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Wade Tracy reports: <<I have an upcoming phone interview with a company... I
have never had a phone interview or even read up on them. Does anyone have
advice on phone interviews?>>
Much the same advice as in regular interviews: dress well, make sure there's
no spinach stuck between your teeth, check your zipper... <g> No,
seriously--an interview is largely an interview, whatever the medium. The
single biggest difference with a phone interview is that you can't see the
face of the interviewer, and thus lose an important visual cue about whether
they're happy with what you said, don't understand you, etc. You have to
listen unusually carefully to pick up the (much fainter) verbal cues that
indicate these things so you'll know whether and how to change your
approach.
One big advantage of a phone interview: You can have reference materials of
whatever sort you'd like spread out across your desk, including any
questions and answers you've already prepared. Try to speak normally rather
than reading these resources, but at least they're available if you suddenly
draw a blank. For that matter, you can have your computer open to your
favorite search site, and as in any interview, you have the right to say
"can we come back to that question in a couple minutes?" If you're able to
multitask, this gives you time to pop up reference material on the computer.
Don't think of this as cheating: in the real world, you'll almost never be
wholly without reference material (the artificial situation of a
face-to-face interview).
If you really want to knock their socks off, set up a "portfolio" Web site
before the interview, and suggest that they conduct the interview from in
front of a Web browser. You can then show off what you're capable of and
provide clear visuals to support your points. If you don't have a portfolio,
you could substitute a list of URLs that show what you consider good and bad
examples. This lets you demonstrate your problem-solving and analytic
skills.
Best of luck!
--Geoff Hart, ghart -at- [delete]videotron -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett
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