strategist and intuitive purpose coach. I help driven professionals like you to

enhance your personal brand so that you can pursue a career you'll truly enjoy.

in today's video I'm going to talk about a topic that I've been asked about

constantly and that topic is all about phone interviews so here are four key

items that hiring managers recruiters and HR professionals are looking for in

that initial phone screen interview that you need to keep in mind and that you

can work on. The first item that interviewers are looking for in a phone

screen is your energy and confidence. The thing about phone interviews is that

they can't see your face. They can't read your facial expressions. They don't

really have an in-person connection with you and so what you have to understand

is that the way that you come across over the phone is really important and

it comes down to the tone of your voice the energy in that voice and really how

you're answering your questions. So when I say energy and confidence I don't mean

try to sound overly happy or excited. What I actually mean is that you should

try to come across as pleasant calm and not overly pushy so confidence actually

comes from your ability to listen. Listen to the question that's being asked and

allow for a short awkward pause between the question and your answer you don't

have to rush into giving your full response right right after the question

is asked and on top of that you don't want to take too long

to give your answer as well the last thing that somebody wants to do is talk

to a robot when they're doing a phone interview because that's the fastest way

for the interviewers to lose interest and so you really have to keep it as

though it's a conversation so for the most part the initial phone screen is to

assess your energy and your confidence and of course a few other things that

we're going to talk about but that's gonna play a really key role essentially

you want the interviewer to walk away feeling wow I really liked her or him I

think I want to bring them in and I want to meet with them that is your

intention. Your intention is that you want to engage them so much though over the

phone that they want to meet with you in person now the second thing that you

need to pay attention to is that you have clear concise and articulate

answers because interviewers can't see your face it is actually super easy for

anyone to zone out when somebody's talking to them on the phone it's easy

as just going on their laptop going through facebook Instagram and that is

the last thing that you want these recruiters these hiring managers these

HR professionals to be doing if they're interviewing you over the phone so make

sure you do not ramble just because you're nervous doesn't give you the

right to start rambling and then shooting yourself in the foot and losing

that opportunity to meet them in person I've had so many phone interviews with

candidates where I would find that they just did not know how to sell themselves

in an effective way in a really clear and concise way over the phone because a

lot of the times either they were nervous and they were just telling me

all different things and rhyming through their whole resume to me which is not

what you should be doing or actually the opposite occurred where they were just

giving me one-word responses that also shows lack of interest on your end and

therefore lack of interest from the recruiters end they're not going to be

interested in wanting to bring you forward so make sure that ahead of time

you're preparing your answers I know this sounds like something that is given

but you really want to make sure that if you're doing a phone interview that you

need to get your point across really quickly so ask yourself in the first 10

seconds when you're starting to give an answer if they can already feel that

there's a point that's going to be made if you don't think that a point is being

made in that first 10 seconds then that's a red flag for you to fix your

answer reorganize it rewrite it and practice it in a way that you can get

your point across really quickly so a very specific but helpful suggestion I

have for this is when you're prepared for your phone interviews and you're

practicing your answers ahead of time you really want to also record your

voice record your voice and play it back, listen

to it and ask yourself if I was in the hiring manager shoes and I was listening

to myself answer would I be engaged would I be willing to listen to the end

of this recording or if you are yourself are finding that you're getting bored

from your own answers then you know that it's time to shed some fat from that

answer and really make it clear concise and articulate the third thing that

phone interviewers are looking for is your technical fit for the job so

besides getting a gauge of your energy and confidence levels and seeing how

articulate and clear your responses are another key factor that hiring managers

really want to know is whether you're a right technical fit for the job they

want to know that you have the right knowledge qualifications and experience

to be able to do this position so you want to make sure that the way that you

answer your responses lines up to that and matches to the position as much as

possible and one of the easiest ways to do that is to identify the key words

from the job description that line up to your experience and being able to

incorporate those keywords into your responses so if over the phone you don't

sound very technically aligned with this position that is the fastest and easiest

way for them to cut the interview short and say you know what we can't take you

in so you really have to be sure that this is the role that is appropriate for

you but even if it's a slight shift from something that you've been doing but you

have the transferable skills and knowledge and experience to be able to

do the job then that's how you have to sell yourself when you're giving them a

rundown of what you're capable of and how you're able to do the job and

finally one of the most important aspects that phone interviewers are

looking for that a lot of people don't realize is actually to assess whether

you have a top-notch resume so I know what you're thinking how does that make

sense that they're looking at on my resume in detail when they would have

already looked at my resume and called me in for this phone interview well I

can tell you that the likelihood is this when hire managers call

candidates in for phone interviews they're batching resumes they're taking

a group of people out of a bigger group of people and saying let's phone screen

these individuals but they're not necessarily going through a super

in-depth analysis of the resumes they actually tend to do that more so in the

initial phone screen think about it this way I'm a recruiter I'm staring at

nothing but your resume when I'm talking to you on the phone during the 10 15 20

30 minutes that I'm on the phone with you I have nothing else to share it but

generally your resume so that's the opportunity for me to really read your

resume in depth and if I want to I'm gonna pick out some questions that I may

want to ask you during that time in the interview so that's actually the time as

a recruiter that I get to really assess your resume and this is not just me as a

recruiter a former recruiter and now career coach but I can tell you that

this happens across the board in the industry where you know you get that

initial six second scan of the resume and you say yes I want to interview or

no I don't want to interview but then in the in the phone interview is actually

when you're truly being assessed and at that point if the recruiter or the

hiring manager has been looking at your resume plus five other resumes that day

and they were able to really decipher the differences between yours and the

others and they notice that yours really isn't up to par as much as they thought

in that first six second screen or scan then you're out of luck so you want to

make sure that your resume is top-notch because it's not only going to take you

to that first round interview just because it got you the first round

interview doesn't mean that it's good enough to get you into the second third

round interviews and this is something that is so key so you need to make sure

that it is good enough to not only pass the hrs checklist but also the manager

that you're going to be working for in that next round and then perhaps even

the director and VP that you're going to be working for as well they all have

their own standards for how they want the resume to look and they're going to

be assessing you in the interview and comparing you against the resume so

there you have it my four key areas that you need to focus on when you're

preparing for your next phone interview so I know this video is all great for

those people who are getting phone interviews but if you're not even

getting a phone interview then definitely you need to be working on

your resume as the number one priority so feel free to download my 10 ultimate

resume hacks cheat sheet located in the description box below where you'll get

my tips and tricks on exactly how to improve your resume so that you can land

that next phone interview and on top of that you definitely want to join the

ambitious professionals mastermind Facebook group where over a thousand

ambitious professionals from all over the world have joined together to

support help teach and assist one another when it comes to pursuing

careers that they truly love so you definitely want to be part of our

community so head on over to Facebook click to join and I will see you there

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thanks so much for watching and I will see you in the next video or over in the

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