The Phone Interview

Before the call

• Read the job description again. Not skimmed — read it. Pull three requirements out of it and match each one to something you've actually done.
• Have your resume in front of you. Have the job description next to it. Have a pen.
• Know your numbers cold. Contract values. Crew sizes. Square footage. MW capacity. Schedule durations. Number of switchgear lineups commissioned. Percentage on time.
• Know your comp answer before the phone rings. Base, bonus, vehicle, per diem — the whole package.

Vague answers sound like padded resumes, and every recruiter has heard a hundred padded resumes. If you fumble the comp question you look like you haven't thought about your own career.

During the call

• Take it somewhere quiet with full signal. Not driving. Not on a jobsite. Not on speaker in a parking lot. If the only window you have is a bad one, say so and ask to move it.
• Answer in sixty to ninety seconds. Then stop. The most common phone screen failure is rambling. The second most common is one-word answers.
• Have a reason for leaving that is short and forward-looking. “The company got acquired and the mission-critical work went away” is a reason. Ten minutes on a bad supervisor is a flag.
• Ask two or three real questions. Who does this role report to? What does the project pipeline look like for the next eighteen months? What does success look like at six months?

Close it

Ask what the next step is and when. Then confirm you're interested. Say it out loud. Interest gets read as fit more often than people think.

The point

Prepare for the phone screen like it's the final round, because it decides whether there is one.