How to prepare for a telephonic interview – Some tips

Various companies conduct telephonic interviews or more appropriately a telephone screening test in order to find candidates suitable for face to face interview. This applies to the following cases:

• When the candidates are sought from far and wide where most of them have to travel all along for personal interview.
• When the number of candidates applying for a particular job becomes exceptionally large for the company to handle a personal interview.
• When the companies find it difficult to judge the candidates based on their CVs, especially for jobs where personality is given priority over degrees and experience.
• When the job profile involves talking to people over phone

Now coming to objectives that you should try to achieve thorough your telephonic interview, they should be –

• To gather enough information so that you can decide whether you should move ahead towards face to face interview or not.
• To answer all their questions satisfactorily and prove yourself worth to be called for a personal interview.
• Complete the telephone interview successfully and get information about date, time and place of the personal interview.

Now talking about the preparation part, preparation for a telephone interview is as important as preparation for a physical interview because it serves as a ladder and opens other channels for moving forward towards a better career.

First of all try to gather as much knowledge as possible regarding your prospective employer, an excellent idea is to go to their website and get descriptions regarding their company structure, working strategies, future plans etc. Knowing all these will enable you to portray that you are really interested about the job.

Try to know who will make the interview call, if you are supposed to make the call for your interview, call them at the right time, neither too early nor too late, too early shows your over keenness and hinder your further negotiations and too late portrays your lack of interest. If they are to make the call, don’t expect the same rules to be applied, be prepared to receive your call promptly and be prepared with all your answers and replies.

Make a prior note of the questions that you want to ask. Unless the questions that really matter to you like “Whether I have to relocate?”, ask them broad ended questions as regarding future prospects, whether there is a training period, etc. Be ready with a pen and notepad for your telephone interview.

While you are over your interview call, keep the CV in your hand, it is likely that your interviewer is also having a copy of the same. Be prepared to answer the question, “Tell me about yourself”, your interviewer knows about you through your CV still he/she wants to listen you, they want to know about your communicative skills and how convenient your are in expressing your ideas.

Sound energetic, enthusiastic and interested. Don’t use local slang and colloquialisms, talk in a formal tone and normal way, don’t swear or take oaths, be succinct and talk over relevant things. Talk in a polite manner and answer all their questions in a confident way.