• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

  • Home
  • Coaching
    • Individuals
    • Executive Services
    • Groups
  • Resources
  • Books
  • Blog
  • About
    • Media Mentions
    • Speaking
    • Testimonials
  • Contact

resume

Phone Interviewing 101

September 30, 2012 By Michele Woodward 1 Comment

Look at you. You figured out LinkedIn and spruced up your profile. You also spiffed up your resume. You superstar – you’re on a roll!

So let’s talk interviews.

How about the dreaded Phone Screening Interview first? Employers use the Phone Screening Interview as a cost-saver – and often outsource the screening, so the person you’re talking with might not be someone you’ll be working with or for, and that person may not even know too much about the job. What the screener is looking for though, is:

1. Do you follow the rules?

2. Are you well spoken?

3. Can you think on your feet?

4. Are you prepared for the job?

Following rules? Yep, a big potential red flag, so follow the rules for your interview. If you are to call the person at 1pm ET, call at 1pm ET. Not 1:07pm. Not Pacific Time. This simple test demonstrates that you can follow directions. I know, for some of you, that feels trivial and a stupid reason to be judged in an interview, but – hey – them’s the rules. Organizations have learned that screening this way delivers employees with integrity, and good work ethic. So be on time.

Well spoken? Do you use a lot of, well, uh, y’know, speaking tics? Do you swear? Do you sound bored, and slightly jaded? Kinda like you can’t be bothered? Unenthusiastic? Or are you someone who speaks well and could represent the organization well in one-on-one contacts with customers and clients?

Thinking on your feet – did you know there is a interviewing tactic which attempts to get at your behavior? So a line of questioning might be thrown at you to test your drive, your motivation, your innate preferences. If you are expecting questions about job skills, this approach can throw you. Be prepared to be agile, and listen carefully to the question that’s being asked. And answer it well. A great resource for this is the book Interview Like A Top MBA by Shel Leanne.

Finally, they want to know if you are prepared to do the work, so you will need to speak to the job description and clearly lay out where you align with the job. What you’re shooting for, of course, is to be such a great candidate that you get called in for an in-person interview.

But phone interviews can be tricky. Especially for those of us who are particularly good at reading people, and get a lot of information from body language and inflection. So what do you do to make a phone interview really work?

First, do the interview in a place other than your office desk. Why? Well, you sit there every day, don’t you? Doing mindless, boring tasks, and taking call after call after call. You may not realize it, but your desk energy is probably pretty bleah. And if you have the habit of talking on the phone while watching CNN livestream and playing Spider Solitaire (hey, I know how you roll), then you might do the phone interview with the same energy and distractions. So get up and move somewhere.

Second, I often suggest people do the phone interview standing (because it shifts your energy), and in front of a mirror if possible.

A mirror serves as a proxy for the interviewer – if you look at your face and you are scowling, then it’s likely that your phone voice and energy is transmitting that scowl. So smile, just like you would if you were face to face. Use your hands. Be animated.

Did you know that only 7% of why someone likes you is because of what you say? According to the research of Dr. Albert Mehrabian, we respond well to another person’s tone of voice (38%), but it’s facial expression and body language that persuades us most (55%).

In a phone interview, then, it’s vital for you to make sure your tone of voice and body language (which can only be felt, not seen) are firing on all cylinders. That’s why I suggest the mirror. See?

Have note cards in front of you with key points you want to make, and always thank the interviewer for his or her time. Ask what the going-forward process is like, and express your interest in the position. Always. [Unless the job’s a dud – in that case, be gracious because you never know what job that recruiter may be filling in the future.]

Finally, write your thank you note. Email is fine, and a handwritten note is terrific. Whichever you choose – or both – make sure they go out in the first 24 hours after your interview, and always offer to provide more information or answer further questions.

And now, my Interview Follow-Up Rule Of Three.

Write your note within 24 hours. That’s your first post-interview contact. Wait a week. If you have not heard anything from the interviewer, write another email or place a phone call inquiring about the process. This is your second post-interview contact. Wait another week. If you haven’t heard anything at all, send one more email. And then let it go.

HR departments around the world are inundated with potential employees. Hounding someone (or semi-stalking) does not engender happiness or warm fuzzy feelings. Contact the person three times, then let it go. It always seems that once you let it go, voila! – the phone rings, and you are in the mix for the next round of interviews.

Next week: How to Ace In-Person Interviews.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Career Coaching, Getting Unstuck, Managing Change, Uncategorized Tagged With: career strategy, how to do phone interviews, interview, job interview, recruiter, resume, screener

Your Modern Resume

September 23, 2012 By Michele Woodward 3 Comments

 

 

So, since we talked about LinkedIn, you know what you need to do to get your profile up and make it beefy. I’m glad to hear that so many of you have taken steps in that direction – as Mr. Burns might say, “Exxxx-cellent.” Go ahead and keep tinkering, and realize that every time you make a change on your profile your LinkedIn contacts will get a notice. Use your updates strategically so people want to click over to see more, and let them put two and two together to realize you’re the perfect candidate for the job that just opened.

Although LinkedIn often serves as a resume proxy, as we discussed, you still need a resume. [collective groans]

For so many of us, the prospect of writing a resume feels an awful lot like… completing a tax return. And just about as much fun.

Back in the old days – you know, when you carried around a hieroglyphic stone tablet to job interviews – a resume was a very formal affair. Resumes were typeset, on ivory or white vellum, and had to be broad enough to attract different employers because most job seekers could only afford to have one version typeset. In those days, the world moved a bit slower, and hiring organizations often took their time with the process.

Today, the hiring process couldn’t look more different.

Speed is often a key consideration, as in “how fast can we get someone in here?” Agility is important, and thanks to home computers and good printers, it’s easy to customize a resume to a specific job posting.

But most of all, today’s resume is mostly a sales document, rather than an encyclopedic listing of everywhere you’ve ever been, everything you’ve ever thought or done. [unless you’re looking for a job in academe or the  government – in those spots, you still need to keep it formal.]

A good resume, today, gets you in the door and into the interview. It’s simply a marketing piece.

A recruiter recently told me that there are sometimes more than 400 applicants for a particular opening in his shop – so your resume needs to quickly tell the story about why you are the perfect person to hire.

I am a sucker for concrete examples, so let’s look at my resume, shall we? Here’s the header:

Now, notice something. There’s my address, phone and email address. My email is very professional – not “hippiechick22@hotmail.com”. [Believe me, it matters.] You might be surprised by the number of people who forget to put contact info on a resume. Result? Automatic round file. So make it easy, clear and right at the top.  OK, see that line? Above the line I define who I am, and then add my tag line underneath. This serves to set the tone for anyone who’s just scanning quickly. Then my resume moves into a summary section – I’m leaving the tag line so you can see how things are placed:

In this section, I’ve chosen to highlight the key things I do in my work – Coaching, Strategic Planning, Writing – and added Ethics because it’s reassuring. You’ll see a short client testimonial there, too, which serves like a LinkedIn recommendation – it’s a third party endorsement which provides some context for me and my work. You’ll also note that I peppered this area with keywords folks are likely to use to search out an executive or career coach. That way, if my resume gets dumped into a computer scan, the keywords will still pop my resume up in the search results.

Now, the average recruiter eyeballs a resume for three or four seconds. That’s all. So, it’s quite reasonable to think that someone could scan my resume just to this point – and what would they do if they only knew this much about me? They’d know enough to put me in the “yes” pile. How do I know this would happen? Because it already has.

But some people will be intrigued enough (and have enough time) to keep on reading.  Those folks will take a look at “Selected Professional Experience” – this is also strategic. That I worked at Roy Rogers Restaurant as a senior in high school adds nothing to the narrative I’m creating in the resume – the narrative that I am an outstanding, experienced coach – so Roy Rogers is off, and all the relevant stuff is in:

Subsequent experiences, like the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission, my consulting practice, my work at a top lobbying firm and at The White House, as well as key Presidential campaign are highlighted. The descriptions are short, and specifically reinforce the idea that I have played with the big boys and know how to work under pressure.

My resume ends up with my education and certifications and two key volunteer activities that also go to my ability to get stuff done:

Notice, I ended the page with a footer – phone number and email address – to make it easy for people to get in contact.

Because that’s really what I want for the reader to do – to contact me. To read this resume and say, “Wow – she’ll be perfect. Let’s bring her in.”

And that’s all your resume needs to do, too. It needs to wow ’em, and get you in the door.

What you do then…in the interview? Will be covered next week.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Uncategorized Tagged With: career strategy, finding a job, how to get hired, How to write a resume, keywords, resume

Footer

Subscribe

Recent Posts

  • It’s a Time Warp
  • Making a Plan – When Making a Plan Feels Really Hard
  • A Pandemic Is Not A Snowstorm
  • Nothing Slips Through The Cracks
  • Becoming UnBusy

Looking For Something?

Contact

Phone: 703/598-3100
Email: michele@michelewoodward.com
FB: /michele.woodward
LI: /in/michelewoodward
 

  • Download the 2020 Personal Planning Tool

Copyright © 2021 Michele Woodward Consulting · All Rights Reserved.