Tag Archives: phone Interview

Top 6 Phone Interview Questions and Answers

Reply

Telephonic interview are becoming more and more common these days. This telephonic round of job interview is essentially considered as first screening round. In just couple of minutes the recruiters can decide whether or not to invest time and money in arranging a face to face interview round. This is not just a great opportunity for recruiter to understand your profile, but it is also your chance to know about the company and the job profile. Than you can, decide whether or not you want to proceed with the interview.

Phone Interview Questions and Answers

Not just that, during a phone job interview round, you are more relaxed as the interviewer could not see you and make assumptions looking at your body gestures. The main role is played by your tone and confident vocal pitch, which could help you turn a phone interview to a face-to-face meeting. To help you crack the telephonic job interview round and impress the interviewer, here we have listed down 10 commonly asked phone interview questions.

Some Quick Things to Keep in Mind While Attending a Phone Interview:

  •           Remember its all about you. The recruiter has arranged the phone interview to do a quick background check and verify that you are what your resume says.
  •           During a telephonic interview round expect some very technical and testing questions. The best way to face such questions is by reading and understanding the job profile thoroughly. Than prepare well in advance for the role and keeping some supporting examples ready to support your work experience and skills.
  •           If you know about the phone interview before hand. Make sure to do your home work and research thoroughly about the company profile. They are sure to ask questions related to their company profile. To understand how much you know about them.
  •           Prior to the interview, make sure to prepare a list of 2 to 3 questions, related to the job role or company profile.
  •           Never use slangs or colloquialisms during the phone interview.
  •           Here are some more telephonic job interview tips, which can come in handy, read on and get rolling.

Question 1: Tell Me about yourself or Take me through your Resume?  This is generally the first question asked in any interview, whether it’s a face to face interview or telephonic round. This question ideally means that give me an overview of who you are and what is your professional background. The answer to this question should be given in not more than 2 to 3 lines. The idea is to let them know about your work experience and technical expertise directly related to the job profile which they are offering. Than go on to give a brief summary of your personal details.

Question 2: Why do you want to work in this industry? This is yet another typical question asked in a phone interview. Interviewers are interested in understanding how keen you are about the sector or industry you choose to work in. This is where they would be judging your knowledge about the industry in question and how well you are informed about the latest happenings in that sector. The best thing to do is, read about the industry you are in, browse through the net and learn about latest happenings you can even search on twitter to see what people are tweeting about it. Sometimes this micro blogging site comes in very handy to get a quick glimpse on what people are talking about in certain sector or domain.

Question 3: Describe your current roles and responsibilities? The most important thing to remember when answering questions related to your past company or job profile is be POSTIVE. Do not talk negative about the roles or responsibilities or about the manager. The best way to respond to this answer is align your past responsibilities with the new job role. Showcase the most important skill sets you have that are required for the current job and highlight how you were responsible and what measures you took to be successful in your endeavors.

Question 4: Why do you plan to leave your current job? Most of the candidates while answering to this question, try giving a negative impression about the past company. This is absolutely wrong. Do not bad mouth your previous employer. Instead you should focus on talking about your positive experience and learning’s from your past work. Than you can further talk about your career goals and how you would want to move on to accomplish your goals. You may even include that now you feel more confident and are ready to take more responsibilities.

Question 5:  What do you like most about your current job? Keep the answer to this question short and simple. You can simply say you like work flexibility, but do not forget to quickly add that more than work flexibility you are more interested in achieving your career goals and learning new things.

Question 6: Why do you want to work with our company? While answering this question all your previous research about the company and the new job role will come in handy. Start by talking about some cool facts about the company and why you like them. Than talk about how your career goals gel well with their company’s mission statement and how both the parties can benefit with the collaboration. Lastly, talk about the new job responsibilities and how you are perfect fit for the role.

 

How to Write a Thank you Email Post Phone Interview

2

Phone interview nowadays has become an initial step to the whole hiring process. This is simply because it is cost effective and requires less time and scheduling efforts. Whether it is telephonic interview or a face to face interview round, sending out a thank you note post interview is a good idea. Once the phone interview is over, ask the interviewer about the next step for the hiring process and quickly enquire about his email address. This should in turn help you send out a quick thank you email. Read on to understand the benefits of sending out a thank you note. Also have a look at the sample template for thank you email for a phone interview.

Benefits of Sending out Thank you Email Post Phone Interview:

  • After a long day of interviewing, chances are that the interviewer might miss your name in the crowd. A thank you note will bring your profile back to his attention. Even if your performance during the phone interview was not all that great, chances are that he may take a second or third look at your resume to see if your skill sets match the job requirement. And probably consider you for the second round.
  • During the course of interview it is quiet possible that in an attempt to answer all the questions right, you might have missed out on certain important points. Which you wanted to bring to the recruiters attention. A thank you email gives you an opportunity to share your key skill or experience in detail and divert recruiter’s attention towards it and showcase yourself as a great fit for the current job opening.
  • In an interview, many a times we end up saying some awkward and confusing things. A well drafted thank you email will give you a chance to clarify things and if needed state examples to illustrate a clear picture.
  • Sometimes simple gestures can do wonders. A small thank you email, clearly showcase the employer that you are a great professional who is not just respectful but also have sound business etiquette’s. They will also appreciate the fact that you took time to send out a thank you email, which many other candidates did not even consider sending.

Sample template for Thank you Email Post Phone Interview:

——————————————————————————————————————-

Dear Mr. /Ms. [Mention Last Name],
Thank you for providing me an opportunity to converse with you regarding XYZ job opening in your esteemed company/organization. I want to sincerely thank you for your time and would like to inform you that I am very much interested in the job opportunity. Reason being, it is a perfect match to my skill sets and experience. If given me this job opportunity, I’m sure to contribute towards company goals and at the same time it will help me in setting my career path in the right direction.
Along with the necessary skill sets and experience [You can mention specific experience and examples related to the profile] required for the profile, I shall bring to the position strong communication skills, leadership, hard work, dedication and flexibility to do the task at hand with perfection.
I look forward to hearing from you soon and meeting you in person. Again thank you for considering my profile for the job.
Best Regards,

——————————————————————————————————————-

It is absolutely important to send the Thank you note within 24 to 48 hrs after telephonic interview. So that the email reaches the interviewer on time and he can easily remember, the person whom he talked with just a few hours back. Clear chances are that your profile could be missed if a Thank You note is delayed and a great opportunity being missed. So without fail consider sending out a Thank you mail immediately after completing your phone interview.

10 Common Telephonic Interview Tips

1

Nowadays’ recruiters are coming up with new strategies to hire the right candidates, and at the same time they make sure to keep the company expenses to minimum. This is the main reason why telephonic interview calls are becoming more and more common these days. This type of interview, gives an opportunity to the recruiter to quickly scrutinize the candidate and understand his caliber along with saving companies time and money. In case he feels that the candidate has the capability than he may schedule a face to face interview.
Telephonic round of interview can be of 2 types. One is automated where you are required to answer a series of predefined standard questions. The other is non-automated where you are needed to converse directly with the recruiter and random questions could be asked along with the standard ones.
The most important thing to know about telephonic interview is that you need to be prepared in advance. Mostly the recruiter will schedule the interview and give you a prior notice. But chances are that he might call up randomly and you have to be prepared for this off the cuff telephonic interview session. Here I have listed down couple of helpful phone interview tips that will come in handy when facing the call.

10 Most Common Telephonic Interview Tips:

1- Keep Your Resume Handy:

Prior to the interview, keep a copy of your resume in front of you. So that you can use it as a reference during the call. If you want you can tape the resume on a wall so that it is in clear view.

2- Keep Calm & Relaxed:

While the interview is going on make sure to talk directly into the mouth piece and keep your tone calm and relaxed. With relaxed mindset you will be able to answer the questions appropriately and without fumbling.

3- List of Achievements Ready:

Make a list of your achievements and accomplishments ready prior to attending the call. This document will come in handy to provide support to your answers. Plus at the peek time you will not have to struggle too much or stress to highlight your achievements.

4- No Distractions:

If you are planning to take the call from home than make sure to choose a room which is distraction free. Instruct you family members to not disturb you while the call is going on. In case you have pets, it is better to keep them out of the house for sometime. You obviously don’t want to excuse yourself, while the telephonic interview is going on to clear up the distractions.

5- Mock Interview:

Though it is a telephonic interview, your confidence can reflect in your voice. Ask your friend or family member to take your mock interview. You can hand out standard questions to him, and ask him to take the interview. Keep a note of all the points you have discussed while practicing, you never know which point can leave your recruiter impressed. Plus practicing will help you feel more confident while attending the real round.

6- Use a Good Quality landline Phone:

Avoid using cell phones for attending phone interview. You don’t want the call to be disconnected, because of network issues. In landline phone, network issues are comparatively less. Also, try to select a phone, which makes your voice sound clear and confident. Any kind of distractions or treble will make you sound week, so it becomes important to choose a nice high quality phone for attending the call.

7- Mind your Body language:

Wondering why body language is important for a phone interview, when the person cannot see you? Keep in mind that if you are lazy and leaning, while the call is going on it will show up in your tone. So sit upright and don’t hesitate to use hands to express. This will keep you attentive and alert and help improvise your overall voice effect.

8- Be Honest:

Whether it is a face to face interview or a telephonic interview, being honest is very important. Remember the person on the other side is an experienced professional and dishonesty will be caught in no time. Any dishonest move from your site, and that too caught by the recruiter will certainly mark a negative impression and you are sure to loose a great opportunity.

9- Do not Talk About Salary:

Telephonic round of interview is just the initial start to the overall candidate search process. This is not the time to talk about salary or negotiate about it. Experts suggest that money discussions should be kept for the last round of the interview process. It is quiet possible that some of the recruiter may ask you about your salary expectations. The best way to answer this question is that “I think it is too early to talk about salary, I still need to understand the whole compensation and job requirements clearly”.

10- Always be prepared:

As mentioned above, most of the time recruiters will schedule a telephonic interview with a prior notice. But incase the call comes in randomly and you are not in a position to talk, than it is better to say that you will call them later and excuse yourself. This would give you an opportunity to relax and prepare yourself. Instead of struggling to answer the questions with first thought.

Some very quick tips to remember while attending telephonic interview:

• Keep Smiling
• Never interrupt the interviewer in between
• Take your own time to answer the questions correctly
• Always be ready in advance with answers to standard job interview questions
• Never entertain unexpected or unplanned call
• Dress up for the phone interview as you would for a face to face job interview
• Never forget to send a Thank you mail, post interview

READ MORE RELATED ARTICLES:

Group Interview Tips & Ideas
Useful Video Conference Interview Tips & Techniques
10 Interview Tips
Top 3 Interview Questions with Answers