How to Interview on the Phone

Telephone interviews are a great way to meet an employer without all the travel. A good telephone interview can either get the job or get an in person interview.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Excitement in your voice

1. Make sure you are at the telephone at the appointed time. If the call does not come through make sure to either call the interviewer or your agency within five minutes of the appointed time to find out what happened. It is always better for you to be proactive than to just wait for the interviewer.

2. Let the interviewer lead the start of the telephone interview. If you try to take over that will be thought of negatively. You will get your chance to speak. The interviewer wants to hear you speak, but they want you to be on point.

3. Listen carefully to the interviewer. This person wants you to respond to their description of the job. If you are telling them about unrelated experience they are going to quickly decipher that you do not listen. They will immediately decide that you will not complete the tasks at hand when you are on the job.

4. Make sure that you answer the interviewer's questions. It is easy to take off on tangents over the telephone, but answering the questions will get you the in person interview or maybe an immediate job offer.

5. Back up your answers with relevant experience. An employer wants to know that you not only know how to do something but that you have done it before. Listen to the interviewer's queues for the direction your answers should take. If the interviewer responds to something positively expand on that answer or experience.

Tips & Warnings

• If the interviewer's call is late, call them within five minutes

[ttbirdie]

on 4/15/2009 Great article on how to phone interview, 5*