Acing a telephone interview

We have had 16 year old Marcus from Princes Risborough School in this week taking part in some work experience, where he has received a crash course in working in the world of recruitment. He spent some time within the marketing team and took on researching and creating his very own blog; discussing Telephone interviews and how to nail them.

Here is Marcus’ useful tips on how to nail a telephone interview…

“Many companies are now moving towards telephone interviews instead of face to face interviews. You may have never been interviewed over the phone and may be thinking how on earth you should treat it and what you should do to impress the interviewer.

Here are our top tips to ace that telephone interview and sound like a professional!

Do your research. The more the better!

Find out as much as you can about the company that you’re interviewing for. Impress the company’s interviewer by “knowing your stuff”. Write down ANY questions, (within reason,) that you want to ask about the role and the business itself. Keep them relevant as the interviewer will most likely judge you if you drift off of topic. Prepare for them using the STAR technique: Situation, Task, Action, Result.

This one may sound a bit stupid as the interview is over the phone but dress to impress and smile. It’s hard to look professional when someone can’t see you but when you’re sat in scruffy loungewear it isn’t easy to sound professional and enthusiastic. Sound relaxed but with an upbeat tone to show the recruiter that you are confident and you are interested in the role that you’re being interviewed for. If you talk with a quiet and dull tone, the interviewer will think you’re uninterested and may select another candidate who sounded like they wanted the job more!

Know your CV like the back of your hand. It is important to know this as you will be questioned on this a lot. It may help to have your CV there in front of you to help when you get stuck about what to say. Often Employers begin a telephone interview by asking simple questions about your CV so having it to hand makes this step easier providing a good warm up for the next steps of the telephone interview.

One major no no is eating minutes before a telephone interview or even during the phone call- you would amazed at how many people think they can get away with it, but be assured, you definitely will not. Chewing can be fairly loud, especially when the phone is next to your mouth! The worst thing to hear for a recruiter is the muffled voice of a candidate chewing their ham baguette. Any recruiter would think of a candidate eating as unprofessional and therefore will most likely go for other, more impressive candidate. Eat and you won’t succeed! Be warned.

Whatever you do, do not treat these interviews like exams. Fill the awkward silences with interesting and impressive questions, don’t wait to be asked the questions as this too makes you seem unmotivated. Finally, although it is important not to wait for questions to be asked do not interrupt the recruiter as it comes across as rude and may even upset the poor recruiter. Fill silences with questions but don’t interrupt when the interviewer is talking. Wait a few seconds before answering a question because not only does it give you time to create an amazing answer but it lets you know that the interviewer has finished keeping him a happy interviewer. The key to getting chosen through interviews is to ensure the recruiters like you. This gives them fond views about your personality and furthermore gives the recruiters reasons to choose you over another candidate who will not be as friendly, if you stay nice and friendly and don’t interrupt.

Use all of these tips to ensure that you get that job through telephone interviews.

If you would like to find out more about our current business opportunities, please register your details, send us a message, or call the team on +44 (0)1494 818 000.

About Zenopa

Our team of recruiters are experts within their field and are on hand to provide support, advice and guidance to those seeking a new challenge just starting out in their career or those seeking to progress their career further move up to the next level. The vacancies we specialise in include sales, technical support, applications specialist, service engineers, marketing, management & directors in the Scientific, Medical Devices, Pharmaceutical, Consumer Healthcare, Animal Health, Dental and Healthcare Communications markets.”