A reader named John recently shared this tip with us.
Telephone interviews can feel a little strange sometimes.
Especially if you’re slouching around in your jeans and t-shirt. The collision of two different worlds can sometimes make it difficult to feel comfortable.
So something a lot of folks do – to get into the right mindset and improve their confidence – is, they’ll dress up as if they were going to a “real” interview.
It’s an easy way to give yourself an edge.
(Most other candidates don’t do this for telephone interviews.)
Now, chances are you’ve heard this tip before.
However, John took it a step further.
For his recent telephone interview (he landed the job, by the way) he went through the following steps to prepare and get himself into the “zone”:
— a few days before the interview, he took himself to the barbershop
(And, no, it wasn’t a video interview. It was purely for mindset reasons.)
— he took his suit to the dry cleaners
— he cleared out his home office and made it look as “corporate” as possible
— on the day of the interview, he put some magazines out on his kitchen table and turned it into a “lobby”, and he sat out there until five minutes before the call
— five minutes before the scheduled interview, he walked into his office, took a seat, and got comfortable while he waited for them to call.
Result?
When the phone rang, he felt focused, confident, and in the zone.
And the interview was a resounding success.
Why go through all this trouble, though?
Well, as John put it:
“With this much at stake, I wanted to give myself every advantage. It worked.”
Indeed.
Tips like this are helpful. They can make all the difference.
But don’t lose sight of the basics.
A telephone interview is still an interview. You need to prepare a set of “go to” answers, just like you would for a regular interview – that way, interviewers won’t be able to catch you out with a curveball or “meat clever” question.
