The Ultimate Guide to Acing Your Phone Interview
So it is just me or does it seem like in this increasingly digital age phone interviews are getting more and more popular?
In the past two years, over half of the interviews I completed were phone interviews, and while there are plenty of great advice articles to be found about regular interviews, phone interviews are a completely different ball game.
For one, you are focusing on using just your words for communication and can’t use other helpful tools like body language to take cues from. And don’t get me started on what is a reasonable amount of silence in between questions and what’s not. It’s all very confusing.
Well if you just so happen to have a phone interview coming up or you’re expecting that you might have one one of these days then you’ve come to the right place. After some trial and error, I can say I’ve gotten the job for every phone interview I've done, and here are my tip to sounding natural, maintaining your calm, and knocking your interview questions out of the park.
Wear Something Comfortable and Put together
One of the benefits of having a phone interview is that the interviewer can’t see your clothes so theoretically you can wear whatever the heck you want, now this doesn’t mean that you should that.
For one, there is always the chance that a phone interview might have to switch to a video call and also phycologically if you wear something that makes you feel too comfortable you won’t be in interview mode. The key is to wear something business casual, just businessy enough to work if for some reason you have to be on camera but comfortable enough to put you in a good state of mind.
Have organized notes about the company
Again another perk of a phone interview is that you can have extensive notes right in front of you! So make sure before you hop on the call you scrape through the companies website and job listing to understand:
what values are important to the company?
When was the company founded and what is its history?
what specific skills are they looking for?
what pain points might the company have that you can fix?
Who are the company execs and what have they said about the company?
and make sure you organize the notes with headings so you don’t have to take a long time to answer because you’re frantically reading through your notes.
Sits somewhere with room to move around
When you’re doing a phone interview you really want to create an environment of ease around, including sitting upright in a comfortable chair or seat. This is because if you’re constantly fidgeting in your seat because it’s unformatable it actually translates in your voice and you can tell when someone is on the phone and fidgeting with someone. Makes sure if you’re sitting at a desk that it has plenty of legroom, a cushiony seat and in a comfortable upright position.
Allow natural Silences
This is so important! Remember that you're interviewer will probably be taking notes and if you're just talking a mile per hour you're gonna make it really hard for them. Occasional silences are okay in phone interviews as long as you felt that you answered the question to the best of your ability.
If you feel like there is an unnaturally long silence, then it might be appropriate to elaborate but use it sparingly because often that could lead to contradicting yourself because you’re nervous.
Use your hand gestures
Did you know that if you use natural hand gestures then actually helps you to emote more?
Imagine if you’re sitting there like a corpse answering the questions it’s gonna acrually come across in your voice and the interviewer is gonna feel like your too rehearsed and not compelling. So remember to release the tension from your body before you get on the call and to talk how you normally would including hand gestures and different tones.
Makes verbal responses that you’re listening
Making verbal responses is super important in your phone interview because you want the interviewer to know that your listening and engaged in whatever they’re saying. You don’t need to overcompensate with responding to everything they say but just as would if you were listening keenly to what a friend was saying things like “okay” or “yes” or even better follow-up questions will suffice in letting them know that you’re listening.
Don’t overcompensate and speak too loud
Make sure that your monitoring your voice levels when you get on the call because it’s easy when we get excited or put on our “professional voices” to speak a little bit louder than we normally would, but you definitely don’t want to do this when you are doing your phone interview, remember that if you feel like you're talking a little bit too loud then you probably are.
Makes sure your space is free of distractions
We can all be prone to distracting ourselves while we’re on the phone, just think of it what do you usually do when you’ve been on the phone for a long time? Usually, you walk around you touch things and you start to fidget, and while that okay if you’re just catching with up your mom, you don’t want to be too distracted while talking to your interviewer, if you’re prone to fidgeting then pick something that doesn’t make a distinct sound and that you won’t be able to hear over the phone.
Phone interviews can be weird and nerve-racking
but they also come with a lot of benefits so if you go into them with the right mindset and right environment you can create a dream interview situation for you where you’re completely in the zone.
Have any other interview questions? let me know in the comments below.
