anyone else have trouble with those? I tend to do well when I get to the stage of a real face to face interview, but I always feel awkward at phone interviews. You usually talking to some HR person who have no idea what the position is about, she’s just reading a script and typing your response. she’s asking about how you would be a good fit, but if your asking precision about the position she doesn’t have a clue.
Just went through this with a recruiter at a Large Canadian bank for a Fixed Income analyst role. I work in RMBS currently and it was impossible to tell her in depth what I do. She said, “I honestly am just asking you questions and writing your responses down to give to a higher level recruiter” hahaha. Needless to say, I had one year short on the minimum required experience and the manager wouldn’t budge. But yeah I am not a fan of them.
If you know who’s interviewing you ahead of time, look them up on-line, especially linkedin. See what they do, how long they have been there, and where they were at before. That will give you an idea of how to pitch yourself. You always want to give them exactly what they want, no more, no less. Don’t ask them questions they don’t know the answer to, don’t tell them things they are not interested or have no knowledge about. At the end of the call, you should make them feel good about you as well as him/herself . One tip I was taught was to smile while listening and have a positive demeanor when talking, even if they can’t see you because your voice will reflect it. Also, when I take these calls, I always stand up or at least sit up straight, just like they’re in front of you. I’m sure there’s some videos on youtube if you really want to practice.
Phone interviews are cake. Just make sure you let off some steam before the call. Do some pushups. Look at yourself shirtless in the mirror and compliment yourself. Most importantly, always feed the geese at least once just before an important interview.
my most hated thing about new technology : Skype interviews / Facetime interviews Phone interviews are fine. In person - great. Videoconferencing is not a hobby of mine.
Have you guys come across this AI interviews? A recent BB sent me this interview where I video tape my answers to questions on a website. The company then uses computers to analyze the answers, body language, etc to move people to the next steps.
Practice, Practice, and more Practice. You’ll do enough of these where you’ll start seeing a pattern in the questioning and you can better rehearse your answers.
Practice makes perfect. I am not sure if the job you are applying requires conducting business over the phone (most jobs require at least some degree of phone conversations) and that is quite an important skill to have. if you are awkward speaking to an HR person, you are likely going to be awkward talking to a client at work.
Try to practice with a friend or have some points written down that you know for sure they are going to ask (“tell us a bit about yourself”, “tell me an incident where you had to overcome an obstacle”, “what are your strengths and weaknesses”…)