Man of Honour
- Joined
- 27 Sep 2004
- Posts
- 25,821
- Location
- Glasgow
Congratulations on getting past the first stage and good luck with the face to face interview when it happens.
Phone Interview
- Thread starter tidusjar
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Aug 2008
- Posts
- 10,477
- Location
- Bath, England
i've got one of these tomorrow, great advice chaps!
Bit late to the party but hopefully some of the below may be of relevance to others:
Phone interviews are great for non-charismatic people because you can set yourself up in a comfortable environment, don't have to worry about all the superfluous stuff like appearance, eye contact and all that nonsense, you can focus on the actual verbal communication. You also have the opportunity to have some basic notes in front of you, now I don't mean constantly flicking back and forward in a notepad, but a single page with some key points you want to get across, maybe some questions you want to ask given the opportunity etc.
I've never failed to get positive feedback from telephone interviews (not always the case for those in person!) and my preference is to actually get a telephone interview first because it then gives you the chance to build some rapport with the interviewer, find out more about what they are looking for etc ahead of the face-to-face interview.
Ahead of the real McCoy I'd recommend looking back over what you discussed on the phone and (if appropriate) come up with question(s) you want to ask based on something you gleaned from it, showing attentiveness to what was previously discussed and a keen interest in the role.
Phone interviews are great for non-charismatic people because you can set yourself up in a comfortable environment, don't have to worry about all the superfluous stuff like appearance, eye contact and all that nonsense, you can focus on the actual verbal communication. You also have the opportunity to have some basic notes in front of you, now I don't mean constantly flicking back and forward in a notepad, but a single page with some key points you want to get across, maybe some questions you want to ask given the opportunity etc.
I've never failed to get positive feedback from telephone interviews (not always the case for those in person!) and my preference is to actually get a telephone interview first because it then gives you the chance to build some rapport with the interviewer, find out more about what they are looking for etc ahead of the face-to-face interview.
Ahead of the real McCoy I'd recommend looking back over what you discussed on the phone and (if appropriate) come up with question(s) you want to ask based on something you gleaned from it, showing attentiveness to what was previously discussed and a keen interest in the role.
Keep a print out of all the documents you'll need at hand a good period of time before you'll need them, firstly to make sure you're familiar with the material and secondly to make sure you don't get stung like i did where they phoned the day before they said they would, I was compleatly unprepared and obviously didn't get the job. (got a better one a week later anyway).