Telephone interviews
Featured in the Proactive Interviewee Skills training manual
By Beverley Williams
Category: Recruitment, Selection and Induction
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
Telephone interviews are becoming increasingly popular for two reasons. Firstly, resources – recruitment is an expensive and time-consuming business. Telephone interviewing (at least for the first stage) cuts the costs and the time involved considerably, particularly if it is normally necessary for the interviewee to travel to the interview. Secondly, if the position calls for an excellent telephone manner, a telephone interview will allow an objective assessment to be made without any visual distractions. If the customer will interact with the successful candidate via the telephone then it makes a great deal of sense for the interviewee to be assessed on how they perform using that medium. This training activity helps participants decide on practical ways of preparing for the telephone interview to ensure that they perform to the best of their abilities.
You open the training activity by eliciting ideas from the participants on why telephone interviews are becoming increasingly popular. They also contribute ideas on what constitutes standard interview preparation. Working in groups, the participants then generate methods of preparation that will apply specifically to telephone interviews. You take feedback by means of a plenary discussion. You then move on to a pairs exercise where participants take the roles of telephone interviewer and interviewee (they will be unable to see each other), trying out different physical postures as well as being assessed on use of customer service standards, and so on. Pairs spend time together reviewing the exercise before reconvening for a group discussion. You take one or two key learning points from each person before distributing and commenting on a key learning points handout where appropriate.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to prepare participants for a successful telephone interview.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 10 |
| Typical Duration: | 02:15:00 |
| No of Pages: | 16 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with participants who may be interviewed by telephone at some point. It may be usefully run in conjunction with ‘Looking the part’, ‘Trial by sherry’, ‘The inadequate interviewer’, ‘Tricky interview questions’, and ‘Preparing for the interview’.
Download the training activity, Telephone interviews as featured in the Fenman training manual; Proactive Interviewee Skills