Last week we pondered whether it’s practical to look for a job long-distance, or whether it’s better to relocate and then begin your hunt for work after you’ve settled in. If you’ve weighed the issue and decided to apply to distant gigs, then there’s one thing you need to be prepared for: the phone interview. Of course, a first screening telephone interview is common for work closer to home as well, which makes blog CubeRules’ tips on acing a phone interview even more useful. The basic advice:

Print out a copy of your resume - After you send out 20 or 30 resumes over a couple of weeks, you start to not remember exactly what��s on the resume…. In addition, your resume should have good work results listed with your work experience (��improved cycle time by 20 percent, resulting in $100K savings to the department). These items will trigger explanations of how you achieved the results. Print out a copy of the job description - You are trying to match your job skills with as many as possible on the job description…. The more job requirements you match up with on the job description, the better your chances of moving on. Your interviewer is trying to match broad categories, not specifics - The person doing the phone interview is evaluating your ability to do the job by asking you about your job skills. The person, most likely, doesn��t have your work down cold like you do. They can��t get into the weeds like you can about a particular job skill; they are looking to do a check mark by a job skill to determine if you have a qualification needed. Stand up and walk around- You will be more alert, release tension, and be more engaged in the interview. And the whole ��smile because it comes across on the phone�� advice? Yeah, it does. Be ever so leery of using a cell phone for an interview - Cell phones are getting much better. Drops are less. But there is simply no percentage in taking a chance on an interview with a lousy cell connection.

Check out the CubeRules post for a more in-depth discussion of the advice, as well as a run down of which gigs tip three does not apply too (tech people, this is you).

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