In general, you should not allow yourself to be interviewed on the telephone. A telephone interview will not result in a job offer and may even cost you a face to face interview. However, you will not always be able to avoid telephone interviews. Many PEs will insist on talking to you before setting up a face to face interview, especially if they intend to pay transportation and other costs to have you flown to their location.
Since you will have to talk with some PEs on the phone, you should turn the situation around to your advantage. Use the telephone interview to obtain as much information as possible about a job before an interview. Also, as you will soon see, you can use the telephone to generate interviews. How do you obtain information about a job without getting interviewed yourself? You must control the conversation so that you ask the questions and provide only the information you want to as in your sales letter. Of course, you must do this without appearing to do so. Sound tough? Using the Telephone Training Program (TTP), it is not as tough as it sounds.
What the TTP Is and What It Will Do for You
TTP stands for Telephone Training Program. I call it a training program because it not only represents a source of interviews, but also gives you essential training that you need in order to exploit and maximize the number of interviews you can obtain in other ways, to negotiate over the phone, and finally to make the best impression you possibly can before a face to face meeting.
The only way to learn to handle yourself over the telephone is to do it. The telephone training program I will outline accomplishes exactly that. You will talk to executives with the authority to hire, and you will present yourself much as you did in the sales letter. Your task is to persuade the executive to invite you in for an interview and to gain as much information about the position as possible. If you become proficient in this technique, you will be able to line up a large number of interviews, as well as significantly increase the number of offers you receive. For the average job hunter, two interviews per day through the TTP is a good number to shoot for.
The TTP should be started as soon as you have your sales letter campaign under way and you have started to respond to advertisements. You should continue the TTP for two to three weeks, or until you have run out of companies in your local area that you might be interested in working for. If you are in a large metropolitan area and an average size industry, the TTP can probably be continued indefinitely throughout your campaign. As you continue, you will be honing your telephone manner and getting interviews.
The primary source list of companies for your TTP will be the telephone book. Look under your industry in the Yellow Pages, and simply work down the list. If you do this, you will need to get the executive's full name.
Getting the Decision Maker's Name
The quickest and most direct way to get the hiring executive's name is to call the company. Ask the receptionist for the name of the chief buyer, director of sales, or whatever position the one you are looking for would report to. If the receptionist doesn't give you the executive's first name (the most common response will be "That's Mr. Smith"), ask for it. One technique is simply to assume a name and ask, "Is that Mr. George Smith?" "No, it's Gerald Smith," the receptionist may answer. Fine. Now you have Mr. Smith's first name. You can also ask her if this is what his friend's call him. That information can be very useful in getting through the secretary. Another way of getting the executive's name is from a trade directory of the industry or from an executive register such as Standard & Poor's. Only after you have the executive's full name should you ask to speak to him.
How to Get Through to the Hiring Executive
The first step in getting through to the hiring executive is to get past the executive's secretary. Many job hunters who have no problem getting through a secretary when they must talk to an executive on business have very real problems when they are job hunting. When making a business call you won't stop to think twice about getting through a secretary to an executive, and would probably feel insulted if the secretary failed to connect you, even if the executive was fairly senior. Unfortunately, this is usually not true when looking for a job. This is due to the fact that you are engaging in an unfamiliar activity. So you may lack confidence and feel uncomfortable with the task of calling.
To overcome this feeling, you must maintain a positive mental attitude and practice the techniques for getting through to the executive. Before you can get through the executive's secretary you must find out the executive's full name. Then, when you talk with the secretary, you should ask for the executive by first and last name and give your own full name. Speak with confidence (but not rudeness or arrogance).
If you are employed and have a secretary, you can also ask her to call and to tell the other secretary that you wish to speak with the hiring executive. This technique makes it relatively easy for you to get through, although it may be difficult if you are conducting a campaign in secret.
Questions You Must Ask Before the Interview
Asking about the kind of experience you should have is a good technique. You can use it to lead into a number of other questions about the job:
What is the job title?
Whom does the position report to?
What specific experience or accomplishments are you looking for?
What are the most important functional tasks of the job?
Are there any factors that would definitely eliminate a candidate from this position, such as too much experience in a certain area, or not enough?
Do not ask questions about promotion, fringe benefits, or salary. But do probe tactfully for as much information as possible, and take notes while the PE is talking so you can evaluate each requirement against your own background and accomplishments. Then, even if you must send in a resume, you can slant your experience to the PE's needs.
