How to Ace a Phone Interview

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6 years ago

A few months into every year, I feel like my team always has people moving on to new positions or companies. This turnover always leaves me in “hiring mode” in the Spring. As such, I am conducting a lot of interviews now. Increasingly, these are phone interviews rather than in person.

There are a few reasons why I’m doing more phone interviews. In part, it is because my company has more “flex arrangements” and “working remotely.” As such, fewer employees are in our office full-time and, so, they tend to be more geographically dispersed. Also, with such a great job market, I have to do a lot of work to get the ideal candidate, and, therefore, I cannot dedicate as much time to always having everyone interview in person.

I don’t think my company is alone in seeing this trend. Given the context of increasing phone interviews, I wanted to share my thoughts on how to succeed in a phone interview.

Wait, what exactly is a phone interview?

On one hand, “phone interview” is self-explanatory; you’re conducting an interview for a job position and it is over the phone instead of in person. However, there are a few additional situations that I think are worth calling out. Specifically, an “Informational Interview” in which you are gathering information about a role or career path. These tend to be on the phone in my experience. However, If I am doing an informational interview with a prospective candidate, I guarantee you I’m using it to assess the candidate. As such, I’d consider an Informational Interview a phone interview and would prepare accordingly.

[For tips on succeeding in an Informational Interview, check out this post].

How is a phone interview different than an in-person interview?

Wow, you must have had your coffee this morning! You’re asking such good questions!

In some ways, a phone interview is the same as a regular interview in that you need to prepare your resume, responses to interview questions, and questions for the interviewer.

What is different is that a phone interview poses unique challenges, such as:

No face to face interaction: you cannot read your interviewer’s facial expressions and visual cues so you do not get real time feedback on whether your responses make on point or are too long / too short.
Less vivid conversation: phone conversations can have less energy and, therefore, the interviewee tends to be more muted and monotone.
Multi-tasking: because you’re not in-person, your interviewer’s attention may drift to something other than you. He or she may check email or read something on the desk. I admit, I often clean up my desk when I’m on phone calls, including phone interviews. I’ll sift through old papers and purge, wipe down the surfaces of my desk, etc.

So, then, what do I do to succeed in a phone interview?

Ah, yes, I have a few tips on nailing a phone interview…

How to Ace a Phone Interview

1. Prepare as if it were a regular interview

This is stated above, but you will want to prepare just as if it were a regular interview. The fact that it is over the phone does not imply you should be less serious about it. In fact, preparation probably matters more because you won’t have real-time interaction and visual cues as inputs.

Therefore, you should update your resume. Prepare for behavioral interview questions (note: if you sign up for my email list, you get a FREE Interview Prep Guide, see here). You should also develop 3-5 questions for the interviewer. Lastly, you should follow up with a note after the interview thanking the interviewer and reiterating the 3 reasons why you would succeed in the role.

2. Look in a mirror

Since you don’t have the real-time feedback of an in-person interview, interviewees tend to be more muted and monotone in their responses. It’s just more difficult to be vivid and animated over the phone. However, that vividness often is what conveys your passion for the role, and what excitement and the impact you could have. It says a lot about your personality and what you’d be like as a colleague.

In order to still have that vividness, I suggest you simply look into a mirror during your interview. You may not get interaction from your interviewer, but you will see your own expressions and, in my experience, convey more of your personality.

3. Dress up for the call (or not at all)

I once had a friend who scored a job at her dream company after college and has been there ever since. She maintains to this day — over 15 years after she initially interviewed — that this was because she conducted her phone interview completely naked. She felt it gave her a higher level of confidence and that’s what sealed the deal for her.

So, there’s that option.

However, if naked interviewing isn’t your cup of tea, then I suggest getting fully dressed up in business attire for the call. If you’ve read any other posts on this blog, you will know that I advocate that dressing the part is a very important part of being successful. If you feel successful and look successful, it will help you actually succeed.

So, while you may be tempted to do the interview in PJs to be comfortable, I suggest you get dressed up. Perhaps not in full shoes and accessories. Just enough to make you feel like the professional you know you are, and you want them to see.

4. Check-in frequently with your interviewer

Because you aren’t getting any visual cues, it’s difficult to know whether your responses are hitting the mark and whether you have the right level of depth and length of your responses. In order to make sure you do not ramble aimlessly, I suggest you pause and check-in frequently with your interviewer.

So, if you were to answer a question about, say, your biggest failure, I suggest you proceed like this:

You: I have an example of a time in which a project of mine did not get completed on time. Is that the type of experience you are looking for?

Interviewer: Yes, it would be great to hear more about this.

You: I was leading the implementation of an IT system and we experienced unforeseen delays on key aspects of the inputs we needed to stay on track. Would you like to explain more about the IT system or the delays?

Interviewer: I don’t think I need to know more about the IT system, but I would like to hear more about these delays, and how you addressed them.

See how the fictional “you” checked in to ensure you were on the right path. Without checking in, you could have gone on and on about the IT system, which your interviewer didn’t feel was necessary. Even worse, you might not have explained more about the delays and how you addressed them, which was very important to the interviewer.

Your interviewer will appreciate it, you will minimize any frustration on his or her part, and you will ultimately convey the optimal information to secure the job.

In the end, you are also creating back-and-forth engagement that will minimize your interviewer’s ability to multi-task or tune out!

5. Have the right set up

You don’t want to go through all of the work to prepare for the interview (and get dressed, or undressed!) for it, just to have your technology fail, or not get reception. Or, your kids run in yelling at each over who gets to eat the last bagel that no one wanted to eat earlier (ugh, do you feel my pain?!).

If you have a phone interview, be sure you are in the right environment (i.e., quiet). Also, I suggest you test out your phone right before so you know it’s working. You can do this by calling a friend quickly. I would also suggest using headphones since you will hear better and, likewise, your interviewer will hear you best.

The only other tip I would give is to consider suggesting a video interview. It’s a step up from the phone in that you can visually see the person. I did a video interview last week and was surprised at how much it felt like we were in person!

If you liked this topic, I suggest you see what Career Contessa has to say on this topic. She always has such great advice and I’m proud to agree with her on many of the tips!

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