Since you’ll almost always have to go through a phone interview in order to get in front of actual people in a company, it’s important to nail it.
Here are some tips for prepping and carrying out the interview:
1. Use your invisibility! Speaking on the phone carries the huge advantage of the interviewer not being able to see what you’re doing.
Have the job description, your resume, and your cover letter printed out or in front of you. Take some time beforehand to highlight the experiences and qualities that you want to be sure to hit on in the interview, and refer to these while you’re chatting. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Write out your three strongest selling points, and your three weaknesses — with an answer to how that weakness can be improved or leveraged. Have questions for the interviewers written down, and take notes as others come up in the conversation. Of course, don’t be reading something you’ve written already - they’ll know you sound rehearsed. Bullet points will keep you on track.
2. Get dressed up. Okay, you don’t have to go all out business attire, but if you’re at home, wear something nice that will put you in the “work” mindset and keep you feeling sharp.
3. Just because they can’t see it doesn’t mean they can’t hear it. Don’t be eating, chewing gum, or smoking while you’re on the phone. It’s fine to have a glass of water around just like you would in a normal interview.
4. Find a quiet place. You wouldn’t believe how many people having yelling kids, barking dogs, nearby traffic and other distractions around when they’re doing phone interviews. Not only will these be a distraction to your train of thought and presentation, but they could make you feel apologetic or embarrassed to the interviewer, which isn’t a psychological place you want to be in when you’re selling yourself.
5. Enunciate and speak deliberately. Because you can’t read the interviewers’ facial expressions, it’s easy to start doubting whether they’re still with you and to speed up your answers. Take your time, be deliberate, and finish each thought.
6. Make sure you have phone service, or use a landline. With most people speaking on cell phones, calls can drop easily - creating an awkward break in the conversation and more uncertainty. If you are having trouble hearing the interviewer, tell them - there’s no point in going through an interview where you can’t understand what they’re asking just because you feel embarrassed to call it out.
7. Get follow up contact information. You’ll want to send a thank you note, so be sure you have an email address of whoever you spoke with.
And some more interview tips
Here’s what we came up with to help you avoid those moments of scattered, forced laughter (or blank stares) from the crowd:
10. Know your audience and cater to them. If you’re in a room full of women, don’t make sexist jokes. Same goes for an interview or cover letter - figure out what you can say that will resonate with the reader. Sensitivity and judgment will go a long way in warming the interviewer up to you; lack thereof will quickly get you blacklisted.
9. Just the right amount of eye contact… Not too much and definitely not too little! In an interview, don’t look up or out the window too much when you’re considering a question…better to look down at your notes. We’ve had people disqualified for jobs because of wandering gazes.
8. Energy! The comedians who were too loud and energetic for the crowd seemed overbearing; those who were lethargic seemed like they were unprepared, nervous or just didn’t care. Find the right balance of energy between sluggish and overzealous so that you can express both your passion and your composure.
7. Be confident and natural in what you are saying. Sounding too rehearsed will not bode well. If you give canned answers that mirror your resume or cover letter exactly, it can appear as though you have no more to offer than what they already read about you in the application. (Though practice does make perfect in this case - “mock interviewing” with friends is one of the most effective ways to prepare for an interview.)
6. Be concise. Know where the story is going and get there! (With the appropriate tangents along the way…) For the comedian, if it’s obvious that your joke isn’t funny to the audience, don’t beat a dead horse — change tacks. This goes for interviewing too — if something you’re trying to express about your experience or passion is drawing blank stares (or worse, offended looks), carefully exit from that strand of conversation and strike out in a new, hopefully more successful, direction.
5. Timing is everything. Hey, delivery matters. Just look at Jon Stewart.
4. Incorporate others only as much as they want to be incorporated. Actually, this comparison doesn’t actually work: Interviews are considered successful when they are a conversation between two people rather than drawing a clear distinction between interviewer and interviewee. Whereas for a comedian, the audience may prefer to be passive and that’s okay!
3. Work with whatever makes you, you. The best and most successful comedians are those with a memorable, distinctive style which they have made “work” for them. This is true for the rest of us as well. Know your strengths and quirks and make them work for you.
2. Don’t be negative about previous employers. At this show, we saw an elementary-school-principal-by-day reference how ridiculous her students and parents were — with a fair number of expletives laced in — while her husband was enthusiastically filming the performance. We couldn’t help but think if that video ever got in the “wrong” hands of her colleagues, school parents, or anyone else, she would likely lose her job and her reputation would take a serious hit. There is never a need to un-constructively criticize an organization just to prove dedication to a job opportunity; rather, emphasize the things you would change and how you think the experience has prepared you to contribute to a new organization.
1. If you make people laugh, that is a very good sign! Interviews can be tense situations. If you find that you have a good enough rapport with your interviewer, finding some (appropriate!) humor can take the edge off and make you seem poised, confident and likeable…all good things when they are evaluating whether they want to work with you!
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