How does a phone interview make you feel?  Are you comfortable speaking with a recruiter on the phone about a position and company you might not know a lot about?  How can you make sure that your phone interview is longer than 10 minutes?  A phone interview is a great way for a company to weed out those who seem good on paper but in reality aren’t that impressive.  They are also usually used to determine who they are going to bring in for a face-to-face interview.

Here are some tips to help you with your next phone interview

Tip #1

Do as much research as possible on the company and position you are applying for.
Recruiters are going to ask questions that are specific about the position, company and industry you are trying to get a job in.

For example, if you are applying for a sales job at a company who sells into school districts you would want to know some of the following information:

-          The make up of the local education market (how many school districts are their in your territory, etc…)

-          Issues schools face at a state and federal level (No Child Left Behind)

-          How do schools make decisions on purchases?

-          What type of creative ideas can you come up with to help schools pay for your goods or services?

 

You would also want to know about:

-          Who are your competitors?

-          What experience have you had in the past that would qualify you to sell to school districts?

-          Who are the decision makers within school districts?

-          What conferences will you need to attend to become better connected within your industry?

-          What districts currently use your company’s products and what value did they see before purchasing them?

The phone interview is really the weeding out method.  If you aren’t impressive on the phone or cannot answer some of the company, industry, or position specific questions to the recruiters liking they may end the call quickly because it will give them enough information to make a decision on who to bring in for a face-to-face meeting.

What’s the bottom line with phone interviews?

Know as much information about the

COMPANY

INDUSTRY

POSITON

you are applying for.

Tip number two coming over the next couple of days…  stay tuned!

Justin Driscoll