Telephone interviews - what can i expect?

fRostiE

fRostiE

fRostiE

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As part of my sandwich course at uni i have to find a placement starting in the summer of 2007... applied for a job afew days ago and the company has come back rather fast asking if i would be willing to have a phone interview, tomorrow morning at 10:00am !

My very first phone interview, whats to be expected ?
 
I've had a few of these lately for call centre jobs. One thing I have learnt is that if they say 'Anything else you'd like to add?' after you've finished answering a question, do not say no :D.
 
It could be an initial interview to see if they like the sound of you initially. If it's anything like I've had for placements, they will probably just ask a few things about yourslef and maybe go into a little more detail than what you applied to them with, so maybe go into a bit more of parts of your CV etc. Could also be quite informal, asking you what you want to get out of your placement year, what projects you might have to do or would like to do etc.
 
fRostiE said:
As part of my sandwich course at uni i have to find a placement starting in the summer of 2007... applied for a job afew days ago and the company has come back rather fast asking if i would be willing to have a phone interview, tomorrow morning at 10:00am !

My very first phone interview, whats to be expected ?
Click to expand...


Would be helpful if you posted what kind of role you're being interviewed for. A lot depends on this.
 
Get ready for some competency based questions too. Things like 'Tell me about a time where you have...' etc, as it can be hard to think up strong answers to them on the spot.
 
MuvverRussia said:
Get ready for some competency based questions too. Things like 'Tell me about a time where you have...' etc, as it can be hard to think up strong answers to them on the spot.
Click to expand...
Also stuff like:

"How do you plan your time well"
i.e. GANTT charts

"How do you cope under pressure"
are a common couple.
 
well if it's your first interview, then almost definately they are going to be asking technical questions to try and assess your skill set (im assuming it's going to be a technical position).

If its a placement job then I guess it wont be so arduous as they wouldnt expect you to have all the relevant experience of somebody who's been in the industry for a few years.

Certainly answer the questions as best you can but dont try to answer stuff you dont know anything about. It's best to just let them know if you dont know the answer but say you'd have to research it etc. If you try to answer and get it wrong, then it looks bad on your part.

Then i guess you just need to come across as personable and eager to be successful in the role, you know the rest....

Oh, and make it sound like you're interested in the job ;)
 
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fRostiE said:
My very first phone interview, whats to be expected ?
Click to expand...

The phone ringing around 9:55am b'dum tish ;) :D





Sorry, good luck with it all, i have no valuable input.
 
All of the phone interviews I've had have just been 10 minute chats where I just repeated what was on my CV with some embelishment. The employers just used them to weed out the truely hopeless cases before inviting everone else they were interested in down for an interview.

My first phone interview went something along the lines of:

Housemate: [BANG BANG BANG on the door] POD, there's a chap called Mark on the phone for you.
ME: It's only 11:30 and I'm hungover, tell him to **** off.
Housemate: mumble, mumble, mumble, OK, bye.
Housemate: I told him to **** off, he asked if you could give Mark at Marconi a call on ***** ****** [bursts out laughing]

Six months later I started my year in industry at Marconi :D
 
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