MightyRecruiterIn order to quickly fulfill a job position your business sorely needs to succeed, you might try to find ways to speed up the hiring process, and one of those ways could be to conduct a phone interview rather than a standard face-to-face interview. While this is a fine strategy, you have to be wary of the phone interview questions you ask and how you conduct your interviews in general. Following are 10 top phone interviewing tips to improve your chances of securing the talent your company needs and deserves.
1. Resist the Urge to Multitask
Giving the interview and the interviewee your full undivided attention makes it easy for you to catch small details that can prove to be major factors in your decision to hire this individual. Something else to think about is the interviewee might not see you responding to an email or filling out forms, but she or he may be able to discern the fact from your responses…or lack thereof.
2. Know Who and What You’re Looking For
Before you pick up the phone to dial your first candidate, determine the skills, personality and education you prefer for the specific job position. Rather than taking a scattershot approach to phone interview questions, each question should be focused on whether the individual can perform and thrive in the job position and in your company.
3. Ease Into the Interview
Before launching straight into the interview, put the candidate as ease by telling her or him a little about yourself. Let the individual know your role with the company as well as your overall company experience.
4. Establish a Pattern of Accomplishments
As you’re looking over a candidate’s resume, it’s a good idea to create a pattern of professional accomplishments in the person’s life and career. Doing so better focuses your phone interview questions and can help lower the chances of a hiring mistake. Once you’ve determined the candidate’s accomplishments, see if they match up with the job position qualities.
5. Ask Questions for True Insight and Not Just Useless Information
You’ll be better off skipping the standard interview questions, such as ïwhy do you want to work for this companyï and ïwhere you do you see yourself in 10 years.ï The reason for this is these questions don’t give you the information you need to determine whether an individual is well suited to perform a job. You’ll want to ask how a person would perform the job for which they’re interviewing and if there are any aspects of the company or the industry the individual would change and why.
6. Confirm the Minor Details
With all of the above talk about skipping standard interview questions, you may get the impression that you should throw out convention when it comes to phone interview questions. Don’t take this to the extreme. You should still stick with some of the interviewing standards, such as verifying the months and years of the applicant’s employment history. While people don’t always intentionally outright lie on these dates, accuracy (or a lack of it) says a lot about their attention to detail, a trait that could be essential to the job.
7. Read Between the Lines
Know that job applicants do everything they can to make themselves sound and look like the best candidate. As you’re asking pointed questions, be sure to truly listen to the answers you receive. Listen to subtext and probe deeper for information to truly reveal the type of employee this person is likely to be.
8. Avoid Close-Ended Questions
If you’ve prepared a list of phone interview questions, look over them to make sure each is an open-ended questions. Questions that go beyond a simple yes or no keep the interviewee talking and move beyond practiced and pre-programmed responses.
9. Create a Dialogue
While the point of a phone interview is to get to know job candidates, you don’t want them doing all of the talking. Offer short responses and verbal cues (such as ïrightï and ïuh huhï) that let the interviewee feel as if she or he is speaking with a friend.
10. Take Notes
Because you aren’t multitasking while conducting a phone interview, you’ll be able to take notes on candidates. If you can’t take word-for-word notes, you can at least record the interview and play it back later; just make sure the interviewee knows the conversation is being recorded.
If you’d like more expert tips on making all-star hires and improving your business, you’re welcome to explore more of the professional tools Mighty Recruiter has to offer.