Smile and dial: My first telephone interview

If I would have to choose between going to a job interview and going to see my dentist I would just open my mouth and say: “Do what you need to do”. Interviews make me nervous. They make me very nervous. My hands start to shake, my voice follows, and my heart is beating like it does when I start working out after another lazy year has passed.

I really, really, really don’t like job interviews. In the end most go very well, but the amount of stress I experience each time is overwhelming.

Last week I was invited to 5 different job interviews. Just receiving those invitations and envisioning what is in front of me gave me 5 grey hairs on my head. On top of everything – 2 were telephone interviews.

I am not a phone person. I don’t like spending hours on the phone. My phone conversations are short. My phone conversation are also very rare. I just don’t know what to talk about over the phone. My topics easily run out and then there is that silence that is rarely a good one. Sure, it depends on who you are talking to, but if there are two kinds of people in this world then I am not in that “phone people” group.

Strangely enough, I was not as nervous before my phone interviews as I usually am before the face-2-face interview. I printed my CV, cover letter, the job ad, basic stuff about the company and waited for the call. And I had a secret plan – to smile and dial. OK, they were dialling, but I was smiling.

The call came in, I answered and smiled while talking. Smiling while talking on the phone is a trick I wanted to try. I knew they can’t see me so they don’t see how fake my smile may seem. I’ve recently read an article on the power of a smile on the phone. 84% of the message over a phone is supposedly your tone of voice. This was the perfect opportunity to use it.

Both phone interviews resulted in going to the second round, but even before that – I felt better during those interviews and also after than after my face-2-face interviews. It was like the smile stuck on my face even when the interview was over. Maybe it sounds a bit strange to force yourself to smile even when talking some serious stuff, but for me it kind of worked.

Just a pretty smile may not be enough, but it might help.

Smile on people!

Articles on the power of a smile:

Smiling On The Phone: Does It Really Work?

The Science of Smiling: A Guide to a Human’s Most Powerful Gesture