Telephone interview
Telephone interviews
are becoming an important part of the recruitment process. They are now
used frequently by many organizations, as the first stage in selecting a
candidate.
Telephone interviews save time and cost relatively less
Employers conduct telephone interviews for a variety of reasons.
They may have received hundreds of responses to a vacancy advertisement
and do not want to go through a face-to-face interview with each
applicant. A number of applicants may be residing in other cities, and
the organization wants to save on the time and cost involved in
arranging in-depth interviews across the table for these applicants. The
pile of resumes received can be significantly reduced by just conducting
a short telephone interview and then short-listing the suitable
applicants.
Employers, therefore, use the telephone interview as an initial
screening interview. It is a short, cost-effective way of finding
out the answers to the following questions about the applicant:
-
Is the applicant serious about the job
and the organization ?
-
Has he/she made any effort to research
the company/position or has just sent in his/her resume?
-
How good are his/her communication
skills?
-
Why does he/she want to quit from
his/her existing job?
Telephone interviews could be scheduled or
unscheduled
There is no fixed system for when a telephone interview is held,
unlike a face-to-face interview where the time, date and venue are
scheduled well in advance. Some employers could inform you before-hand
when they are likely to call. Others may just decide to pick up the
phone and call you in the evening when they expect that you would be
back from work. You also cannot be sure who is making the first call,
whether the HR person or the recruiting agency.
In this scenario, it makes sense to be
prepared because you never know when you will receive the telephone
call. In case you receive the call, without prior notice, at a bad time,
when you are in the middle of some domestic chore, you could take down
the person's name and telephone number and say you would call back after
5 minutes. Or, you could request the caller to hold on for a few seconds
till you get your act together in terms of getting a paper/pencil and
your documents ready. Otherwise, you may not be psychologically prepared
and could be caught on the wrong foot from the word go.
If you are lucky, you may be informed of a
date and time when the telephone interview will be held. This will may
things easier for you in terms of being mentally prepared, having the
relevant papers by your side, speaking suitably for the occasion etc.
Through this article, we will provide
guidelines on how you can prepare for a telephone interview - to improve
your performance and increase your chances of being short-listed.
Try to get short-listed to the next stage of the
face-to-face interview
What is your objective in a telephone interview?
As the telephone interview is usually the
initial screening interview that works as an elimination round, your
objective is to get short-listed! Getting short-listed implies that you
move on to the next round of the face-to-face interview.
You need to, therefore, prepare for this
telephone interview and not treat it as lightly as a casual call.
However, do not let the significance unnerve you. It is important that
you remain cool and confident throughout the duration of the telephone
interview, as this will do wonders to your performance!
The interviewer wants to evaluate your
communication skills
The primary concern of the interviewer, during a telephone
interview, is to judge you by your communication skills. How well do you
communicate on the telephone, where you cannot see your interviewer? Do
you seem uncomfortable since you cannot see the interviewer's reactions?
Do you sound confident, qualified, interested and enthusiastic despite
the absence of non-verbal cues from the person at the other end? Or are
you left stuttering and groping for words, distraught by occasional
awkward silences during the telephone call?
These are issues that you need to keep in
mind during the telephone interview.
How can you improve the way you communicate
on the telephone? Can you change the way you speak overnight just for an
interview?
Think through your answers to improve the way
you communicate on the telephone
Improving the way you communicate on the telephone is not just how
you speak and your accent. What is crucial is what you say i.e. the
content of your answers. You can definitely make a difference to your
answers by a certain degree of smart preparation.
Your preparation should involve thinking
through certain questions that you could be asked with regard to your
resume, and how you could possibly answer them. This does not mean that
you should memories canned and standard answers, but just that you draw
up a list of anticipated questions, and think through how you would
answer them. You could jot down points for each answer or just write a
few key words to clarify your thought flow.
This will eventually help you in the actual
telephone interview by reducing the time taken to answer questions, will
ensure that the answers are brief and to the point, will reduce
unnecessary gaps and long silences at your end. In addition, it will
also indicate to the interviewer that you are a thinking person with
clear career plans and are seriously interested in the position at the
employer organization.
If you get caught off guard because you had
not thought through a list of anticipated questions, your answers would
tend to be long, lacking focus and you would come across as a confused
individual, which is definitely not what you want the interviewer to
perceive.
Some of the questions that you can
anticipate are:
-
Summary of your career/previous work
experience
-
Short and long term career goals
-
Where do you see yourself 5/10/15 years
from now?
-
Why do you want to quit your current
job?
-
Why have you applied to this
organisation?
-
Why do you want to work for this
organisation?
-
How are your skills, qualifications, and
experience suitable for this job?
-
What do you know about the job that you
have applied for?
-
Tell us something about yourself
-
Find a solution to a problem situation
at work
For any questions relating to how you would
handle a problem or crisis situation at work, remember to use an
analytical and structured format for your answer i.e. problem
definition-solution-implications.
Keep your answers short and to the point
Avoid verbosity and lengthy detailed explanations in your answers.
Stick to what you have been asked. Do not get into a long preamble
before you get to the actual answer. This will show clarity of thought
and can be achieved by your preparation.
For example, to answer the question-"Tell us
about yourself"- you may have a lot of information to give but you will
need to priorities. You could either describe yourself in a few
adjectives to cover your strengths and weaknesses, or you could give a
brief outline of your current employment and your career objectives etc.
What you say should be prepared before hand so that it ensures that your
answer is short and to the point.
Your telephone interview could vary from a
duration of 5-10 minutes to half an hour or longer. Prepare answers to
as many questions that you can think of because there is no fixed
duration for the telephone call. The longer the interview takes does not
necessarily mean a good interview, similarly a short interview does not
necessarily mean a bad interview over the phone. It depends on what your
answers were and how you delivered them over the phone. Just remember to
keep your answers crisp, concise and focused.
Speak clearly and slowly
Regarding your style of delivering your answers, try and speak
clearly and slowly. Be articulate. You have to rely on the interviewer's
listening skills to evaluate what you say, so do not take any chances in
messing up at your end. You have to be sure that the interviewer has
heard and understood what you say, so initially you may need to be
careful about the pace at which you speak. However, do not concentrate
on it so much that you forget what you were talking about!
Your voice should sound pleasant, friendly and
enthusiastic
Since the interviewer cannot see you, your tone of voice is
important in making an impression on him. Try to sound enthusiastic.
Smile even though you cannot be seen, because you will be surprised how
smiling can improve the way you sound on the telephone! It will
automatically give your voice a friendly tone!
In most interviews on the telephone, there
may be only one interviewer at the other end. However, in some cases,
the interview may be a conference call where a number of interviewers
fire questions one after the other. Sounds unnerving, but don't lose
heart! Just follow the basics- Speak to each person in the same pleasant
way, as you are not aware of the hierarchy at this stage! Answer the
person who asks the question and follow this for each further question.
If you can catch the names of the interviewers if they introduce
themselves, try and remember them or quickly jot them down so you can
address the individuals personally. This is not absolutely necessary- if
you do it right it will work for you, but if you mix up the names and
voices of the interviewers, it can be extremely embarrassing! Use this
tactic only if you are good with matching names to voices over the
phone!
Be positive in what you say
You should approach your answers in a positive way i.e. do not
criticize your former employer or give a negative picture of why you
want to leave your current job. You are obviously looking for a change
because you are unhappy with your existing job, but you can still be
diplomatic about the reasons why!
Give the real reasons, but put it across in
a positive way e.g. why you feel the need to move on in your career etc.
And if you are looking for a change because you cannot get along with
your present boss, there is no guarantee that you will get a better boss
in your new job! Be sure why you are changing jobs- delving deeper into
your career plans will give you more convincing reasons for why you want
to quit your existing job.
Ask questions to show interest in the job you have applied for
To avoid just a one-sided conversation on the telephone, where you
just speak when spoken to, if there is an opportunity, you could ask the
interviewer certain questions about the organization or the job that you
are being interviewed for.
For example, you could clarify the
responsibilities that your job will entail, the number of people working
in the group/department or team that you will be joining. You could also
ask what your immediate priority would be if recruited, in terms of a
problem that the organization is currently facing in that area, or any
project that you may need to initiate as soon as you join.
This will just go to show that you are a
serious candidate for the position, and that you are really interested
in the job.
Try and avoid initiating any salary talk
unless the interviewer brings it up. Salary negotiations are better
discussed at a later date. Right now it is more important that you
convince the interviewers to short-list you for the next stage in the
selection process, rather than worry about the salary you will be
getting!
Keep important papers accessible near the telephone
Since you may receive your telephone call without warning, it would
help if you kept important papers within easy reach of the telephone. As
you cannot be seen, you could quickly glance at the papers for any
assistance that you may need in answering questions that you had not
anticipated. Keep papers such as your resume, the cover letter and any
other information that you may have researched on the employer such as
company size, market share, turnover, job responsibilities etc., easily
accessible near the telephone.
Also keep a paper and pen or pencil handy to
jot down any points or names that you may need to, during the course of
the telephone interview.
You can use the fact that you cannot be seen
to your advantage in terms of referring to your prepared points or
resume to assist you in your answers. However, please do not be in a
situation, where you have a friend or relative prompting you as this
could turn out to be disastrous. It could even may you hesitate or
stumble over words while answering questions and could get you
thoroughly confused! It is best to be cool and think on your feet to
answer surprise questions. Your preparation should have taken care of
other questions and answers so that you did not need to refer to
anything anyway!
Ensure that there are no distractions such
as the blaring noise of the TV set or anything else at home, while the
interview is going on.
Follow these guidelines and then look
forward to a good telephone interview!
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