This morning on the bus I couldn’t help but notice the woman across from me as she made a phone call. (Cell phone chatter on the bus is just one of my personal pet peeves.) But just seconds after she started talking, I realized she was having a job interview.
I was dumbfounded. Despite how desperate job seekers claim to be, they still make the simplest job search mistakes. One of the golden rules of job search: Find a quiet place to do a phone interview.
So when I got to work and saw the headline “Jobseekers interview while using toilet” in my inbox, I just had to click.
Turns out a firm in the UK just conducted a study related to telephone interviews. The study revealed “shocking levels of complacency among candidates during telephone interviews.” Hiring managers reported interviewees:
- Being clearly drunk on the telephone at the time of the interview;
- Using the toilet;
- Having a bath;
- Eating while on the phone;
- Outside walking their dog;
- Arguing with a family member;
- Being pulled over by the police for being on the phone while driving.
Remember: Even though they can’t see you, they can still hear you. Avoidable mistakes can cause immediate rejection by some recruiters: 40% cited if a candidate was clearly doing something else while on the phone, 33% cited not preparing for the interview properly, and 19% cited poor telephone manners.
Are you guilty of one of these? Was it ever unavoidable? How did you handle it?
