The first item that interviewers are looking for in a phone screen is your energy and confidence. The thing about phone interviews is that they can't see your face. They can't read your facial expressions. They don't really have an in-person connection with you and so what you have to understand is that the way that you come across over the phone is really important and it comes down to the tone of your voice,the energy in that voice and really how you're answering your questions. So when I say energy and confidence I don't mean try to sound overly happy or excited. What I actually mean is that you should try to come across as pleasant,calm and not overly pushy. So confidence actually comes from your ability to listen. Listen to the question that's being asked and allow for a short awkward pause between the question and your answer you don't have to rush into giving your full response right after the question is asked and on top of that you don't want to take too long to give your answer as well.
The last thing that somebody wants to do is talk to a robot when they're doing a phone interview because that's the fastest way for the interviewers to lose interest and so you really have to keep it as though it's a conversation. For the most part,the initial phone screen is to assess your energy and your confidence and of course a few other things that we're going to talk about but that is going to play a role. Essentially you want the interviewer to walk away feeling wow I really liked her or him,I think I want to bring them in and I want to meet with them,that is your aim. Your intention is that you want to engage them so much over the phone that they want to meet with you in person.
The second thing that you need to pay attention to is that you have clear, concise and articulate answers because interviewers can't see your face. It is actually super easy for anyone to zone out when somebody is talking to them on the phone. It's easy as just going on their laptop,going through facebook, Instagram and that is the last thing that you want these recruiters,these hiring managers,these HR professionals to be doing if they're interviewing you over the phone.
So make sure you do not ramble just because you're nervous doesn't give you the right to start rambling and then shooting yourself in the foot and losing that opportunity to meet them in person. I've had so many phone interviews with candidates where I would find that they just did not know how to sell themselves in an effective way,in a really clear and concise way over the phone because a lot of the times either they were nervous and they were just telling me all different things and rhyming through their whole resume to me which is not what you should be doing. The opposite occurred where they were just giving me one-word responses that also shows lack of interest on your end and therefore lack of interest from the recruiters end they're not going to be interested in wanting to bring you forward so make sure that ahead of time you're preparing your answers. I know this sounds like something that is possible but you really want to make sure that if you're doing a phone interview that you need to get your point across really quickly. So ask yourself in the first 10 seconds,when you're starting to give an answer if they can already feel that there's a point that's going to be made,if you don't think that a point is being made in that first 10 seconds then that's a red flag.
For you to fix your answer, re-organize it,re-write it and practice in a way that you n get your point across really quickly. The suggestion i have for this is when your are prepared for your phone interviews and you are practicing ahead of time you really want to also record your voice and play it back. Ask yourself f I was in the hiring manager shoes and I was listening to myself answer would I be engaged would I be willing to listen to the end of this recording or if you are yourself are finding that you're getting bored from your own answers then you know that it's time to shed some fat from that answer and really make it clear concise and articulate
The third thing that phone interviewers are looking for is your technical fit for the job so besides getting a gauge of your energy and confidence levels and seeing how articulate and clear your responses are another key factor that hiring managers really want to know is whether you're a right technical fit for the job they want to know that you have the right knowledge qualifications and experience to be able to do this position so you want to make sure that the way that you answer your responses lines up to that and matches to the position as much as possible and one of the easiest ways to do that is to identify the key words from the job description that line up to your experience and being able to incorporate those keywords into your responses so if over the phone you don't sound very technically aligned with this position that is the fastest and easiest way for them to cut the interview short and say you know what we can't take you in so you really have to be sure that this is the role that is appropriate for you.
But even if it's a slight shift from something that you've been doing but you have the transferable skills and knowledge and experience to be able to do the job then that's how you have to sell yourself when you're giving them a rundown of what you're capable of and how you're able to do the job and finally one of the most important aspects that phone interviewers are looking for that a lot of people don't realize is actually to assess whether you have a top-notch resume so I know what you're thinking how does that make sense that they're looking at on my resume in detail when they would have already looked at my resume and called me in for this phone interview well I can tell you that the likelihood is this when hire managers call candidates in for phone interviews they're batching resumes they're taking a group of people out of a bigger group of people and saying let's phone screen these individuals but they're not necessarily going through a super in-depth analysis of the resumes they actually tend to do that more so in the initial phone screen.
Think about it this way I'm a recruiter,I'm staring at nothing but your resume when I'm talking to you on the phone during the 10 15 20 30 minutes that I'm on the phone with you I have nothing else to share it but generally your resume so that's the opportunity for me to really read your resume in depth and if I want to I'm going to pick out some questions that I may want to ask you during that time in the interview so that's actually the time as a recruiter that I get to really assess your resume and this is not just me as a recruiter a former recruiter and now career coach but I can tell you that this happens across the board in the industry where you know you get that initial six second scan of the resume and you say yes I want to interview or no I don't want to interview but then in the in the phone interview is actually when you're truly being assessed and at that point if the recruiter or the hiring manager has been looking at your resume plus five other resumes that day and they were able to really decipher the differences between yours and the others and they notice that yours really isn't up to par as much as they thought in that first six second screen or scan then you're out of luck so you make sure that your resume is top-notch because it's not only going to take you to that first round interview just because it got you the first round interview doesn't mean that it's good enough to get you into the second third round interviews and this is something that is so key so you need to make sure that it is good enough to not only pass the HR's checklist but also the manager that you're going to be working for in that next round and then perhaps even the director and VP that you're going to be working for as well they all have their own standards for how they want the resume to look and they're going to be assessing you in the interview and comparing you against the resume.
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