7 Easy Phone Interview Tips That Will Help You Get The Job

The job hunting process can be long and stressful. You’ve crafted the perfect resume, sent out countless cover letters, and now you’ve finally heard back that you’ve got a phone interview. This should be a walk in the park, right? An obligatory step to confirm you’re a real human.

Until you find yourself on the phone with the interviewer and they’re not just chatting you up. They’re asking you real questions, some of them tough questions, and your throat is going dry and you’re talking a million miles a minute and then it’s all over and you’re wondering what just happened. Did you blow your chances at another interview?

The phone interview is easy to underestimate. It doesn’t seem as intimidating as meeting in person, but if you don’t nail the phone interview you definitely won’t be asked to come for an on-site.

To set you up for success, we’ve put together seven easy tips that will help you prepare for your phone interview and give you the best shot at advancing to the next round.

1Do Your Homework

Learn everything you can about the company. Scour their website, social media, LinkedIn, and current news for info. You need to know the facts of who they are and what they’re doing, plus their mission and values. (Know your audience!)

Learn everything you can about the job. Review the job description with a fine-tooth comb and check for reviews on Glassdoor. By knowing the skills and qualities they want in a candidate, you’ll be able to craft answers for their interview questions that show you are exactly who they’re looking for.

2Curate Your Success Stories

Now that you know what skills and qualities they’ll be asking about, start thinking through your work history and brainstorming which experiences will best illustrate what they want.

So when you’re asked, “Do you work well under pressure?” you won’t just say “yes”—you’ll also recount the story of your company’s product launch from hell and describe how you managed to stay calm, come up with a successful plan B for your team, and crank out quality copy at the last minute.

Outline each success story, then practice telling them to a friend (ideally in thirty seconds or less per story).

3Prep Answers for These Common General Questions

Make sure each success story you provide not only answers the question, but demonstrates the skills and qualities the company is looking for.

“What is your biggest strength?”

“What is your greatest weakness?”

Here’s a tip: Don’t try to pretend you’re perfect! Talk about how you’ve dealt with your weakness. Tell a success story of how you’ve overcome it!

“How are you with time management?”

Here’s a tip: Don’t just say you’re organized. Recount a work situation where time management was important and you were able to nail it.

“Why are you leaving your current position?”

“Why do you want to join our company?”

“Why should we hire you?”

4Prep Answers for These Common Behavioral Questions

“Tell me about a time you took initiative or stepped into a leadership role.”

“…a time you had to deal with conflict at work.”

“…a situation where you used problem solving.”

“…a time you collaborated on a team project.”

“…a time you went beyond your job description.”

“Tell me about your proudest professional accomplishment.”

5Get In the Zone

• Avoid brain fog by getting a good night’s sleep.
• Ditch the jammies and dress in business casual (it’s all about mindset!).
• Call a friend so you can warm up your vocal chords and get in phone mode.
• Remove any distractions (TVs off, pets absent, kids occupied).
• Be ready five to ten minutes in advance so you won’t feel rushed.
• Have a glass of water handy.
• Have a copy of your resume.
• Have a cheat sheet of the qualities they’re looking for and your success stories.
• Have a pen and paper available to take notes.
• Remember to breathe, listen, and smile.

6Ask Questions

At some point, the interviewer will ask if you have any questions. Having zero could be taken as a red flag, so plan out four to five relevant questions, such as:

“What will be the training process for this position?”

“Can you tell me more about the team I would be working with?”

“What opportunities would I have for advancement within the company?”

“What are the next steps in the interview process?”

These questions communicate that you’re serious about the position and you want to confirm whether the company’s a good fit for you.

7Send a Thank You Note

Practice courtesy and professionalism. Within twenty-four hours, follow up with the interviewer by sending a thank you note via email.

Thank them for the opportunity to interview, express your continued interest, and reiterate how you would be a great fit for the position.

Future Perfect Continuous Tense

The future perfect continuous, also sometimes called the future perfect progressive, is a verb tense that describes actions that will continue up until a point in the future. The future perfect continuous consists of will + have + been + the verb’s present participle (verb root + -ing).

When we describe an action in the future perfect continuous tense, we are projecting ourselves forward in time and looking back at the duration of that activity. The activity will have begun sometime in the past, present, or in the future, and is expected to continue in the future.

In November, I will have been working at my company for three years.

At five o’clock, I will have been waiting for thirty minutes.

When I turn thirty, I will have been playing piano for twenty-one years.

Nonaction Verbs Do Not Use the Future Perfect Continuous

Remember that nonaction verbs like to be, to seem, or to know are not suited to the future perfect continuous tense. Instead, these verbs take the future perfect tense, which is formed with will + have + past participle.

On Thursday, I will have been knowing you for a week.

On Thursday, I will have known you for a week.

I will have been reading forty-five books by Christmas.

I will have read forty-five books by Christmas.

How to Take a Break Without Breaking Focus

We all procrastinate from time to time and struggle to get things done. For years, much of the dialogue around procrastination has been about how to fight it and, theoretically, win. However, that approach has left a whole lot of us—included me—feeling pretty pathetic when we just can’t kick the habit. Turns out, we’ve been duped. For the last several years, experts have made headway in transforming procrastination from an evil that must be vanquished to a tool worth embracing in all its paradoxical and oxymoronic glory.

Let me introduce you to productive procrastination.

I almost giggle when I say it because it feels like I’m getting away with something very bad. However, when you learn a bit and start to incorporate productive procrastination into your life, it’s far from naughty—it’s so nice. Procrastination done right can help you clarify your goals, remove unnecessary tasks, and be more creative. But you can go beyond that. Here are a few indulgent ways you can get more (productive) procrastination into your life.

1 Become an active procrastinator.

The secret of my incredible energy and efficiency in getting work done is a simple one. The psychological principle is this: anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.

—Robert Benchley

The main idea here is that you learn to pit your tasks against each other so that in procrastinating on one, you actually accomplish a lot of others. This can mean structuring to do lists so that your bigger, more vague tasks are at the top, but the actual work you need to do that day is somewhere lower down. Or just allow yourself to do something else as long as that something else isn’t binge-watching Netflix/scrolling through Facebook/pick your poison.

2 Try the “Nothing Alternative.”

Roy F. Baumeister, a social psychologist, coined the term “Nothing Alternative” to describe a strategy where you are given the choice between boredom and actually working on what you need to work on. The New York Times demonstrates the effectiveness of the method with the example of writer Raymond Chandler, who forced himself to write for hours a day by following two rules:

1. You don’t have to write.
2. You can’t do anything else.

Judging by Chandler’s output, it seems you’ll get a lot done just to avoid boredom.

3 Get organized.

Lifehack put together a pretty good list of things to procrastinate with, but one item on their list deserves special attention—organization. In all its forms, organization can be simple and makes life easier. There’s also a short feedback loop so you feel good about what you’ve accomplished. (Flow, anyone?) The best part is that organization can be for the task you actually need to do, and it doesn’t need to be particularly coherent (yet). For example, organizing your desk before writing or creating a blog to-do list—rather than writing the blog—can move you in the right direction but scratch your procrastination itch.

So, let go of some of the guilt and embrace active, productive procrastination as a way to get more done.

Are you a procrastinator? What are some ways that you “productively procrastinate”?

Typos on Resumes: Should You Hire a Job Applicant Anyway?

Most hiring managers say they’d rule out a candidate for resume typos, but is that a good practice for your business? There are a few reasons it might not be.

Job applicants are urged to review their resumes more than a few times to ensure there are no misspellings or grammatical errors. To be safe, they should even have a friend or associate review it. But as hiring managers know all too well, even the most diligent candidates can occasionally let a typo or two slip by.

For hiring managers who review resumes, one typo can be a huge disappointment. When a candidate is otherwise perfect on paper, it can be difficult to give them a chance. However, there are a few good reasons to rethink that policy.

You’ll Have an Advantage

That candidate with the resume error? Chances are, nobody else is offering an interview. One survey found that 76 percent of executives would rule out an applicant over just one typo in a resume. With so many businesses finding competition fierce for talented professionals, forgiving a mistake or two could mean landing a great specialist ahead of competitors.

Some Candidates Hire Professionals

Some typos are simple grammatical errors that may slip by unnoticed. Some could simply be a sign that the candidate isn’t a professional resume writer. All of the other applicants may have paid a professional to create or review their resume, making them not necessarily the best candidate on their own. The best applicant may be the person who painstakingly put together a resume and reviewed it multiple times, hoping to make the best impression, yet somehow missed an error somewhere on the page.

Typos Are Relative

A typo can signal a lack of attention to detail, which may be important if you’re hiring a data analyst or CFO. However, there are many professionals who can do a great job while making an occasional mistake. Consider the type of position and whether a missing letter here or there would affect that person’s work output before sending the resume to the recycle bin.

Typos Are Human Nature

In the end, it’s more about the reason for the typo than the fact that it’s there. Psychologist Tom Stafford told Wired that when we write, we’re usually more focused on the concepts we’re conveying than the words on the page. This can lead to typos, especially when those words must serve an important purpose, such as landing a dream job. When proofing our own work, we often pay more attention to the concepts we’re communicating than the words themselves, making it easy to skim over mistakes without seeing them. This actually makes it highly likely that a document like a resume could contain an error for years without the candidate noticing. In fact, hirers could have errors on their own resumes that they’re unaware of.

Focus on the Bigger Picture

A typo may be the least of your worries. A perfectly-formatted resume may not actually be perfect once you look “under the hood.” More than half of HR professionals surveyed say they’ve caught a candidate lying on a resume, with some of those lies being complete fabrications. What’s more important—a grammar mistake, or someone embellishing a past career role? You’re probably more likely to see a candidate lying on their resume than leaving out a letter or misspelling a word. Instead of concerning yourself with resume perfection, it might be more important to focus on checking resumes and researching potential hires online.

While job applicants are encouraged to do everything they can to avoid mistakes on their resumes, it’s also important for hiring managers to know when they should completely rule an applicant out for a mistake. In some cases, they may be the ones making the mistake by missing out on a talented worker.

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A journalist and digital consultant, John Boitnott has worked at TV, print, radio and Internet companies for 20 years. He’s an advisor at StartupGrind and has written for BusinessInsider, Fortune, NBC, Fast Company, Inc., Entrepreneur and Venturebeat. You can find him on Twitter here.

Sometime, Sometimes, and Some Time

• Sometime means “at some point.”
• As an adjective, sometime also means “former.”
• Some time means “a period of time”—usually a long period of time.
• Sometimes means “occasionally.”

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What is the difference between sometime and some time? And where does sometimes fit into the equation? Don’t worry, the answer is simpler than you might think.

Sometime: One Word

There are two ways to use sometime as one word. Let’s tackle the harder one first.

Sometime: Adverb

When you use sometime as an adverb, it refers to an unspecified point in time. It doesn’t refer to a span of time—that’s what some time is for.

Here’s an example of sometime used in a sentence.

I’ll get around to finishing that book sometime.

In the sentence above, we’re not talking about how long it will take to finish the book (span of time); we’re talking about when the book will be finished (point in time). You can usually replace sometime with someday or at some point when it’s used this way.

I’ll get around to finishing that book someday.

I’ll get around to finishing that book at some point.

Sometime, Some Time, Sometimes Video Summary

Here are a few more examples:

Give me a call sometime, and we’ll have coffee.

We’ll announce a release date sometime soon.

Tony needs to stop by the bank sometime today.

Sometime: Adjective

OK, now let’s talk about the other way to use sometime. When you use sometime as an adjective, it just means “former.” Sometime should always be one word when you’re using it as an adjective.

Albert, a sometime cab driver, now flies airplanes for a living.

In the sentence above, sometime cab driver means “former cab driver.” Some writers use sometime to mean “occasional,” but that usage isn’t accepted by everybody. If you’re not sure whether your audience will interpret sometime as “former” or “occasional,” it may be a good idea to avoid the ambiguity and use more specific terms.

And, remember, when you use sometime as an adjective, don’t put an s at the end of it.

Albert, a sometimes cab driver, now flies airplanes for a living.

Some Time: Two Words

When some time is two words, it refers to a span of time. In fact, it often means “a long time.”

For some time, humans have known that the world is round.

In the sentence above, we’re talking about a long span of time—several centuries, in fact. That’s definitely a long time.

For a long time, humans have known that the world is round.

Let’s look at another example:

It will take some time to finish the project today.

Again, we’re talking about a span of time, so some time should be two words.

It will take a long time to finish the project today.

Sometimes: One Word

Sometimes is a one-word adverb that means “occasionally” or “now and then.”

Sometimes I just don’t understand what that man is saying.

English grammar sometimes follows its own rules, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Everybody hurts sometimes.

Plenty of writers have trouble remembering how to use some time, sometime and sometimes. The good news is that once you understand the difference between some time vs. sometime, it gets easier to understand other tricky pairs like any time vs. anytime and any more vs. anymore.

Farther vs. Further

People use both further and farther to mean “more distant.” However, American English speakers favor farther for physical distances and further for figurative distances.

Ray LeBlond once said “You learn something every day if you pay attention.” Today is the day to learn the difference between further and farther.

Farther

Unsurprisingly, farther means “at or to a greater distance.” In Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys uses this adverb to describe the activity of some sea vessels: Some boats eventually floated ashore. And some boats, like me, seemed to float farther and farther from land.

Besides physical distance, farther can also refer to “a more advanced point” or “to a greater extent.” In the following quote from The Great Gatsby, for example, farther describes how arms are stretched to a greater extent.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The farther you go . . . the harder it is to return. The world has many edges and it’s easy to fall off. —Anderson Cooper, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival

Further

What’s the difference between further and farther? The definition of further does overlap with farther, but first let’s look at the meanings that are unique to this term. Further, unlike farther, can be a verb: He’d do anything to further his own interests at the company. It means “to aid in the progress of, to promote, or to move forward.” As an adverb, further means “in addition to.” As an adjective, it means “more, extended, or additional.” For instance, you might ask for further information or pursue further education. Consider this quote from The Life of Pi by Yann Martel:

You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

The Common Meaning of Farther and Further

How do the definitions of farther and further overlap? Can you use further or farther away in the same way? Some usage guides disagree, but both terms have been used interchangeably to describe physical distance. Here is a quote in which further fulfills that role:

The further from one another, the nearer one can be. —August Strindberg, The Road to Damascus

In response to a question from a writer, The Chicago Manual of Style deferred to Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, which states: “Farther and further have been used more or less interchangeably throughout most of their history, but currently they are showing signs of diverging. As adverbs they continue to be used interchangeably whenever spatial, temporal, or metaphorical distance is involved. But where there is no notion of distance, further is used.” Notice how further is used in this quote from The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now . . . Come further up, come further in!”

Farther or Further From the Truth

How do you express the idea that something is completely untrue? Is the correct expression farther from the truth or further from the truth? A quote from Popularity Explained by Alex L. Freeman reveals the answer: The dictionary definition of popularity is “to be liked by many.” Based on this definition, you might predict that popular students are the cheeriest and most agreeable people in a school: kind to everyone and always willing to lend a helping hand. Such a conclusion couldn’t be further from the truth!

Are further and farther impossible to tell apart from one another? No! Nothing could be further from the truth! If you remember that only further can mean “moreover,” you shouldn’t have much difficulty. That’s one thing learned for today, but what will you investigate tomorrow?

Toward or Towards

• Toward and towards are two acceptable ways of spelling the same preposition.
• Toward is the preferred spelling in the United States and Canada.
• Towards is the preferred spelling in the United Kingdom and Australia.

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Some words have multiple correct spellings. You probably already know this is true for certain verbs (e.g., spell vs. spelt) and several nouns (e.g., color, favor, neighbor); prepositions aren’t immune to it either. That’s why we have both toward and towards.

Toward vs. Towards

The only difference between toward and towards is the s. Both spellings are correct, and they mean the same thing: in the direction of.

Toward is the preferred spelling in the United States and Canada. In other English-speaking countries, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, towards is the more common spelling. The Chicago Manual of Style notices this difference; The AP Stylebook recommends using the shorter spelling.

Both spellings of the word can be traced all the way back to Old English. Toward, as we know it now, evolved from toweard, which meant “in the direction of.” Toweards was the Old English adverb derived from toweard by adding the adverbial genitive s.

Examples of Toward and Towards

I believe it is our generational responsibility to take action, and Canada will continue working toward an ambitious agreement in Kigali.

The Huffington Post Canada

BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest money manager, said investors should be wary of Treasuries as the Federal Reserve moves toward raising interest rates.

Bloomberg

The divide still exists; some remain bitter towards Cruyff and towards Guardiola, his most determined disciple.

The Guardian