Advice for Telephone Interviews

These days a lot of companies are using telephone interviews as first stage interviews to screen candidates before meeting them face to face. Yet people aren't taking them as a serious form of interview and fail the first hurdle immediately by making these simple mistakes.

1. Make Conversation
Chances are this person will be working with you in the future. They want to know that you can carry a conversation so as well as asking you questions, they are determining your personality and telephone manner.
It's not an interrogation, so ask them how they are or have they had a busy day. Nothing too serious like what was there childhood like but make sure you talk to them like they're a human and not a scary hiring robot question machine.


2. Do Your Research
So so many candidates don't bother to do any research before any interview. When the recruiter asks what they know about the company they say "nothing" or wrong information. This is just lazy, you are not only failing yourself but also the person interviewing you. Firstly this might be a company that you really don't want to work for. And this instantly speaks volumes about the kind of person you are and makes you seem disinterested in the role.
Companies hire people who want to work at that company. Make sure that comes across.


3. Know The Role
Where possible look at the job description, which is usually on the advert or most companies now will send over the job description to you. Read it. Make sure you check what key skills are required and then emphasise these where possible in questions. Use examples from your most recent roles. Make sure you know day to day if this is something you could wholeheartedly see yourself doing in the future.

4. Avoid Reading From A Piece Of Paper
If you have key points you want to get across, fine. Jot them down but it's so important for conversation to flow and this not to be you reading a script. It needs to sound natural not like your reading your CV to them.

5. Choose Your Environment Wisely
Go somewhere quiet with good phone signal. You don't want your conversation to be interrupted.
And sit up and smile as you are talking. You can genuinely hear someone smile when they are talking on the phone and if you're slouched in bed in your pjs, your tone is going to come over terrible.

6. Ask Questions
If they ask you if you have any questions at the end, have some prepared and make them relevant. If they haven't mentioned salary, then don't have the first thing you ask be the salary, second or third is fine. I mean you're not gonna work for free. Some good questions to ask are:

"How has this position come about?"
"What progression is there within your company"
"How many work within this office"
"If successful how soon would you want someone to start"
"What do you enjoy most about working for this company"
"What are some of the challenges this position may face"