answers, because he was doing the phone interview on the fly. Moral of the story: don’t let this be you. A phone interview is not to be taken lightly. Treat it with the exact same level of regard you would an in-person interview. Now that you know not to do all this while you’re out to dinner, let’s talk about the best ways to make sure you’re ready for a phone interview. You’re Allowed To Not Take The Call This can be a little bit scary, and it’s definitely counter-intuitive. Though it may not be something you want to do, if the interviewer calls at an inopportune moment, don’t take the call. Either don’t answer the phone just based on the fact that you don’t recognize the number, and let it go to voice mail, or if you do answer, tell the person you can’t speak right now. Then ask if you’d be able to return their call at 10 am the next day. It’s highly unlikely that the person’s going to say, “No, absolutely not. It’s right now or never.” That’s not a professional response. You can more reasonably expect, “Of course. I’m sorry for the late hour. Let’s talk tomorrow at such and such a time.” I realize that when you’re in the midst of job search you don’t want to miss anything. But guess what? If you allow yourself to be caught off-guard, and don’t perform your best, you just maximized your chances of not hearing from those folks again. You’re Allowed To Have A Pleather Portfolio Arm yourself with a nice leather / pleather portfolio. It needs to be a portfolio so that you have a hard surface to write on. You need that hard surface because you need to be up and walking around, which conveys more energy that, I promise you, the interviewer can “hear” through the phone. Put your resume on 1 side and stories that you want to tell about your successes on the other side. Make sure those stories are written in bullets, not paragraphs â€" you don’t want to sound like you’re reading. When you're interviewing, one of the things that makes you not perform well is that you're trying to remember things. Your brain is working so hard to remember this or that, and it makes you not speak in a natural way. You have a story that’s core and natural to you â€" just tell it. Don’t read it. Don’t remember it. You’re Allowed To Ask What’s Next This applies to phone interviews and in-person interviews. Too often, candidates wonder what’s going to happen afterwards. Don’t wonder. Ask them what the next step is, or say, “Listen, I’d like to follow up with you in two days, three days,” or whatever makes sense. Take control of this thing. That’s how you job search like a boss! Learning next steps and timing eliminates 75% of the anxiety associated with this process. You go in there, you perform well, you want to know what’s next. Make sure to ask that question. Did you know that it takes the average candidate 17 interviews before hearing 1 offer? I’m giving a live online presentation on how to maximize the interviews you're going to get. “5 Secrets Smart Jobseekers Age 50+ Know That Make The Job Search EASY” will teach out what to do online, on LinkedIn, and throughout your job search so that you are talking to as many recruiters and decision makers as you can, in order to land the role that you really want.