Schedule The Interview Carefully Confirming The Interviewers Information
Choose a time that works best for you.
- Experienced interviewers know that, if you are employed, you will need to schedule the call for a time when you are not at work. So, they are accustomed to taking calls before 9, after 5, or at lunch time whenever you are not at work, if employed.
- Schedule the call for a time when you are sure you can be on time and undistracted.
- If they say the call will last 10 minutes, set aside 20 minutes. If they say 15 minutes, set aside 30, etc.
- Choose a time when you will be awake and sober not before youve had your morning coffee or after a celebration .
When you schedule the call, choose a time when you can be in a quiet place where you wont be interrupted by a co-worker or family member, barking dog, or other loud noises. You must be able to easily hear the interviewer, and you want them to hear you easily, too.
When the date and time have been established, collect information about the interviewer. The person you speak with may change depending on the date and time of the call, so when the call has been scheduled, ask for the name and job title of the person who will be interviewing you.
- If you are supposed to call them, confirm their phone number.
- If they are to call you, be sure that the number they have is correct.
Be Ready For Common Phone Interview Questions
Speaking of questions there are phone interview specific questions you should prepare yourself for as well.
We cant guarantee that the interviewer will ask you these, but its always better to be prepared so youre not caught off guard if they are asked! Practice answering them before your interview.
Itll not only help with nerves itll make your responses more targeted.
NOTE: We have an article dedicated to phone interview questions.
What Are Your Salary Expectations For This Role
While this usually wouldnt be the first question youd ask in an interview, it can be a great filter to narrow down a large list of potential candidates. It would be a huge waste of time to go through multiple rounds of interviews only to find out that the salary expectations were not in alignment. This happens time and time again, but in most cases can easily be avoided.
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When Should I Conduct A Telephone Interview
Telephone interviews work best when used as the first stage of your interviewing process.
You see, a CV only tells part of the story, but hearing the candidates tone of voice and assessing their direct, natural answers will provide a much more detailed insight into their personality.
The down side?
You will almost certainly have to schedule telephone interviews out of working hours or around lunchtime, as candidates whore currently employed may struggle to answer whilst at work.
Phone Interviews Are Far More Important Than Just Finding Out If A Candidate Has The Minimum Requirements They Are Essential To Offer Negotiations
And this is the part average recruiters ignore. They file their phone interview notes away without revisiting them for these key reasons:
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Typical Telephone Interview Questions
Telephone interviews are typically conducted by a member of a firm’s human resources team, or outsourced to a specialist organisation . Questions will usually focus on:
- Your motivations for applying to the firm in question
- The particular industry and job role
- Your knowledge of the firm itself
- Your skills, qualifications and competencies
It is less likely that a telephone interview will include technical questions, brain teaser questions or commercial awareness questions .
Where possible, always use a different example when answering each question.
What Is A Phone Interview Or Screen
In a phone screen meeting, an employer interviews potential employees who appear qualified for the advertised job after the resume and cover letter are reviewed. These meetings, by phone, are conducted by one person, usually the hiring manager or a Human Resources staff member, who ask the same basic questions of each candidate they call.
You ask each candidate the same basic questions during a phone screen to give you a basis for comparison of the skills and responses of each person. It is also likely that during your phone interview, your candidate’s responses may lead you to ask additional different follow-on questions. This is fine as long as you ask the same list basic of questions to avoid any possibility of unconscious bias or any possibility of discrimination.
The phone screen allows the employer to determine if the candidate’s qualifications, experience, workplace preferences, cultural fit, and salary needs are congruent with the position and the organization. The phone screen saves managerial time and eliminates unlikely candidates.
While developing a set of customized phone screen questions for each position you are attempting to fill is the recommended approach, use these phone screen best practices to guide you.
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Conducting The Telephone Interview In The Wrong Location
You might think you are supposed to find a board-room or a fancy office to conduct your interview, right? Probably not. What you need is just a quiet place without a lot of distractions or noise. Choose your interview setting wisely.
Have you conducted a phone interview? What were the key takeaways or best practices you learned from your experience? Do share it with us in the Comments section below and help others gain from your experiences.
How To Conduct A Phone Interview: 5 Tips
As more businesses shift to a remote workforce and generally look for efficient ways to recruit top talent, in-person interviews have become less commonplace. If this is new for your organization, youll want to understand how to conduct a phone interview that gives you clear insight into whether a given candidate is the right fit.
It can be challenging as a hiring manager or recruiter to get the same results over the phone, which conceal important cues such as body language and interaction with others in the office. However, if done right, phone interviews can still reveal much more about a candidate than you already gleaned from their resume or social media profile.
The following five tips for helping employers learn how to conduct a phone interview that will net positive results are covered in greater detail below:
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Why Are Phone Interviews Necessary
A phone interview is a pre-screening of a candidate given by telephone before a face-to-face interview. This screening allows an employer to see if a candidate’s skills match the requirements for the open position and the company’s culture. It will also see if a candidate’s salary request meets what the company is willing and able to pay. Using a phone interview can save valuable managerial time by helping to choose candidates for in-person interviews who best fit what the company is looking for and to reduce those candidates who would better fit in a different position.
Do Some Research Before The Interview
Odds are youve applied to more than one company and its always helpful to know a bit about who youre talking to, from both a professional and a business standpoint.
Double check the job description youre interviewing for.
Google the company. See how theyre doing and what theyre doing.
If you know whos doing your interview you can see what sort of digital footprint they have and find out more about them on a personal level. Look them up on but dont go overboard.
Its never a good idea to send them a Facebook Friend Request before you even have the interviewin fact, its probably not a good idea afterwards either. Maybe in six months when youve already got the job and youre all good friends having lunch twice a weekbut not yet.
The best part about doing this research is it also allows you to tailor your answers when you start getting hit with those interview questions.
Tailoring your answers is the best possible way to ensure that not only are you satisfying what the interviewer is asking, youre positioning yourself to be the best possible candidate for the jobor, dare we saythe perfect candidate!
Remember as youre pouring over all those notes you culled about the company and what they stand for that your ultimate goal is to be everything they need in a candidate and that means making sure your answers are specific, targeted and tailoredin a nutshell, customized.
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How To Conduct Interviews For Research
This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff. Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow’s Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards.There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 15,407 times.Learn more…
If youre putting together a news report, a documentary film, or gathering oral history for any kind of personal project, youll likely need to perform 1 or more research interviews to gather the information you need. While these interviews can be relatively informal , youll need to make a few preparations beforehand, including having a written list of questions to ask. Let the interviewee answer the questions as they see fit, and guide the interview so that all of your questions are adequately answered.
Create Your List Of Questions
The next step is to compile the questions youll be asking each candidate. The goal at this stage is to understand the job requirements, understand your candidate pool, take into account the company goals and strategy, and come up with questions that screen based on those variables.
Be sure to keep the length of your interviews in mind. Phone screens should be about 30 minutes from start to finish, so the number of questions your write should reflect that timeframe.
Well dig deeper into what types of questions you should ask shortly.
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Be Ready For The Unexpected:
Job seekers may never know when a recruiter may ask them certain question that will be unique and odd during an interview. It goes the same for recruiters as the candidate during the phone interview might pop up some question out of the ordinary or says something alarming or surprising. Preparing for job interview in advance will be beneficial to give away the right and appropriate answer to any rare situations arising.
How To Handle Unexpected & Unscheduled Phone Screen Interviews
When the unexpected call happens, you can take one of two approaches accept the call, or ask to reschedule because you are unable to talk at that moment.
The best approach is to ask for a better time when you are in a quiet, safe environment, have your notes in front of you, and are mentally prepared for the interview.
Good interviewers usually schedule the interview in advance.
Sometimes the calls come out of the blue when you answer your phone!
If you currently have a job, do NOT take this call in your workplace! Your boss or a co-worker may interrupt and may also discover your job search, putting your job at risk!
Most recruiters and employers will understand that their timing may not be right and be willing to reschedule. Dont ask to reschedule to a date in the distant future. Choose some time within the next few hours or next day, if possible.
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Create A Welcoming Atmosphere
Over the phone, you dont have the luxury of communicating through facial expression or body language. Because many people are highly expressive and receptive of body language, phone conversations are not many peoples strengths. To overcome this barrier, use your tone of voice to establish an atmosphere that is welcoming and engaging. As the interviewer, you have the power to set the tone that is encouraging rather than awkward for the rest of the conversation.
Send Your Thank You Immediately
Sure, it was a telephone interview, but that is no reason for not taking the time to exercise simple but powerful courtesies. Write a thank you letter, and email it as soon as you can after the interview. Dont just say thank you! Make a point of reiterating your strengths and value for the position.
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Ask Focused Interview Questions
Once youve established some rapport with the interviewee, focus your questions on the positions most critical skills and knowledge. The questions you ask should help determine whether a candidates qualifications, experience, workplace preferences, cultural fit, and salary requirements align with the position and your organization.
There are certain things that are must-haves for you to make any hiring decision. After starting off with the ice-breakers discussed earlier, youll want to ask questions that reveal deal-breakers. Do they have a bachelors degree? What are their salary expectation? Have they worked in a B2B sales environment for at least three years? Are they willing to travel two days each week.?
If the candidate doesnt pass muster with those initial screening questions , gracefully end the phone interview. For candidates who answered the questions satisfactorily, you can move on to the behavioral-based interview questions that delve deeper into the way the job seeker has used critical skills in past positions.
Knowing the typical problems presented by each of the jobs deliverables, youll ask candidates how they do their work to anticipate and prevent those problems from arising and how they solve them when they do arise. These types of questions go beyond skills and experience and get at the heart of how they conduct themselves at work.
Failing To Record Your Telephone Interview
A telephone interview can be even more useful if you record it. This simple step can be a big time saver down the road . Taking notes during a telephone interview is great, but youll probably be too busy asking questions and listening to the candidates answers to write down everything that you want to. Recording your phone call will let you go back and listen to your interview anytime you want. Additionally, if you record phone calls you can let your colleagues listen to it and take a collective decision about the candidate thereby reducing your personal biases that can affect the decision.However make sure that the candidate youre interviewing knows that youre recording the conversation. It may help to know about the applying to where you are based.
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Interviewing An Employee: How To Successfully Conduct An Interview
Interviewing is an integral component of the employee hiring process. An interview allows a hiring manager to assess the candidate’s strengths, skills, attitude, cultural fit and experience for an open position. An Interview also allows a candidate to sell themselves and demonstrate why they should be considered for the job. In this article, we discuss what employee interviews are, why they are important and how to conduct good employee interviews, including essential interviewing tips.
Outline A Typical Work Week In Your Current Role
Sample answer:
My work week does vary due to the nature of my role, but during a typical working week, I am responsible for ensuring that projects are progressing and clients are kept updated. Each Monday I attend a team meeting to discuss weekly priorities and then meet again on Friday to discuss the weeks work and set objectives for the following week. As the week progresses, I may need to participate in other meetings to troubleshoot problems or identify solutions.
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What Is Your Salary Expectation
Many interviewers will ask this question during a phone interview. This helps them narrow down the candidate pool to those whose expectations match the salary range they have within their budget. Research common salaries for the position within your state to determine an appropriate response, should this question come up.
Listen And Dont Dominate The Conversation
Yes, this is an interview which means theyre going to be asking you questions, but its also an opportunity to show your potential employer that youre good at listening too.
Talk, but dont dominate the conversation. Let the interviewer guide the conversation.
Answer the questions, but dont turn it into a one sided monologue. This is as much about you getting to know them as it is about them getting to know you.
Keep a pencil and paper nearby so you can jot down questions and notes and save them for the end.
Ask a few follow up questions but dont flip the interview onto the interviewer. It helps to reinforce to the interviewer that youre truly interested in the company and the job and that youve paid attention during the interview.
Have a copy of your resume with you so you can reference it at any time. Keep your answers honest, thoughtful and reflective.
Make sure you breathe and speak clearly.
Most importantly, smile! Sure, they might not be able to see it, but your tone of voice will reflect it.
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