After you've submitted your job application online or through your printed job application portfolio, some companies may want to conduct a short phone interview before inviting you to an in-person meeting. This is a good sign, as it means you've attracted the company's attention and you've been shortlisted in the application process.
However, it also means you now must convince them of your value on the phone. Take everything you've learned from our guide on preparing for a job interview and apply it on the phone to get closer to your dream job.
The most obvious difference between a face-to-face interview and a phone interview is the fact that you can only use your voice to impress your recruiter on the phone. Your clothes, your hairstyle, your perfume – none of that matters when you're on the phone. Likewise, your facial expressions and hand gestures won't be visible to your recruiter.
If you tend to communicate through meaningful looks and gestures, you should be aware that a major part of your ability to express yourself will not work on your recruiter in this setting.
For some job seekers, it can be challenging to give convincing answers on the phone. So the first thing you need to focus on in order to be able to succeed in a phone interview is your voice:
If you naturally have a breathy, hoarse or very quiet voice, it can be helpful to spend about 10–20 minutes speaking aloud to yourself before the interview. This may seem like an odd thing to do, but it helps your body "warm up" your speech apparatus, which translates to better speech over the phone. If you don't talk a lot over the course of your day, you may even try doing this every day to train your vocal cords, your tongue and all the other speech-related muscles that are involved in speech production.
Tongue twisters and nursery rhymes such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" make good vocal exercises because they also train your ability to enunciate words clearly.
In addition to training your lungs with breathing exercises, you should make sure you're standing upright during the phone interview. This helps relieve pressure on your lungs that you would experience if you were sitting down – and it might even give you a psychological boost as standing upright may make you feel more in control.
If you need to sit down during the phone interview, try leaning back a bit to relieve pressure on your lungs.
Ensuring your phone works properly is the most basic form of preparation for a phone interview. Your recruiter will provide you a set date and time for the call, so make sure you're in a place that has phone reception at that date. Also ensure your phone is fully charged so it won't drop the call in the middle of the interview.
Holding your phone to your ear throughout a 30-minute call can be taxing, so you might want to consider wearing a headset, headphones or earbuds. This allows you to hold your phone in a more relaxed position. Earphones, earbuds and headsets can also help you better understand your recruiter on the phone, as the sound is directed straight into your ears.
Note: Modern smartphones allow you to block incoming calls that hide caller ID. This means that if someone calls you from a hidden number, your phone won’t ring at all. Make sure this feature is disabled when waiting for your recruiter to call. Otherwise, if they have suppressed their caller ID, it will appear to them as if their call is coming through, but no one is picking up.
Choose a quiet location with good phone reception for your call with the recruiter. Choose the room in your flat that's least noisy, and then remove any items that may create distracting noises. If you have pets that might make noise during the conversation, keep them away and request that family members/flatmates remain in another room while you’re on the call.
Some modern phones can filter out ambient noise automatically, though you should test this feature before your phone interview. If the background noise in your room is too much, your phone may still pick it up, creating sudden spurts of noise on the recruiter's end of the call.
Despite trying to eliminate sources of noise, you should also avoid large empty rooms, as they may create an echo effect when talking. Remember that your recruiter can't see your environment, so it's perfectly acceptable to do the phone interview in a room with a lot of furniture in it to absorb sound.
If you don't have a suitable location that prevents an echo, you can put soft items such as duvets, pillows or mattresses against the walls to reduce the echo effect.
It's always useful to have a few items on hand when you're talking to your recruiter on the phone:
Since you're talking to your recruiter on the phone, you can theoretically wear whatever you like during the interview. So choose clothes that are comfortable to you, as this can help you deal with the anxiety of a phone call.
However, it’s important to note that not every comfortable outfit fosters a professional mindset. If you can articulate your thoughts while wearing a bathrobe and slippers, that's great. But many people are more mentally alert when they're dressed appropriately.
You don't need to wear a full business suit, but your mind likely subconsciously recognises you're in a more professional situation when you're dressed for work.
Since phone interviews are typically the step between the initial application and an in-person job interview, you can practice with some of the same common questions and answers that you'd train with for a proper face-to-face job interview.
One question that you want your recruiter to ask is whether you'll be available for a personal interview in the next few days. Check your schedule beforehand so you can give them a date and time for a face-to-face meeting right then and there.
When answering questions during a short phone interview, it’s crucial to be concise. Use the STAR method if your recruiter asks you any behavioural questions – questions which are aimed at gauging the way you respond rather than the actual content of your answer:
If you limit yourself to one or two sentences per point, this system ensures your answer will be short and concise.
Speaking clearly and communicating your ideas concisely are the most important strategies when engaging in a job interview over the phone. Keep the following best practices and common mistakes in phone interviews in mind when communicating on the phone:
Do's
Don'ts
If you’ve followed all our phone interview tips thus far, you’re in a good position to be invited for an in-person interview. You’ll have the opportunity to present one final argument for why you’re the perfect match for the job opening, and you should take the opportunity to mention you’re looking forward to being invited to a face-to-face meeting .
Don't worry if your recruiter doesn't ask you for a date immediately, as they may still have to contact several other applicants before deciding whom to invite.
After the call, make sure to send your recruiter a follow-up email thanking them for the interview and reiterating that you are available for an in-person job interview.
Phone interviews are often the second step in the hiring process. They're every bit as important as an in-person interview, but noticeably shorter and more restrictive. Make sure you've trained your voice and made the necessary preparations to impress your recruiter even within this limited job interview environment. Making a good first impression in a phone interview isn't easy, but following our phone interview advice will help you secure a place among the applicants who are invited to a full-scale job interview.
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