When you’re applying for jobs, recruiters and hiring managers may call you unexpectedly. These professionals often call applicants with qualifying resumes or CVs to help them choose which applicants to advance through the interview process. If you’re currently applying for jobs, preparing for an unexpected phone interview may be beneficial. In this article, we discuss why an employer may unexpectedly call for a phone interview, explain how to manage an unexpected call and offer a few ways to prepare for a possibility of a phone interview.
Phone Interview Tips – How to Prepare for a Phone Interview
Practice Interviewing
Talking on the phone isnt as easy as it seems. As with an in-person interview, practice can be helpful. Not only will this help you rehearse answers to common phone interview questions, but it will also help you realize if you have a lot of verbal tics, fail to enunciate, or speak too quickly or too slowly.
For practice, have a friend or family member conduct a mock interview and record it so you can see how you sound over the phone. Once you have a recording, youll be able to hear your “ums” and “uhs” and “okays” so you can practice reducing them in your conversational speech. It will also help you spot if you have a bad habit of interrupting or rambling.
Additionally, listening to the recording will help you pinpoint answers that you can improve.
If you dont have someone who can help, practice answering your own questions. You dont need to memorize answers, but having a sense of what youre going to say will help reduce your nerves and make your responses sound more natural.
Have Your Job Materials Nearby
You should feel comfortable and ready to discuss your background and skills confidently during a phone conversation. Have a copy of your resume nearby, so that you can refer to it during the interview. Also, have a copy of the job posting and a copy of your cover letter if you sent one.
Consider creating a draft email or a new Word or Google file with all of the relevant information. That way, youll have all the details—notes on the company, key points you want to emphasize during the interview, your cover letter, the job posting, and so on—in one spot.
Do’s and Don’ts During the Call
Remember that your goal is to move to the next stage of the interview process. At the end of your conversation, after you thank the interviewer, ask about the next steps.
Communicate any gaps or pauses
Its okay to take a breath or pause during the interview when you feel its necessary. If the interviewer asks you a question that might take you a moment to answer, you might say something like “Thats an excellent question. Let me think about that for a moment.” This method of communication may help you make a good impression, as it shows that you are thoughtful and deliberate in how you speak.
How to manage an unexpected phone interview
Here are some tips to consider for your next unexpected phone interview:
Situate yourself
Depending on where you are when you receive the call, you may choose to stay seated or to walk around your space. Some people feel more relaxed when moving, while others prefer to sit still in order to concentrate. When speaking, use the same gestures you would in a face-to-face interview or conversation. Although the interviewer cant see you, doing this may influence your tone of voice and make you sound more conversational.
Its also helpful to take a moment to assess your surroundings when you begin the call. If there are any nearby distractions, tell the interviewer that you are moving to a quieter location so that they can give you a moment to do so.
Stay calm
Being nervous for an interview is normal, but there are ways to manage this successfully. To help calm your nerves, go through a routine like you would in a planned interview. Some common methods for maintaining focus include:
Remaining calm can help you think strategically when answering questions. This also helps the interviewer gain a better understanding of your everyday personality.
But it’s incredibly thoughtless! They could be catching you at work, or in a grocery store, or taking care of a crying child, or about to walk into a meeting. And there’s a lot of pressure on candidates to say yes when a prospective employer asks if they have a few minutes to talk (since sometimes they won’t call back if you say no), and it’s reasonable for them to believe the caller if they say it’ll just take a few minutes.
Or, once it became clear that this wasn’t what they’d originally said, you could have said, “Ah, I’m sorry! I hadn’t realized this was the nature of the call. I’d love to talk more with you, but I’m not somewhere where I can do that right now. Is there a time later today or tomorrow I could call you back?”
Or, since you’d told them you had 15 minutes, once it passed that mark you could have said, “I’m actually at that hard stop I mentioned — I have a meeting I need to be in. I hadn’t realized we’d need more time than that. Is there a time later today or tomorrow I could call you back?”
Full disclosure though: Some employers then won’t follow through on part two of the call. Sometimes that’s because you’ll have talked enough that they’ll have realized you’re not as strongly matched with the job as they need. Sometimes it’s because they’re disorganized and suck at sticking to scheduled calls (and don’t prioritize job candidates). Sometimes it’s because they get focused on other candidates and forget you or don’t bother to circle back. To be clear, good interviewers don’t do this — but some crappy ones do.
It’s also in an employer’s best interests to interview candidates who are actually expecting the interview — and have had time to look over the job description, get themselves into a quiet place where they won’t be interrupted, and so forth. It’s not to their advantage to try to interview a candidate who’s unprepared or distracted.
When you are faced with someone insisting upon a non-ideal situation, you need to be able to manage that confidently and professionally. You want to be able to say, “I understand that you would like to have this conversation right now, and I would be more than happy to accommodate that in five minutes when I can get to a private space.” You have to know how to push back professionally. It will not affect their willingness to see you as a potential candidate; in fact, being able to say “Yes, but not now” is a professional skill that is important to develop. Asking for five or 10 minutes is reasonable and does not constitute a “later time”; you are still honoring their preference while protecting your own needs of finding a private space, pulling yourself together, and getting into the right mindset. When your options are taking the phone call immediately and being flustered to the point of not doing well vs. professionally stating that you would welcome a conversation in five minutes when you are in a quiet and private location, the latter puts you in a much better position. If you give the hiring manager a good reason why you need some time and offer a reasonable alternative—10-30 minutes or even until the end of the business day if a deadline is imminent—there is no reason for there to be an issue. And if it is, consider what that might say about someone who could potentially be your future boss.
So, your phone screen may not have gone well. On the one hand, life doesn’t always give you the opportunity to plan or prepare. On the other hand, it’s not an ideal situation and you may want to follow up with the hiring manager. Think about what the situation was. Was it strategic to assess certain skills in real time? Was it just an impatient manager with a deadline? The interview may not have gone as poorly as you think, but if you decide to follow up, thank the manager for the opportunity to discuss the role, while briefly mentioning how you had to make a quick transition from what you were involved with when you took the call: “Thank you again for the time to talk yesterday; I was just coming out of a project planning meeting, and I don’t believe I had a chance to discuss ABC with you. I was particularly intrigued by…” Don’t apologize for not doing well—they may think you did fine and you do not want to plant seeds of doubt as they reflect on your conversation. When you follow up, acknowledge that you were making a transition from a task that you were heavily involved in, were eager to talk to him, and needed to shift your mindset—then pivot to a key topic or question related to the role.
You might walk away from this experience thinking you should be ready for an interview at the drop of a hat. And yes, there is an extent to which this is true—within reason. When in a job search, it’s always wise to have your resume easily accessible, as it can be the support you need if struggling to find something to discuss. You want to be available when a job prospect calls, but more importantly, you want to be positioned to present yourself at your best.
Q: I’ve been applying for jobs and recently got a call back from a company—and the manager insisted on having the phone screen that moment, rather than scheduling one at a later time. I was too flustered to try to get out of it, but I was not prepared and I don’t think it went nearly as well as it could have if I had a chance to prepare. What should I have done? I wish I had never answered the phone!
A: I’m sorry that the hiring manager didn’t give you an opportunity to shift gears before holding an important conversation. It’s possible that this person is just impatient or spontaneous and unable to recognize the strain they’re putting on interviewees. It’s also possible that he or she was employing a hiring strategy designed to assess your phone skills and ability to think on your feet or handle interruptions—if the role you’re applying for has similar demands, it may have been a strategic approach to test your skills. Strategic or otherwise, this is not a recommended approach to phone screens and a good learning opportunity for this or similar situations in the future.
Stay calm
Having that slight burst of heart-pounding panic is perfectly normal in these situations. They’ve called, you weren’t expecting it, but you still have to impress them. Just don’t let the nerves overwhelm you. Go through the same routine to calm your nerves before a face-to-face interview: take a deep breath, remember how capable you are and be welcoming. That way, you’re in a much better position to think clearly and answer their questions.
Remember that recruiters don’t expect perfection when they call candidates unexpectedly. They want to put a voice to the words they’ve read on your CV and staying calm will enable you to be a true reflection of yourself.
FAQ
What do you do if you have an unexpected interview?
- Just Breathe. …
- Be Yourself. …
- Use Unexpected Interview Questions to Start a Conversation. …
- Take Your Time. …
- Explain Your Thought Process When Answering Unexpected Interview Questions. …
- Pivot When You Don’t Have an Answer. …
- Recruiting Experts Can Help You Prepare for the Unexpected.
How do you know if you bombed a phone interview?
- The Interview Was Shorter Than Expected. …
- The Interviewer Doesn’t Seem Enthusiastic. …
- You Struggled With the “What’s Your Biggest Weakness” Question. …
- The Interview Felt Awkward. …
- You Didn’t Have Questions For The Hiring Manager. …
- You Haven’t Heard Back In Awhile.
What does a short phone interview mean?
What are some unexpected interview questions?
- Describe yourself in one word. …
- Tell me about an interesting experience or encounter you’ve had recently. …
- What is your biggest pet peeve? …
- How do you define success? …
- Do you consider yourself lucky?
