Introduction

As you build your reputation online, the more requests for interviews you are going to acquire. Most of these will be done in the office of the company that you are going to work for, but some of them will be on the phone. In order to make sure that you make a good first impression, you are going to have to make sure that you are adequately prepared to answer the questions that they are going to ask you.

Concerns

When it comes to phone interviews, most people become very concerned. The reason is that they are not like normal communication that you would have with a prospective employer. If you are communicating through e-mail, you have time to get your response just right. When you are interviewing in person you have the chance to make a great impression on them. The phone does not allow you to pick up on subtle cues that they are providing to you. This makes it much harder to respond correctly to their questions. However, in the digital age, we need to be prepared for this to be the way interviews will be conducted. Some might even have video interviews. Whatever the job market throws at you, it is best to be prepared. Speaking of prepared, that is what the point of this article is. We are going to prepare you with a few responses that you can have to impress your future employer.

Questions

One of the most common questions that you hear from an interviewer is, “Can you tell me a little about yourself?” This is generally used and an icebreaker question but there is a lot of potential in that question. Make sure that you only share a little bit about yourself. Do not drone on and on about your life from your first memory to this moment. Additionally, this is not the time that you should be pitching how great you are. Simply provide them with things that interest you and what your likes and dislikes are. Think first date, not fiftieth date.

The next few questions will be similar to that. Then you are going to get the heart of the interview. They will likely ask you to describe any challenges that you had in your current role and how you overcame it. They are trying to see how you deal with problems. This is not the time to tell them how you and a co-worker have problems working together. They don’t want to know there is any possibility of friction in the office. Instead, give them a work-related problem that you had and the steps that you took to overcome them.

Conclusion

Building your reputation online is something that everyone is going to have to do at some point. This will get them more interviews and more opportunities to have a great job. When you are conducting the phone interviews, go over the common interview questions and answer them the same way that you would if you were sitting in front of them. You might have to put a little more effort into conveying happy and outgoing. Make sure you smile. Even though they can’t see you, they can tell if you are smiling.