If you’re not lucky enough to have someone in Human Resources complete phone interviews for you before you meet a candidate in person, that means you’re doing phone interviews. Have you ever been trained on how to do a phone interview, or do you know if you’re doing them well? Here are five things you can do during your next phone interview to kick it up a notch.
Don’t “wing it”
Have a plan. Know what questions you’re going to ask, and determine what information you’re wanting to get out of the candidate during the call. If you don’t have a list of tried and true phone interview questions, try these from themuse.com .
Focus
Do not multi-task during a phone screen. It’s tempting to use the time to catch up on your email, or scroll through an article you’ve been meaning to glance at. However, even the most talented multi-taskers should avoid doing anything else during a phone interview other than paying attention to what the candidate is saying. If you literally “phone it in” when you’re on the line with the candidate, if you do decide you want to bring the individual in for an in-person interview, you won’t be able to recall the questions you asked in the phone interview and risk asking the question again, or worse, make the candidate feel like you’re not that interested in them because you couldn’t remember the answer to the question when you asked it the first time.
Try to make it a conversation
Ask follow up questions if the candidate is telling you a story or giving you a real life example of how they handled a situation. Show empathy by saying things like, “I understand what you’re going through,” or “I’ve been through that too, it’s a tough situation.” Do not just fire off your questions one by one to get through your list. Remember, the candidate is using this conversation to determine if they want to move forward in the interview process if you offer the next step. If you make it seem like you’re just getting through questions because you have to, the candidate will have a tough time feeling like they’re making a connection with you, and might consider other opportunities if they’re interviewing at multiple companies.
Don’t forget to tell them about yourself
Yes, you want the candidate to do most of the talking. However, you shouldn’t be stingy with information about your background, management style, and the reason you’re hiring for the role. Try to give the candidate a glimpse of your personality and explain your role in the company. If the candidate never gets to hear anything about you, they’ll likely finish the phone interview wondering why you were the one performing the phone interview, because you never made the connection between the open position and your role.
Ask if they have any questions for you
It can be easy to forget to ask if there’s anything the candidate wants to learn, especially when you’re running short on time, or if the conversation has gone on longer than you had allotted for it. However, it’s really important that the candidate gets a chance to ask questions that you didn’t cover earlier in the phone screen, and it can be a tool for you, the interviewer, to gauge just how interested they are in the role. The topics they choose to ask about will reveal their priorities, their concerns, and their level of knowledge. If a candidate doesn’t have any questions for you it doesn’t automatically mean they’re not that interested in the position. Rather, it could mean they have a friend or family member that already works at the company and they feel like they know everything they need to know, or you did such a thorough job explaining the position and what it’s like to work at the company that the candidate doesn’t know what else to ask, or, the candidate is really nervous and has forgotten all questions he or she was going to ask you. Regardless, make sure you’re ending the interview with this question and giving the candidate the opportunity to focus on any concerns they might have.
Phone interviews can actually be fun! You get to meet someone new, learn about their background, and talk about how great it is to work at your company. So the next time you have the chance to perform a phone interview, remember these five tips, and you might even enjoy meeting your next set of candidates over the phone!