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Phone Interview Tips - How to Prepare for a Phone Interview
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Hey ambitious professionals it's Linda Raynier of Linda Rayier.com, career
strategist and intuitive purpose coach. I help driven professionals like you to
enhance your personal brand so that you can pursue a career you'll truly enjoy.
in today's video I'm going to talk about a topic that I've been asked about
constantly and that topic is all about phone interviews so here are four key
items that hiring managers recruiters and HR professionals are looking for in
that initial phone screen interview that you need to keep in mind and that you
can work on. The first item that interviewers are looking for in a phone
screen is your energy and confidence. The thing about phone interviews is that
they can't see your face. They can't read your facial expressions. They don't
really have an in-person connection with you and so what you have to understand
is that the way that you come across over the phone is really important and
it comes down to the tone of your voice the energy in that voice and really how
you're answering your questions. So when I say energy and confidence I don't mean
try to sound overly happy or excited. What I actually mean is that you should
try to come across as pleasant calm and not overly pushy so confidence actually
comes from your ability to listen. Listen to the question that's being asked and
allow for a short awkward pause between the question and your answer you don't
have to rush into giving your full response right right after the question
is asked and on top of that you don't want to take too long
to give your answer as well the last thing that somebody wants to do is talk
to a robot when they're doing a phone interview because that's the fastest way
for the interviewers to lose interest and so you really have to keep it as
though it's a conversation so for the most part the initial phone screen is to
assess your energy and your confidence and of course a few other things that
we're going to talk about but that's gonna play a really key role essentially
you want the interviewer to walk away feeling wow I really liked her or him I
think I want to bring them in and I want to meet with them that is your
tenshun your intention is that you want to engage them so much though over the
phone that they want to meet with you in person now the second thing that you
need to pay attention to is that you have clear concise and articulate
answers because interviewers can't see your face it is actually super easy for
anyone to zone out when somebody's talking to them on the phone it's easy
as just going on their laptop going through facebook Instagram and that is
the last thing that you want these recruiters these hiring managers these
HR professionals to be doing if they're interviewing you over the phone so make
sure you do not ramble just because you're nervous doesn't give you the
right to start rambling and then shooting yourself in the foot and losing
that opportunity to meet them in person I've had so many phone interviews with
candidates where I would find that they just did not know how to sell themselves
in an effective way in a really clear and concise way over the phone because a
lot of the times either they were nervous and they were just telling me
all different things and rhyming through their whole resume to me which is not
what you should be doing or actually the opposite occurred where they were just
giving me one-word responses that also shows lack of interest on your end and
therefore lack of interest from the recruiters end they're not going to be
interested in wanting to bring you forward so make sure that ahead of time
you're preparing your answers I know this sounds like something that is given
but you really want to make sure that if you're doing a phone interview that you
need to get your point across really quickly so ask yourself in the first 10
seconds when you're starting to give an answer if they can already feel that
there's a point that's going to be made if you don't think that a point is being
made in that first 10 seconds then that's a red flag for you to fix your
answer reorganize it rewrite it and practice it in a way that you can get
your point across really quickly so a very specific but helpful suggestion I
have for this is when you're prepared for your phone interviews and you're
practicing your answers ahead of time you really want to also record your
voice record your voice and play it back list
to it and ask yourself if I was in the hiring manager shoes and I was listening
to myself answer would I be engaged would I be willing to listen to the end
of this recording or if you are yourself are finding that you're getting bored
from your own answers then you know that it's time to shed some fat from that
answer and really make it clear concise and articulate the third thing that
phone interviewers are looking for is your technical fit for the job so
besides getting a gauge of your energy and confidence levels and seeing how
articulate and clear your responses are another key factor that hiring managers
really want to know is whether you're a right technical fit for the job they
want to know that you have the right knowledge qualifications and experience
to be able to do this position so you want to make sure that the way that you
answer your responses lines up to that and matches to the position as much as
possible and one of the easiest ways to do that is to identify the key words
from the job description that line up to your experience and being able to
incorporate those keywords into your responses so if over the phone you don't
sound very technically aligned with this position that is the fastest and easiest
way for them to cut the interview short and say you know what we can't take you
in so you really have to be sure that this is the role that is appropriate for
you but even if it's a slight shift from something that you've been doing but you
have the transferable skills and knowledge and experience to be able to
do the job then that's how you have to sell yourself when you're giving them a
rundown of what you're capable of and how you're able to do the job and
finally one of the most important aspects that phone interviewers are
looking for that a lot of people don't realize is actually to assess whether
you have a top-notch resume so I know what you're thinking how does that make
sense that they're looking at on my resume in detail when they would have
already looked at my resume and called me in for this phone interview well I
can tell you that the likelihood is this when hire managers call
candidates in for phone interviews they're batching resumes they're taking
a group of people out of a bigger group of people and saying let's phone screen
these individuals but they're not necessarily going through a super
in-depth analysis of the resumes they actually tend to do that more so in the
initial phone screen think about it this way I'm a recruiter I'm staring at
nothing but your resume when I'm talking to you on the phone during the 10 15 20
30 minutes that I'm on the phone with you I have nothing else to share it but
generally your resume so that's the opportunity for me to really read your
resume in depth and if I want to I'm gonna pick out some questions that I may
want to ask you during that time in the interview so that's actually the time as
a recruiter that I get to really assess your resume and this is not just me as a
recruiter a former recruiter and now career coach but I can tell you that
this happens across the board in the industry where you know you get that
initial six second scan of the resume and you say yes I want to interview or
no I don't want to interview but then in the in the phone interview is actually
when you're truly being assessed and at that point if the recruiter or the
hiring manager has been looking at your resume plus five other resumes that day
and they were able to really decipher the differences between yours and the
others and they notice that yours really isn't up to par as much as they thought
in that first six second screen or scan then you're out of luck so you want to
make sure that your resume is top-notch because it's not only going to take you
to that first round interview just because it got you the first round
interview doesn't mean that it's good enough to get you into the second third
round interviews and this is something that is so key so you need to make sure
that it is good enough to not only pass the hrs checklist but also the manager
that you're going to be working for in that next round and then perhaps even
the director and VP that you're going to be working for as well they all have
their own standards for how they want the resume to look and they're going to
be assessing you in the interview and comparing you against the resume so
there you have it my four key areas that you need to focus on when you're
preparing for your next phone interview so I know this video is all great for
those people who are getting phone interviews but if you're not even
getting a phone interview then definitely you need to be working on
your resume as the number one priority so feel free to download my 10 ultimate
resume hacks cheat sheet located in the description box below where you'll get
my tips and tricks on exactly how to improve your resume so that you can land
that next phone interview and on top of that you definitely want to join the
ambitious professionals mastermind Facebook group where over a thousand
ambitious professionals from all over the world have joined together to
support help teach and assist one another when it comes to pursuing
careers that they truly love so you definitely want to be part of our
community so head on over to Facebook click to join and I will see you there
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thanks so much for watching and I will see you in the next video or over in the
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