Depending who you ask, some people love phone interviews while others think they’re more stressful than in-person ones. If you’ve had a bad experience with phone interviews, then you could be in the latter category. Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to improve your phone interview experience and increase your chances of success. This will help you focus less on the call itself and more on wowing your potential future employer.
Phone interview prep
When determining how to prep for a phone interview, you have to factor in what is in your control and out of your control. While you might not be able to control the time, you’re likely able to control the place and environment that you’re in. By improving these factors, you can reduce the damage from elements that are out of your control. There is good news as you prepare for a phone interview: once you have a system in place to take the call in a professional environment, you can replicate the process multiple times.
If your employer asks for a follow-up phone interview or a different company calls with an offer, you can return to the basics that you practice here. Whether it is a phone or in-person interview, it is important to prepare ahead of time.
Dress the part
You may be tempted to conduct your phone interview in your pajamas or casual clothes that you wear around the house, but this can actually have an effect on how you present yourself. Psychologists have found that what we wear changes our perception of the world and ourselves, along with how we act. By putting on a suit, people act more confidently and act more deliberately. By changing from pajamas to business wear for your phone interview, you can change your mentality and approach the call with a confidence you might not have otherwise had.
Even though the interviewer can’t see you, your internal confidence will give you a boost. If you don’t want to completely get dressed for your interview, consider putting on a button-down shirt, pants, and suit top. You can skip your makeup or pad around barefoot if you’re holding the call from your house, but at least partially dressing up can mentally get your headspace ready to impress whoever you’re on the phone with.
Find a quiet place to call
Few things can derail a phone interview faster than distracting background noise. Not only will barking dogs or crying children distract you from answering questions to your best ability, but they can also put off your interviewer from asking future questions. They might be so eager to get away from the background distractions that they end the call earlier, preventing you from showing your true potential. Test a few call locations to make sure they’re quiet during your interview slot. Your home might seem like an ideal option, but lawn maintenance crews and construction workers can turn a normally peaceful area into a buzzing, hammering nightmare.
You may want to visit your local library or coworking space to see if they have private rooms you can check out for an hour. While you can’t account for all of the sounds within earshot, you can work to diminish them. For example, you can close the windows if an ambulance is driving by to block out the siren sounds. If you do find yourself in a louder interview space than you would like, use the mute button to cut out noise when you’re not talking. This way you won’t distract your future employer and will be able to cut out the background noise at least part of the time.
Test the cell service in the room
While a space might be quiet, it might not have the cell service to make it through the entire interview. The library and coworking space is a perfect example. While it may offer study rooms and a quiet location to have meetings, the soundproof walls or cement infrastructure might limit the service offered. While you can’t guarantee that your call won’t be dropped during the course of the call, you can reduce your risk by finding a space with several bars.
One way to test the quality of your interview space as you’re running through your phone interview prep list is to create a dry run with a friend or family member. Ask them to call you from a different location, ideally around the same time of day that you have the phone interview, so you can measure the sound levels to test the sound clarity and service. If your call is dropped during the interview, don’t panic. This is a perfectly normal occurrence, and your interviewer should excuse it, as long as it only happens once during the call. Just call back your interviewer and apologize for the dropped connection.
Know who will call first
When you’re scheduling a phone interview, make sure it’s clear which party will call. Your interviewer is likely to call you, especially if they have a busy schedule or back-to-back interviewers, but clarifying the call can ease stress on your part if they don’t call exactly when they say they will. Keep these tips in mind if you seem to be missing signals:
- If your interviewer doesn’t call you when they say they will, don’t panic. It’s entirely possible that they’re tied up in a meeting or on another call.
- Keep your email open to see if they need to push the time back or reschedule.
- Give them a 15-minute grace period to call you before calling them.
- If you’re expected to call them and they don’t answer, double check the number. You may have missed a digit or called their cellphone number instead of their office line.
- If you’re sure that you’re reaching them but they aren’t answering, leave a message and tell them that you’re looking forward to speaking with them. If possible, provide a window that you will be available if the call needs to be rescheduled.
Getting on the line can be a harrowing experience, but once you’re connected, you can confidently move forward with the call.
Keep your notes handy
During an in-person interview, you might struggle to remember certain pieces of information, like exactly how many months you worked at a company or how much you increased their revenue, but you can keep that information nearby during your phone interview. Treat this interview as an open-book test where you can keep all of your notes close by and reference them throughout the call. You can even create flashcards and place them around your call area to casually throw out statistics quickly or make sure you hit your talking points.
This is another reason why taking your phone interview at your local library or kitchen table is helpful. You can set your notes out and take up as much space as you need to clearly organize your thoughts. While these notes can be helpful, you don’t want them to turn into a hindrance. If you have to pause in your conversation to flip through flashcards or get to a specific point, then your interviewer could get frustrated. Instead, use them to naturally remind yourself of talking points that your interviewer will find useful or interesting.
Send a follow-up thank you
Preparing a thank you note before the call can save you time and ensure you don’t forget this crucial step. There are two types of thank you notes you can send after a phone interview: an email note and a handwritten one. Most interview experts suggest sending a handwritten note if this is expected to be the final interview before they make the hiring decision. However, if the interviewer is using phone interviews to vet candidates before bringing the best ones in to meet in person, an email thank you note should suffice. Email thank you notes can be useful because they’re immediate.
You can send one within an hour of the phone interview, while a handwritten letter will take a few days. Use your email thank you note to recap the call and provide follow-up information about yourself. For example, you can send references for your interviewer to call or portfolio samples for them to review. This also opens the channel of communication for scheduling a follow-up or in-person interview. Phone interviews can be just as stressful as their in-person counterparts. By preparing ahead of time and creating a professional setting, you can set yourself up to impress almost any interviewer.
