Glassdoor<\/a>.<\/p>\n“Yes, you should spend more time preparing for an in-person interview, but many companies treat phone screens as the official first round of the hiring process. That means candidates are expected to go into them prepared with as much information about the company, position, and their own skills and strengths as possible,” it said.<\/p>\n
Glassdoor asked HR pros about their top phone interview pet peeves, they had no shortage of advice to offer. “Apparently, it\u2019s quite easy to mess up your phone interview. But here\u2019s the thing; it\u2019s also not hard to come across well if you keep some key things in mind,” it said.<\/p>\n
\n1. Never take the interview somewhere noisy<\/strong><\/p>\nIt might seem like common sense, but you\u2019d be surprised what interviewers say they can hear in the background of their phone interviews\u2014everything from barking dogs to screaming children.<\/p>\n
“Prepare for the interview by securing a quiet space in advance, even if it means escaping to your car parked in the garage,” said Chere Taylor, founder of Fulcrum HR Consulting.<\/p>\n
“If you can lock your home office door, by all means do it. We\u2019ve all been there and sometimes things just happen, but the more time spent anticipating what could go wrong, the better prepared and organized you will appear to the interviewer and the greater likelihood of success.”<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean that if your washing machine beeps once in the background all hope is lost, but the more effort you put into being in a quiet place, the more focused you\u2019ll be.<\/p>\n
\n2. Don\u2019t talk about your personal life<\/strong><\/p>\nDon’t talk about your personal life, unless you\u2019re directly asked a question about what you like to do in your off hours.<\/p>\n
“The point of a phone interview is to focus on getting to know a candidate\u2019s professional experience and goals,” said Mckenzie Roark, campus talent specialist at Lithko Contracting.<\/p>\n
“A recruiter is trying to qualify them to see if they are the best fit for a role, and learning about their personal life doesn\u2019t help. For example, when asked where you see yourself in five years, we don\u2019t want to know that you hope to be married or that you want to buy a new house. That is nice but that isn\u2019t relative to anything professional.”<\/p>\n
\n3. Resist the urge to multitask<\/strong><\/p>\nIt might be tempting to cross something off your to-do list while on a phone interview, but recruiters and hiring managers can easily tell if your attention is elsewhere.<\/p>\n
“My number one pet peeve is people who decide to multitask while on the phone interview,” said Dan Krupansky, Talent Acquisition Manager at PrimePay.<\/p>\n
“I have heard candidates washing dishes, making lunch in the microwave, going for walks, letting their dog out, and grocery shopping during the interview. I even had one person use the bathroom and flush the toilet while speaking with me.”<\/p>\n
Needless to say, this doesn\u2019t reflect well on your level of interest in the position you\u2019re interviewing for.<\/p>\n
\n4. Skip the money conversation<\/strong><\/p>\nTo put it bluntly, it\u2019s simply too early in the process for you to be the one who brings up salary expectations.<\/p>\n
“Chances are if a candidate is participating in a phone interview, this is the first time they have talked with the company, and the first call isn\u2019t the appropriate time to talk about \u2018what\u2019s in it for you,'” said Justina Strnad, the Talent Acquisition Manager for Shiftgig.<\/p>\n
“Trust me, if you are a great candidate and make it to next steps, the hiring team is going to be very transparent about what\u2019s in it for you later on.”<\/p>\n
\n5. Never put your interviewer on hold<\/strong><\/p>\nPhone interviews don\u2019t take that long, and there probably isn\u2019t anything else going on that is really truly so urgent that you need to pause your interview.<\/p>\n
“Do not put me on hold to take an important call that just beeped in,” advises Jeremy Payne, head of people operations at Remote Year.<\/p>\n
“I am your important call. If you are expecting extremely urgent news (like information about a family illness), be sure to preface that in the early minutes of the interview, so the recruiter is aware of the situation and so you can work with them to reschedule if that interruption does occur,” he says.<\/p>\n
\n6. Never skip the Q&A<\/strong><\/p>\n“After wrapping up a phone interview, it is typical that the interviewer will ask the candidate if they have any questions. I can\u2019t stress this enough: ALWAYS ask questions,” says Roark.<\/p>\n
“If we have had a great phone interview and then we wrap up and they don\u2019t have any questions for me, it pretty much ruins the whole interview. It tells me that the candidate is uninterested in the role, which in reality, might not be the case at all,” she notes.<\/p>\n
But surely, if you\u2019re interested in a job, you can think of something to ask your interviewer.<\/p>\n
\n7. Don\u2019t be late<\/strong><\/p>\nIt seems basic, but surprisingly, a lot of people are late to phone interviews.<\/p>\n
“About a quarter of the people with whom I schedule phone interviews aren\u2019t on time,” says Sophie Cikovsky, who handles US recruiting for Infinite Global.<\/p>\n
“While this bothers me personally, it\u2019s also indicative of someone who isn\u2019t very detail-oriented,” she said.<\/p>\n
“To identify this early in the hiring process, I started asking all candidates a few years ago to call me, as opposed to calling them at an agreed upon time. That way if I hear from them at 13h13 or 12h49 instead of our planned 13h00 interview time, I have an early indicator that they might not be a great fit.”<\/p>\n
\n8. Don\u2019t assume reception is good<\/strong><\/p>\n“Make sure you test your headset and connection before dialling in,” said Payne.<\/p>\n
“There is nothing more frustrating for a recruiter who has a structured interview guide in place having to repeatedly ask the same question over and over because they could not understand your answer due to static or dropped signals.”<\/p>\n
Test-call a friend beforehand or even call yourself from a landline if necessary; it will take less than a minute.<\/p>\n
\n9. Never talk over the interviewer<\/strong><\/p>\nYou might be eager to get your point across or talk about your experience, but interrupting the interviewer is awkward and rude when you\u2019re speaking on the phone, even more so than in face-to-face interviews.<\/p>\n
“Interviewing can be stressful and sometimes that stress manifests itself in speaking too fast, speaking too loud, talking over the interviewer, or attempting to answer the interviewer\u2019s question before they have actually finished asking the question,” said Taylor.<\/p>\n
“Don\u2019t do this.” There\u2019s a big difference between being assertive and being aggressive, and interviewers can always recognise it.<\/p>\n
\n10. Skip filler words<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u2019s tough not to say things like “um,” “uh,” and “like” in everyday speech, but these verbal habits become much more pronounced when speaking on the phone, said Chris Dardis, a recruiting expert and HR professional with Versique Executive Search.<\/p>\n
“In face-to-face interviews, they\u2019re not as noticeable because there are other things like your hair, suit, or body language to distract people,” he said.<\/p>\n
But in a phone interview, the only thing you have to go on is what you say and how you say it. “That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to eliminate these words from your speech when doing a phone interview.”<\/p>\n
\n11. Don\u2019t go in blind<\/strong><\/p>\nNot knowing anything about the company or job you\u2019re interviewing for is way more obvious than you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n
“Many people think that a phone interview means they\u2019re getting away with something, that they don\u2019t have to put as much effort into researching the role or company,” said Steve Pritchard, HR Consultant for giffgaff.<\/p>\n
And if you have your laptop in front of you during the interview to do a few quick searches, they won\u2019t know the difference, right? Not exactly.<\/p>\n
“Seasoned interviewers will know whether an interviewee is researching while on the phone; they will take too long to answer the question and punctuate their answers with a lot of \u2018ums\u2019 and \u2018errs\u2019 as they type. The interviewer can often even hear the typing as they ask the question,” he said.<\/p>\n
\n12. Nix long-winded answers<\/strong><\/p>\n“The key to success during a phone interview is clear and concise answers,” said Dardis. “People\u2019s attention spans tend to be shorter over the phone. You don\u2019t want your future employer to lose interest in the conversation.”<\/p>\n
He recommends practicing answers to questions you know will be asked ahead of time in order to be clear on what you\u2019re going to say. That way, you can prevent rambling before it starts.<\/p>\n
\nRead: 18 real interview questions that are fun to answer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glassdoor asked HR pros about their top phone interview pet peeves, they had no shortage of advice to offer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":267145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[7186,26],"class_list":["post-270103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-glassdoor","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270323,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270103\/revisions\/270323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}