The Interviewer's Guide to Conducting Phone Interviews

The job market in the US is slowly gaining traction after the long period of gloom that took the unemployment rate to a whopping 14.7% in April 2020, a record high. In June 2020, it came down at 11.1%, as more people went back to work after the lockdown was relaxed.

However, both the organizations and individuals are quite aware of the existence of the virus, which though is not rampant like before, is still enough to cause a second wave with a surge in infections. Besides tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, eCommerce industry biggies like Amazon and other SMEs and large enterprises are emphasizing on remote working and continuing with the same to prevent the spread of infections to some extent.

They are holding interviews over the phone and videos and allowing employees to work from home for the rest of the year. It’s not that these practices weren’t there before, but the current situation has increased both their frequency and popularity.

If you’re one of these hiring managers who are going the extra mile to ensure the health and safety of their employees and potential candidates by holding phone interviews, here is some professional guidance to make the best of the new normal.

Scroll on to know what you can do to hold the phone interviews properly.

Before the interview:

Be Aware
Gather all information you can about the candidates, including their background, experience, and reputation, if there’s any. This apart, you should also be aware of the job role they are being considered for. Stay focused and make sure you interview in a peaceful, noiseless place, where there are fewer distractions that can make it difficult to hear what the candidate has to say. Keep copies of the resume and the cover letter that they have sent to you in hand for easy reference.

Schedule properly
It’s best if you can schedule all the phone interviews on the same day so that you can keep all distractions of other work responsibilities away and stay focused. It will also help you remember the conversations better (along with any red flags). Let the candidates know about the interview time in advance and keep some room for extended conversations for each interview. Before informing the candidates about the interview’s final date, you should ask them about their availability and schedule the interview around it.

During the interview:

Try to be conversational
Help the candidates open up and, most importantly, loosen up during the interview. It’s natural for them to be a little shaky initially, as it’s a new experience for them as well. Make sure you maintain a conversational tone throughout without losing the professional touch. It will help the candidates get rid of their initial shakiness and try to express their opinions, ideas, and queries more distinctly.

Choose effective ice-breakers
Some ice-breaking questions can make the candidates get relaxed and more expressive about their opinions. Questions like, “Why do you want to join us”, “Who told you about this offer?”, or the most common one, “Tell us something about yourself”, can get them on track quite effectively. Create a list of such questions in advance and know which question to ask whom, depending on the way they sound on the phone.

Don’t start interrogating
An interview is not an interrogation, and it should be kept as such. Especially in the case of phone interviews, miscommunications can happen easily since it is hard for the candidates to observe your body language. So, you need to be extra careful about your tone and use of words. The candidates may further stiffen or freeze at a question that seems like an interrogation over the phone. Be cordial, and talk to them in a friendly tone always to make sure they don’t misunderstand your intentions. That way, you’ll be able to get more information out of them.

Ask about their achievements
This is something that the candidates love to talk about most of the time. You shouldn’t let go of this chance to break their shyness or fear and make them feel comfortable. If they keep talking about their achievements blatantly, try to dig deeper by appearing curious and asking them the details of their experience. This will give you an idea about their credibility, as well as their eligibility for the current position.

Some red flags that you should be aware of during the interview are:

Too much money-talking
If almost every sentence ends up in salary expectations, you should reconsider onboarding the candidate in your organization. Money is indeed an important requirement for everyone, but it should never be the only driving factor for any job unless the person is suffering from a severe financial crunch.

Discrepancies in the resume
If you find out that the candidate isn’t reliable, as they may have lied on their resume, you should immediately take a walk in the opposite direction.

Confusion and insecurity
These are two major red flags that you should be aware of. If some candidates appear confused or unsure of what they want or feel insecure about their abilities, you shouldn’t even consider hiring them. Let them first sort their issues out, and then you can re-interview them.

Wrapping it up
Two of the main benefits of phone interviews are cost and time-effectiveness. You can conduct more interviews within a specific timeframe and increase your chances of finding the right candidate. You are also not limited to a particular geographical area and can conduct interviews globally to increase your reach. And in the current situation, phone interviews can help you follow the social distancing norm quite effectively. So, keep the suggestions above in mind and increase your team's size by conducting successful phone interviews.