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.