If you have been scheduled for a telephone interview,
congratulations. That means that your resume did not
get thrown into the trash can, either literally or
electronically. You are, technically, still a
candidate for the job. However, unless the position is
a virtual one or the interviewer you need to speak to
is distant from you, be aware that you are not exactly
the most valuable candidate on their list. That’s
because for most positions, a face-to-face interview
is necessary before a hire can even be considered.
This means that when a resume that really grabs the
interviewer shows up, their first words are typically
“let’s get this person in here for an interview.”
Phone job interviews typically mean that the
interviewer is on the fence about you. If you do well
on the phone interview, the next step is a
face-to-face interview. If not, then he or she hasn’t
wasted that much time on you.
Knowing that, you should take your telephone job
interview as seriously as possible. For whatever
reason, the interviewers aren’t particularly impressed
with your resume and you’ve got to win an uphill
battle to get into that office and get that job. The
first thing that you should do is start researching
the job as intently as you can. By the time the phone
interview starts, you should ideally know as much
about the target job as you do your own current job.
That way, just like your current job, you can hit all
the right notes in your phone interview, and emphasize
all the skills, attributes and accomplishments that
you know the target company will appreciate. At the
very least, your research should give you a clear and
complete picture of what the job does on a daily
basis, what results the target company expects, and
what attributes the target company values the most.
More Telephone Job Interview Advice
Use that information you have gathered to shape the
answers you give in your telephone job interview. That
doesn’t mean to lie and make up experience that you
believe will impress the interviewer. That means that
you take the history, experience and stories from your
job history so far and use them as evidence that you
fit the profile of the ideal candidate. A great way to
do this is to turn your job and personal experience
into very short stories and examples that dramatize
the elements of interest to the interviewer. Each of
these stories should have situation, describe actions
you took and list the results that you achieved.
As you tell these stories and examples in your
telephone job interview, you can make your research
pay off again in a big way. Shape your situation,
actions and results so that they match or mirror the
situation, actions and results that you learned about
in the target job. As you do this, the interviewer
will start to believe that he is hearing an interview
with someone who is already working at and successful
at the target position. This gives him or her a great
deal of confidence that you are able to do the job,
and should be brought into the office for an in person
interview as soon as possible. Repeat the process in
the interview, and the job is very likely to be yours
as a result.
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