Telephone Interview - introduction

Many companies use telephone interviews for a variety of reasons:

- They are easy to arrange and brief, saving the companies time
- Although limited by technology, they are an excellent low cost screening tool

They also serve as a realistic main assessment technique for customer service and telesales personnel, and where employees will be working remotely from management.

Telephone interviews, however, are not as straightforward as they seem. Accepting they should be addressed in the same manner as formal physical interviews, they terrify some job seekers and are absolutely painless to others. Researchers believe that 80% of jobs are won or lost during the first five minutes of the initial conversation between employer and job applicant.

Given these circumstances, and regardless of your feelings about telephone interviews, you can develop techniques and skills that will maximize your impact on recruiters and employers alike.