Ace Your Next Interview

Employers who have dozens of job candidates may use a hiring tactic that weeds out applicants before the all-important face-to-face interview. Thanks to the advent of cellphones, the phone interview has become a weapon of choice for human resources managers as a way to gauge the personality of a candidate before spending time and resources to talk to them in person.

Therefore, you should prepare for a phone interview before worrying about face time. Luckily, much of the preparation for talking on the phone remains the same as showing up at the office. However, you do have some unique challenges that you should not ignore as you get ready for a phone call that leads to the next step of the job search process.

Get ready for standard questions when you have a phone interview, and then practice the responses. Expect queries such as "Tell me about yourself" and "What do you know about our company?" The person on the other end of the call may ask about your current salary, why you feel like departing your current job and your reasons for interest in working for the new company.

Set up your space at home or in a quiet corner of your current workplace so you have no distractions whatsoever. Tell your kids and spouse "do not disturb," and put the dog in another room behind closed doors. If you have to take the call at your office, find a quiet conference room where no one expects you to go. The caller on the other side doesn't want to hear other people in the background of a phone interview. This one-on-one time is just as important as a face-to-face interview.

In a face-to-face interview, a firm handshake and introductions segue into the first set of questions. You don't have the physicality of a handshake to start things off, so go for a personal anecdote as a starter for a phone interview. Consider your phone introduction as a verbal cover letter, only this time you have a conversation with the interviewer instead of telling a written story. Make sure you wait until the interviewer finishes speaking before you continue the conversation.

Have notes in front of you that you can refer to quickly. Organize your notes succinctly so you know where to look for answers to basic questions, items on your resume and the job description. If you need more than one page of notes, spread them out on the desk so you don't have to flip pages over while you search for information. Page-flipping wastes time, plus interviewers can hear that in the background.

Your pleasant smile comes out in your voice, so make sure you smile when you talk. When you answer a question fully, come to a stop and wait for the interviewer to continue. During pauses in the interview, the person on the other end may be shuffling through papers.

Once you're done with the phone interview, ask about the next step. Keep in mind HR has other job candidates to weed out, but you can gauge the next step in the process by listening to the response. If a person asks about an in-person interview, you passed the test.

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