Page 31 - 101 Dynamite Answers to Interview Questions

24 Nail the Job Interview!
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time to resort to wishful thinking,
The person conducting the screening interview has a negative goal as
far as the applicant is concerned. The interviewer wants to eliminate as
many candidates as possible from further consideration so the hiring/
placement interview can be conducted with a more manageable number
of applicants. On the other hand, your goal is to be to included in the
final pool of candidates. What you say in this screening interview will be
very important in moving you into the select group of applicants.
The telephone screening interview is primarily a verbal encounter, but
it also includes numerous nonverbal components. Male sure you speak
up, use good grammar, speak in complete sentences, avoid vocalized
pauses and fillers, are decisive and positive, and inject enthusiasm and
energy into your telephone voice. If your voice tends to be high-pitched
over the telephone, try to lower it somewhat. You want to sound inter-
esting enough so the interviewer will want to see you in person. If your
grammar is poor, if you sound indecisive, lack enthusiasm, or have a high-
pitched and squeaky voice, the interviewer may screen you out of further
consideration regardless of what you say in response to his questions or
how terrific your resume looks. He will have “a gut feeling” that he
doesn’t want to interview you because you just don’t sound right for the
job.

Electronic Screening Interviews

A relatively new method for screening job applicants is the use of
computerized questions to elicit information before the applicant meets
with the hiring official. The applicant is initially asked to sit at a
computer terminal and respond to a series of questions that will also be
“scored” electronically. Though in limited use at present, and used
primarily by larger firms, the method may catch on. If you face this
situation, you should do better if you have some understanding of what
is happening to you.
Employers who use this method believe electronic screening has several
advantages. First, the computer presentation poses exactly the same
questions in the same way to all applicants and will score the responses,
thus supposedly taking some of the subjectivity out of this portion of the
interview. Second, the computer can score your responses quickly. If
several questions are designed with purposeful redundancy in order to