The Best Way To Prepare For A Phone Interview

The Best Way To Prepare For A Phone InterviewThe Best Way To Prepare For A Phone InterviewWell, heres a bad thing that happened lets call our guy, Mike. Mike was out to dinner around 6 pm, and his phone reihe with a number he didnt recognize. He answered and it was an HR person from an organization he was interested in in his job search. She wanted to conduct a phone interview. Mike excused himself, stepped into the restaurant lobby, and answered her series of questions.Lets talk about the several things wrong with that scenario it wasnt quiet enough, Mike wasnt ready, and he definitely didnt give his greatest answers, because he was doing the phone interview on the fly.Moral of the story dont let this be you. A phone interview is not to be taken lightly. Treat it with the exact same level of regard you would an in-person interview. Now that you know not to do all this while youre out to dinner, lets talk about the best ways to make sure youre ready for a phone interview.Youre Allowe d To Not Take The CallThis can be a little bit scary, and its definitely counter-intuitive. Though it may not be something you want to do, if the interviewer calls at an inopportune moment, dont take the call. Either dont answer the phone just based on the fact that you dont recognize the number, and let it go to voice mail, or if you do answer, tell the person you cant speak right now. Then ask if youd be able to return their call at 10 am the next day.Its highly unlikely that the persons going to say, No, absolutely not. Its right now or never. Thats not a professional response. You can more reasonably expect, Of course. Im sorry for the late hour. Lets talk tomorrow at such and such a time.I realize that when youre in the midst of job search you dont want to miss anything. But guess what? If you allow yourself to be caught off-guard, and dont perform your best, you just maximized your chances of not hearing from those folks again.Youre Allowed To Have A Pleather PortfolioArm your self with a nice leather / pleather portfolio. It needs to be a portfolio so that you have a hard surface to write on. You need that hard surface because you need to be up and walking around, which conveys more energy that, I promise you, the interviewer can hear through the phone. Put your resume on 1 side and stories that you want to tell about your successes on the other side. Make sure those stories are written in bullets, not paragraphs you dont want to sound like youre reading.When youre interviewing, one of the things that makes you not perform well is that youre trying to remember things. Your brain is working so hard to remember this or that, and it makes you not speak in a natural way. You have a story thats core and natural to you just tell it. Dont read it. Dont remember it.Youre Allowed To Ask Whats NextThis applies to phone interviews and in-person interviews. Too often, candidates wonder whats going to happen afterwards. Dont wonder. Ask them what the next step is, or say, Listen, Id like to follow up with you in two days, three days, or whatever makes sense. Take control of this thing. Thats how you job search like a bossLearning next steps and timing eliminates 75% of the anxiety associated with this process. You go in there, you perform well, you want to know whats next. Make sure to ask that question.Did you know that it takes the average candidate 17 interviews before hearing 1 offer? Im giving a live online presentation on how to maximize the interviews youre going to get. 5 Secrets Smart Jobseekers Age 50+ Know That Make The Job Search EASY will teach out what to do online, on LinkedIn, and throughout your job search so that you are talking to as many recruiters and decision makers as you can, in order to land the role that you really want.