Typical Questions in a Phone Interview & How to Ace the Phone Screening!

In this video you'll get the questions and answers that happen the most in phone interviews. First round interviews, phone screens, whatever is your preferred term. That's what we're diving into in this video. I worked in human resources so I'll tell you how we score the interview, what we're looking for, how to prepare for it, how to impress the interviewer, and what to do after the interview. You will have a PhD in phone interviews by the end of this and when I've posted videos about phone interviews before, there have been hundreds of hundreds of success stories in the comments. Like Keisha who said she thought she had prepared for her phone interview but then washed my video and absolutely crushed it. Gabriel who said I hit on every point that was in his phone interview. And Peen who used these tips and was immediately flown out for a second round interview. So yeah, you can call this video DoorDash because it delivers. Oh, and if we haven't met yet, I'm Madeline Mann. I'm a human resources leader and job search strategist who turns job seekers into job shoppers. You may recognize me as a top job search instructor on Spotify and LinkedIn Learning, or you may have seen me in the New York Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, and more. Be sure you're subscribed so that you can elevate your career and stay to the end because you'll likely be asked about salary and I have the exact phrasing of what you should say. Here are some rapid fire tips to start us off and and then I'm going to walk through the exact script. First, phone interviews are often a half an hour or less, so you need to be ultra concise. Every answer you give should take you one minute or less. Maybe two minutes if it's a question that's really juicy. If you don't get through all of their questions, that increases the likelihood that you will be rejected. Second, have notes out. Your notes should include things like like reminders of key accomplishments you want to touch on, key points about the job description, your research about the company, your research on the interviewer and questions you want to ask the interviewer. Third, take copious notes throughout the call. They are going to give you a lot of the answers to what they're looking for in the role. Take this language, parrot it back to them. They're going to think you're the best candidate ever. Trust me. Fourth, always ask questions. If they ask you, do you have any questions for us? You've got to. If you need help with this, I will Link a document with 15 questions that you can choose from to ask in a job interview. But I will give you one here that I didn't mention in that document that is gold. If I sense that the role has been open for a while, or they tell me it has, I'd ask something like, how far are you into the search for this role? Has it been a few weeks? Few months? Sometimes they'll say something like, it's been a few months, it's been tough to find the right person. And then I'll ask, well, what seems to be missing from a lot of the candidates you're speaking to? And just like that, they spill the beans on what the hiring manager is the most hung up on. Now you know what to emphasize. Or you can also know if that is also a weakness of yours. You can strategize on how to address that and overcome it all right, let's get into the questions. Question number one in the phone screen interview is typically how are you? You may not have realized that that question is very much a part of the interview, so have an energetic sentence that shows warmth and shows that you're in control and you're not afraid to ask them questions back, such as I'm great. I'm feeling energized from the three day weekend where I read a good book on the beach. How are you? The secret to small talk is that it doesn't really matter what you say. People are just grate you're talking and not making it awkward. Next, the recruiter will likely ask you if you're familiar with what the company does. Now, this isn't a test. They truly are trying to figure out how long they should make their explanation about what the company does so that you can fully understand. I will say it is impressive if you know about the company saying something like yes, I downloaded the app. Yes, I was on your website last night. Yes, I saw this news article about the new product you just launched. All of this will instantly put you in an advanced bracket than other candidates. So respond briefly showing that you looked into the company. Show a bit of passion saying it sounds interesting, and then say, but I'd love to hear about the company and the role from your perspective. It's always helpful to hear how the company characterizes themselves as well as the role, and how that actually compares to the job description. The third question you may be asked if is of course the infamous tell me about yourself or Walk me through your resume. This question is so crucial to get right and yet so many people struggle with it. So I created a free worksheet that has led to thousands of people sending us emails saying it was so helpful. So I will link that below so that you can craft your perfect answer the fourth question you may be asked in a first round interview is what are you looking for in your next role? Role? The person on the other end of the phone is trying to play matchmaker to figure out if what you want in your next role is the same as what they are offering. This isn't meant to be a trick question. They genuinely want to make sure that this is a beautiful, magical match on both sides. But of course, if what you describe isn't the type of role that they're offering, then you will likely get disqualified. Here. For this question, you should answer how the role you are interviewing for fits what you want next. Such as if the job description says that you will be managing a small team whose major focus will be to carry out budget analysis, you can say I've honed my skills in budget analysis and so in my next role I'm looking to dive deeper into that skill set and lead a team in doing so. Boom. Match made in heaven. The fifth question is a variety of logistics. Can you commute five days a week to our location? Are you legally able to work in this country? When is the soonest you'd be able to you start this job for these questions, answer directly for the most part. Some of my clients do have some sticky, unique situations that I help coach them through for a better response, but usually the straightforward answer is the best one. The sixth question you may be asked in a first round phone screen is why do you want to leave your current job? Or why did you leave your last job? Come on, you've been asked this one before, right? Everyone wants to know the tea of why do you want to dump your current company? Or or the reason you left your previous one because they're worried history is going to repeat itself, that you are going to leave this company for the same reason you left that company. When you're answering this question, there are three things to keep in mind. Keep it very positive. Even if there's a lot of negative things to say, we're going to skip that. Keep it very short, just a couple of sentences and keep it confident. You own your story. There is so much to say here because your situation is going to be different than the next person's. So I'm going to go ahead and link a video where I go into detail. I give over 10 different examples of different ways to answer this question, I know it gets complex, but it will help you so much whether or not you were fired, laid off, left voluntarily, anything that's in that video. The seventh question is what makes you interested in this company and role? You may be sensing a trend here Watson. Again, they are asking this question because they are looking for a really good mutual fund. Fit companies want people who want them. So share how passionate and interested you are in this role. If what you say about this company and the role is nonspecific and could be said about pretty much all of their competitors, you need to improve your answer. Also, don't say extrinsic motivators like benefits commute or remote work perks as the reason why you want this job. I will link a video that goes deeper into this if you're struggling with this answer. The eighth question will be a variety of questions about the skills you need for this role and this is to ensure that anyone who moves on to the next rounds that they at least meet the core qualifications. I'm personally able to predict what these questions are for my clients based on the role and the job description. So I encourage you to pour over the job description to think about what questions would be asked for your profession. For example, a classic question that's asked to product managers is something around what is your favorite product? And then they'll ask them to critique that product, the user experience and what they would change. So I recommend you do a search for common interview questions for your profession. And number nine is the dreaded money conversation. You may be asked do you have any compensation requirements? Or what is your targeted salary? There's a few key steps here. First, you're better off not seeing saying a number since they haven't had a chance to see your value yet. So you don't want to say something too high and then you'll get auto rejected. But you also don't want to say something too low and now you've undercut your earnings. So you could say something like I'm open, I'm looking for the best fit and overall package. If they again ask for a number, ask them what is their range and say that you'll be happy to tell them if what you're looking for fits in that range. And if they still don't give you a number, you can say a research statement salary range. That's what you need to know. But if you want more help on this, especially if you accidentally said the wrong number or said too low of a number and you want to renegotiate I will link a video below for you to help with that. I know I keep linking things below, but this video would be so long. This video is already pretty long. This video would be like an hour if I included all of the details for every single question. But if you do want me to make a super long version of this video, put make that video in the comments and maybe I'll just make a really long version of this. I also have quite the surprise for you. I created a cheat sheet that goes along with this video so that you don't have to take copious notes. You get it? Because you stayed to the very end of the video. So congratulations my friend. That is linked below. Be sure to like this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this wi fi high five.