Phone & Web-Based Interviews

I walked out of my job on September 3, 2009 to develop our organization’s Web site and blog.  In the past two months, I’ve been lucky to have several interviews.  However, I still don’t have a job.  In part, I think it was due to my nervousness on the phone interviews.  Have you ever experienced one before?  This was the first time for me, and I thought it would be simple, as I am quite confident in face-to-face (F2F) interviews.

On the contrary, I was nervous and the more I spoke, the more nervous I got!  To say the least, it was very unnerving.  The problem is that you can’t see the facial expressions of the interviewers which can lead you to doubt yourself.  You don’t even breathe normal, as you start to talk faster and faster.

I wanted to share this with those of you on the job hunt, so that it doesn’t catch you by surprise and ruin your one or two chances at a job.  I started asking around about phone interviews, and it appears to be a new time/money saving trend.  I researched some strategies to get you through a phone interview and found some good advice on http://www.himjobs.com/interview_tips/phoneinterviews.htm

Some of the advice is fairly basic like “Be Up, Enthusiastic,” while other strategies may surprise you.  For example, it states that you should be standing up when you do the phone interview to allow your voice to sound more confident.  They also advise you to speak slowly and relax.  (I think if I spoke slowly during an interview, the interviewers might think it odd of me.)

Moreover, H.I.M. Recruiters state that you should be ready with notes to highlight your talents.  I had mine beside me, albeit I was sitting down during the interview and completely got flustered with the phone interview and forgot to read from my scripted notes.  Of course, I believe that the right job for me will come soon.

Recently, I experienced two Web-based interviews conducted by Gallup.  Yes, that’s the Gallup Poll company.  The first one was for a teaching job, and I hope I did alright.  The second one was for a hospital.  A Web-based interview is an electronic survey that asks you several questions in a limited amount of time.  Therefore, do not attempt to take these if you’re watching television or otherwise multitasking, as it will time out.

These electronic surveys ask you some of the same questions but in a different format in an attempt to extract the truth from you.  For example, it may ask you a multiple choice question about something and then ask the same question in a grid: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree.

Lastly, I want to share my experience with the one interview that I was able to do in person.  Honestly, I was so excited to finally talk to someone in person that my enthusiasm may have gotten the best of me! It was a job that I was highly qualified for and one that I really wanted!  Hopefully, when you get your chance to finally go for that F2F interview, you will do fine.  Don’t forget to prepare for those telephone or Web-based interviews, too.

Best of luck,

–Sandra  Annette Rogers
sandra@brokebutnotforlong.org

This entry was posted on November 16, 2009 at 03:21 and is filed under Job Hunt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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