HOW TO CONDUCT PERFORMANCE-BASED TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS
Have you conducted a telephone interview before? How did it go? Did you find your candidate via that exercise? Will you like to learn more tricks/tactics for conducting an effective and worthwhile telephone interview? Then let’s explore this now!
First, before even scheduling interviews you need to have an idea of the ideal candidate and set benchmarks for what would pass for a potential candidate.
Why is the Phone Interview Important?
In today’s fast-paced business world a lot of the candidates you want to hire may be working. You also do not want to waste everyone’s time inviting unsuitable candidates to a final, face to face interview. So for these reasons a Phone Interview acts as a final sieve to determine who is worth bringing in to see management or undergo a face to face.
Here’s a summary of how you can utilise your phone interview process to hire better and faster
- Set a time limit for each candidate interview. We like to set each phone interview to last for max 5 – 10 minutes. This will force you to prioritise questions.
- Decide which requirements are very necessary for the role. Those should form the questions you ask. Because you have limited time you should design to ask not more than 5 questions considering the time you have to allow the candidate to answer each.
- Draft your questions. They should be important questions that you cannot find the answers to easily from the CV. This is where you ask stuff to show you if a candidate can actually defend what they have in their CV. In the phone interview, you should also ask questions to tell you whether the candidate’s financial expectations/current reality fit into what your company can do. For instance, there is no need trying to shortlist a candidate who is earning far above what you intend to pay for a role.
- Schedule to do your phone interviews between 12 noon and 2pm. That’s when many candidates who have a current job will be more likely able to talk with you – most likely their lunch period. bear in mind, before you start interviewing a candidate via telephone, it is equally important to pre-inform/schedule them beforehand, so they can confirm their availability and get prepared.
- Start quickly with each call. Introduce yourself and inform the candidate you are hiring and his CV is under consideration for a particular role. You can also include how you got their CV – from your database, job applications etc. Ask to re0confirm their readiness now for the interview. Most will be ready now, while some may ask for a minute to move away to where they can talk. A few might ask to reschedule if they can’t talk.
- Run through your questions and listen to their response attentively. While it is important you ask your questions based on your drafted questions, it is equally very important to pay attention to their responses.
- Keep to the time. You might mentally allocate time for each question. Know that some candidates might have tendency to talk on and on. You can politely cut in and say you’ve got the crux of their answer or simply say, “that’s okay” and move to the next question.
- Make notes on key responses to questions against each candidate as you work through your question. This is important to help you with the post-interview analysis as you may not be able to remember what everyone said.
- In the end, thank each candidate for their time and inform them that if they are considered for the next stage the company will contact them. It’s important that you also let them know that you may not be able to let them know if they are not considered. That way you aren’t making any promise you can’t keep.
A good phone interview should cut down your prospect candidate list to a smaller, highly qualified shortlist that can be invited for a physical chat.
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