The Purpose of a Phone Interview | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

Today's video is about the purpose of the phone interview and and I want to do it from both sides perspective.

First of all, your side is easy. Your purpose is to get to the face-to-face interview. 999,000 in times out of 1 million, no one is ever hired on the basis a phone interview. There are very rare exceptions but usually a firm wants to meet someone before they are hired. So your job is to get to the actual in person interview and I will give you a couple of suggestions for how to do that.

The employer's perspective is (number 1) they're trying to confirm that what piqued their interest about your background is actually true; that ou have relevant experience. So they may have some questions in mind as to whether is your experience is relevant. There may be something that's causing them concern. They are looking confirmation, which means they see your background as a great fit and they're trying to confirm that by speaking with you. Really what they can confirm is a couple of pieces of objective information . . . that comes to subject the questioning. I know that sounds contradictory, but the questions that they use to evaluate involve some degree of subjectivity. And again, I'm going to get to how you can do your part of this most effectively in a moment.

So the other thing that they can really evaluate is your energy level. Do you have passion, do you have zeal, do you have excitement for what you do? Does it come across in your voice? Do you speak in a slow, methodical monotone manner that puts people to sleep or do you demonstrate a degree of enthusiasm and excitement?

Your side of this. How do you demonstrate that you have some passion for what you do? How do you demonstrate they don't have to worry about you, that you do fit the role? There are 2 parts to this.

If the call is coming out of the blue, then what I want to encourage you to do is to say something along the lines of (from a corporation, not a third party recruiter) if the call is coming from a Corporation would encourage you to say, "I would love to speak with you. Can we schedule time, a little bit later. I have to go to a meeting . . . I've an appointment. I want to give you full attention. Could we speaking at . . . " That you offer up a time.

Then you go back and forth and schedule it. Understand that part of what you've now gotten from there your phone call is who it is, you can reference your notes about the job that you might submit your application to, or,mbefore you jump off, you can say, "Would you tell me about the position that you are trying to hire for," and make them talk. Then say, "thanks. I look forward to speaking with you."

Then there's the call that's actually scheduled and you now have a call set for to 2 o'clock, for example. When they call, you start the conversation with (remember, scheduling can come from third-party recruiters, as well as from yourself),you start the conversation by saying, "I spoke with Jeff Altman about the position. He gave me a brief summary but I wanted to get your take on it. Would you tell me about the job as you see it and what I can do to help you?"

And in that way, they are going to start off by talking about the position that they are trying to fill. You'll get enough information so that when they start with, " tell me about yourself," and all follow-up questions that come from your answer that, you can tailor your answers to what matters to them.

So, again, the purpose of the phone interviews from their standpoint is the screen you in or screen you out. They don't want to waste time with someone who isn't a fit. What they want to do is confirm that you have the right background or get answers to a couple of basic questions that gave them hesitancy.