Unsplash | Hassan OUAJBIR
First impressions matter, and the very first dance you’ll experience with an employer is the screening interview, also known as phone screen. This is a 15-20 minutes call with a recruiter or hiring manager where an employer tries to determine if you have the basic skills and disposition to progress through the rest of their job interview process.
Keep in mind that screening interviews are not meant to be full-fledged interviews. Thus, you have a limited amount of time to accomplish your one goal – impress the recruiter or hiring manager enough to secure a full-length in-person (or Zoom) interview with the team.
Here’s how you can ace the screening interview:
1. Treat a screening interview like a real interview. Because it is! Find a quiet place to have the call, away from any distractions. Be friendly and outgoing. If you’re an introvert, pretend you’re extroverted. If receive an unexpected or unscheduled call from a recruiter, it’s fine to ask for a minute to get situated or to call back after you’ve found a quiet place to conduct the call in a professional manner.
2. Know why you are interested in the company and job. You will most likely be asked why you applied for the position and what interested you in the company. Be prepared with a stellar answer. If, on the other hand, the company found you, it’s fine to ask for more information about the company; but it’s better to do some quick on-the-fly research on your computer or phone while you dazzle your interviewer with your wit and charm.
3. Be ready to give detailed answers. The recruiter or hiring manager will want to know (in broad strokes) if you have the hard skills that are required to perform the role (e.g. a technical specialty), but they also want to feel out your quality-of-life parameters (e.g. commute). Under no circumstances give a simple yes/no answer. Be detailed, but succinct. Be confident and positive with your answers. Sometimes the delivery can do wonders for the content.
4. Ask questions. Like all interviews, you should have questions at the ready. This shows you’re prepared, you’ve done your homework, and have genuine interest in the job. If you’re well versed with the company, ask about the business; if not, focus on questions about career trajectory and job goals.
5. Navigate around the salary question. Every job is a line item in a budget and the recruiter/hiring manager want to know if you are in the budgeted salary range. Too high or too low, you may be ruled out.
a. Tactic #1. Defer the question with some variation of this, “I’m not focused on compensation at this stage. I’m more interested in finding a company where I’m a cultural fit, somewhere I know I am going to add value on day one, and, ideally, is the last place I ever want to work.”
b. Tactic #2. If the question is pressed, offer a large range with a $20,000-$30,000 gap. “I’m currently looking for positions in the $50,000 - $80,000 range, total compensation.” By focusing on total compensation, you can make it a bit more difficult for an employer to pin you down to accepting a specific figure before even interviewing for the job, and give you negotiation room down the road.
c. Tactic #3. Sometimes a company will make this question easy for you to answer by publishing the salary range in the job posting. If that is the case, choose the top part of the range. For example, if the job posting says, “$75,000 - $90,000 Depending On Experience”, focus in the range of “$80,000 - $90,000.”
d. Tactic #4. If you live in California, New York, or Massachusetts there are laws against asking a job candidate his or her previous salary, however there are all sorts of clever ways to request salary information that may break the spirit of the law, but not the actual law. Or you may find yourself in a position where you are asked outright in direct and obvious violation of the law. In both cases, it’s decision time. How badly you do you want the job? If you want the job, you will look the other way and fall back on Tactic # 1, 2, and 3. If you don’t want the job, you can tell the recruiter/hiring manager that his or her question is against the law.
6. Be gracious and thank the interviewer for his/her time . You want to send shock waves of good vibes through the phone to end the interview. You are making a first impression and this is the big finale. Make it easy for them to schedule an in-person (or Zoom) interview with you on the spot by being polite, expressing gratitude for the opportunity, and asking about the next steps.
Philip Roufail contributed to this article.
Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.
