Prepare For Phone Interview

Nailing the Phone Interview

So, you’ve found the job of your dreams, sent in your resume, and lo and behold, they want to do a phone interview. Piece of cake, right? You don’t even have to wear a suit, so how hard can it be? Depending upon the circumstances, a phone interview can be just a preliminary screening, or a full-fledged in depth interview, but either way, if you don’t pass the phone interview, you don’t get the job – it’s that simple. Therefore, it goes without saying that you should carefully prepare for phone interview.

The first thing you want to do is review your own credentials. The interviewer is going to be asking a lot of questions about your background and skills, so take a few minutes to run through your resume in order to prepare for your phone interview. Do you remember all the job titles? Responsibilities? What classes and training have you done? Also, make sure you have a copy of your recent resume there in front of you to refer to during the actual phone interview. Refreshing your memory about dates, titles and responsibilities is important, but make sure and take it to the next level, too. A cheat-sheet with detailed notes about your key projects, plus some examples of success stories and outstanding achievements is an excellent tool to have handy. Then when the recruiter asks one of those wonderful essay questions like ”Tell us about a significant contribution you’ve made in your career,” you are ready!

The next step in your phone interview preparation is researching the company you are interviewing with. If you applied online via a job search site, check out whatever information they have listed about the hiring company. Go to the company’s website, as well, and read everything there. General facts to look for are the size of the company, what their industry and clientele are like and whether they are public or privately owned. If public, it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick look at their stock performance history. How long have they been around? Doing a quick Google or Yahoo search to see if you can find any interesting news articles or other miscellaneous information is a good idea, too.

One more item to prepare for your phone interview ahead of time is a checklist of questions covering what you want to know about this company. Your list should include everything from specifics about the job itself such as what are the responsibilities and the reporting structure, how much travel is required, which location would you be working out of and what is the general work environment like, to queries about specific things that might concern you such as what type of benefits do they offer, do they have a fitness facility onsite or a pension plan?

Last but not least when you want to prepare for a phone interview, make sure you have an optimal location and all the necessary resources available to do the actual phone interview itself. This may sound like a no-brainer, but the last thing you want to have happen in the middle of your awesome interview is for the phone to die or your three-year old to start crying in the next room. So, plan ahead and ensure that you have a location that is quiet and free of distractions. If your cell phone reception is iffy in the house, then opt to use a landline. Whatever phone you use, make sure that it is fully charged. Using a headset or speaker phone is ideal so that your hands are available to flip through your notes or write something down, if necessary. Wear comfortable clothes (even pj’s, if you like!), but don’t have the TV on – even muted. If you do have your computer up, limit it to only information relevant to the interview – like bookmarks to the job posting, company profile, your alma mater, etc. Checking yo ur email or a quick game of FreeCell in between questions is definitely a no-no!

Passing the phone interview is an essential step to getting hired, therefore make sure you carefully prepare for it, but remember you are on your own “turf”- so be comfortable and relax. With adequate preparation, you can easily nail the phone interview and be that much closer to getting the job of your dreams!

Thank you to Christine Grail for this "Prepare For Phone Interview" article.

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