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Phone/language skills instead of tech skills to land job

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I’ve had about 4 phone screenings for jobs over the past 18 months. 1 resulted in a personal interview – the others never called back.

I think I lack good speech skills, and my lack of ‘big words’ may be hurting me.

Should I forget the tech skills and take a course on speaking? – most screens don’t go into detail on the techy stuff.

Topic

One out of four isn’t all that bad!

In reply to Phone/language skills instead of tech skills to land job

The fact that you did get one personal interview out of four calls would seem pretty decent to me. It’s probably better than a lot of people do, especially with the job market the way it is.

If you’re really worried though I would think back to the four calls and try to remember what you did on the one call different from the others.

I’ve always disliked phone interviews as you can not see the other person’s non-verbals which sometimes are a better clue to how they feel than what they’re saying.

I’m not sure your so-called lack of big words is hurting you. An overuse of big words could be just as bad as the interviewer might think you’re trying to “snow” them. I would think the purpose of a screening call would be to see if you meet the minimal technical requirements for the job and not if you’re an english major!

as long as you know that you know

In reply to One out of four isn’t all that bad!

As long as you are confident that you know what you’re doing than speaking should not be a big deal. I’m a terrible speaker. I get nervous at interviews and speeches and when I get really nervous I stutter slightly. Plus my brain tends to race off ahead of my mouth and things come out all in the wrong order. lol

However, if someone asks me a question about something I know, I can answer confidently and usually pretty straight. As far as big words, only use them when they absolutely apply. dbertsche is right about too many big words hurting you more than helping. People want to know that not only do you know what you’re doing, but that you can also relate with other employees/bosses.
Tink

1/4 is actually

In reply to Phone/language skills instead of tech skills to land job

a pretty good response rate.

1 in 10 is concidered good.
1 in 30 is concidered normal.

if you get interview callbacks at 1 in 30 rate,, you go through 30 before you get job offer.

so 900 interviews to get one offer.

at one in 4 rate
if you keep that it’s only 16 to get the job offer.

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