Tips for Mastering the Phone Interview

By Barbara Safani

Phone interviews are becoming more and more common as companies gain greater access to candidates and as more recruiters and hiring managers work from virtual office locations. On the positive side, with a phone interview you don’t have to worry about having your suit pressed, and you can have your notes right in front of you. On the flip side, it’s much more difficult to establish rapport and get a read on the hiring manager during a phone conversation.

Below are 10 tips to get the most out of your phone interviews.

1. Schedule the meeting during a time when you won’t be distracted.
   A phone interview should be scheduled like any other interview. At the designated appointment time, be sure the dog is in the backyard and someone else is watching the kids. Don’t add additional hassle to an already stressful situation. If a recruiter or hiring manager calls you without advance notice and wants to interview you on the spot, use caution. If the interview "conditions" are not optimal at the time of the call, it’s best to tell the interviewer that you are very interested in the position, but need to schedule another time to have a conversation. That time can be as soon as ten minutes later if that works for you -- just make sure that you can take the call without being distracted.

2. Conduct interviews from a landline.
   Cell phones are a boon to modern communication, but the quality is still not the same as that from a land line. The last thing you want to do is frustrate the recruiter or hiring manager with a bad connection. Using a cell phone means you have a greater chance of getting distracted by multi-tasking when your attention should be completely focused on the interview. A landline forces you to stay in a relatively stationary locale. Plan your interview from a reliable phone line.

3. Create an office space.
   Dedicate an area as your office. This area could be as simple as a card table with a phone and your documents. Conduct your interviews from your "office". Being seated at a desk or table allows you to create an environment similar to an in-person interview.

4. Put a mirror in front of you.
   This helps you focus, and it anchors your conversation to the visual representation of a person. Monitoring your facial expressions helps you see if you are communicating your enthusiasm to the recruiter.

5. Have a glass of water nearby.
   If your throat is dry or you get a tickle you can take care of it before it turns into a cough and disrupts the flow of the interview.

6. Have your notes in front of you.
   A phone interview is like an open book test. You can have your research about the company and answers to potential interview questions right in front of you. Try organizing your key information on colored index cards by category so you’re not fumbling through papers in the middle of the interview.

7. Vary your voice.
   Since the other person can't see you, it’s critical that you vary the tone and cadence of your voice to communicate interest and develop rapport.

8. Use pauses effectively.
   Pauses in an interview situation are always difficult, and they can be especially awkward during a phone interview since you can’t judge what the interviewer is thinking by their body language. Rather than wondering what the person on the other end of the line is doing (or even if they’re still there!) use the silence to ask a question. For example, if the interviewer has just asked you about your strengths and your response is met with silence, make that an opportunity to ask a question like "What are the key strengths of your ideal candidate?" This tactic both takes care of the silence and allows you to learn more about the position.

9. Don't multi-task.
   We have grown so accustomed to multi-tasking; however, as mentioned in tip #2, it can be counterproductive during a phone interview. Don’t check your email or stick a casserole in the oven while you are engaged in a phone interview. Act the same way you would for an in-office interview, and maintain your focus.

10. Practice.
    Record some of your answers to prospective interview questions. Play them back and critique yourself. Are you easy to understand? Are you talking too fast? Is your presentation riddled with long pauses and "ums?" Do you communicate interest and enthusiasm? If necessary, rework your answers and your overall presentation.

Barbara Safani, owner of Career Solvers, has over ten years of experience in career management, recruiting, executive coaching, and organizational development. She is a triple certified resume writer and frequent contributor to numerous career-related publications.

6 SEO Blogging Tips

Blogging can help you acquire traffic and elevated search positions. Blogs are a great first step. WordPress is a popular option that has an open source development community and several cool and powerful plugins. You get an RSS feed infrastructure and a place for embedding not only text content, but also video streaming and audio podcasts.

To take full advantage of social media optimization, here are six things you should do:

1. Set up your WordPress blog.
If you're running a business and want to start building your own authoritative blog, I recommend using a trusted hosting partner like GoDaddy.com. It takes about 10 minutes to set up. Apply for a Linux-hosted account, since WordPress isn't compatible with Windows. Unless you have a unique domain set up for this, I suggest adding the blog as a directory of your domain: your-site.com/name-of-blog-with-keywords. TypePad and the Movable Type blog system are other free services. Blogger.com--Google's platform--is free, and Yahoo! Small Business has a variety of options to select from as well.

2. Add content.
Add a blog post once every week or more to start. Frequency is important to search engines, and users will come to expect regular updates. When you add content, make sure you add the tags and category. Tags and directory structures help show the search engines what your post is about. To get ideas for content, look up article directories EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. If you copy the entire text, include the author's bio box and be aware that Google may catch you for duplication of content. A better way is to start with the article ideas, change the content and make comments about the article, while still referencing the original author.

If you have more money than time, have someone from RentACoder.com, Elance.com or Guru.com write it for you. You can also look into private label rights articles, but watch for duplicate content there, too. eBay has a lot of these types of articles available, but try to make them your own. If you're in the B2B arena, you hopefully have good marketing and information-based materials you can reinvigorate for your blog.

3. Manage RSS feeds.
RSS is an easily tracked and managed XML-based file structure that allows compatible web systems to read the data. Get an account with Technorati.com and update them with your site feeds--also known as pinging. You can also use FeedBurner.com and OnlyWire.com to help distribute content and PingOMatic.com and Pingoat.com to alert systems that you've made a new post.

4. Promote your blog.
Always leverage the search engines when you can. Conduct solid keyword research to find out what people are searching for within your niche. Use the Overture search tool and look for longer keyword phrases rather than starting with the most competitive keywords. Include these keywords in the titles of your posts.

If you're active in the online community, visit related forums and other blogs to exchange dialogue and links. Make sure to tag everywhere and try to get a listing on Digg.com, as well as del.icio.us, reddit.com and MySpace.com. Educational content, such as "how to" articles, tend to be very popular.

5. Leverage podcasts and videos.
Podcasts are a simple way to provide more detail and personalization around your company or service. The MP3 format can easily be streamed for listening on the web and from your blog. You can podcast your files and even manage them via iTunes. You also can stream video into your visitors' homes and let them watch it on their Apple TV, a recently announced product.

6. Optimize your WordPress blog.
A blog should be optimized for users, search engines and income, in that order. A professional-looking blog is important. Look for clean sites--a white background works well--at the WordPress Theme Viewer site. Some of the themes are less SEO-friendly than others. Add a form to capture names and e-mails to build your e-mail list. For SEO, change your permalinks to this custom option: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ and enable the customizable permalinks. This is a search-engine friendly URL that's commonly used.

As I mentioned earlier, WordPress has a number of powerful plugins to consider. Here are some to start with:

• Google Analytics--tracks everything on all pages
• Chicklets--an array of social media tags for your users, including RSS reader icons
• AdSense Deluxe--for publishing ads on your site
• Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress--creates a sitemap for your site
• Akismet spam filtering--filters link spam from blog comments; requires WordPress API key
• SEO Title Tag--easy optimization of title tags across your WordPress blog
• Ultimate Tag Warrior--incorporates the tag name into title pages on tagged pages
• Podpress--everything you need for podcasting

More plugins are available at the WordPress plugin directory.

After you're set up, follow the basic rules for long-term success:

• Do not use Black Hat SEO--unethical techniques--to stuff keywords and duplicate content in your blogs.
• Provide value through quality content. If you're selling something, don't be pushy. Try to provide educational and constructive comments on products, services and competitors.
• Use the chicklets you see on many blogs, including a big button for your RSS feed, so visitors and search engines can easily get to your data.
• Place strategic AdSense components to generate money for yourself, while still providing value. Don't feel bad; big companies do it, including news outlets like CNN. Match the text and color with the layout of your site. Over time, you may get a check from Google.

source: http://www.entrepreneur.com
By Jon Rognerud

How to Lose Customers

by John Mehrmann

Have you found that you have just too many customers? Are you looking for a way to get rid of some of those pesky customers who seem to keep coming back and taking up all of your time? Would you like to have time to do more important things, like spend your time trying to get new customers, rather than spend so much time taking care of existing customers? Have no fear, we have gathered some of the top ten tips for weeding out the heard and getting rid of customers.

1. Play games with their finances, avoid paying rebates or ignore discounts
2. Lie to your customers or intentionally mislead them
3. Forget previous promises and refuse to live up to your commitments
4. Make false claims or advertising about your products or services, practice "puffery"
5. Make it virtually impossible to get in touch with a human being, add more menu options to answering services do not return messages
6. Disrespect your customer, pretend they are not there, ignore them, be rude or condescending
7. Blame problems on company policy or coworkers, take whatever tact is necessary to avoid personal responsibility
8. Remind your customer that you are the only option
9. Assign numbers to your customers and avoid using their names, make them look for their number
10. Tell them to quit whining because there are other customers who have the same problem or have it much worse

Have you tried any of these tactics with your customers already?

If you are not trying to give away your customers to your competition, what are you proactively doing to insure that the opposite approach is being taken? It is not just a matter of trying to avoid these top ten tips for thinning the customer herd, it is about proactively doing the opposite. The odds are that several people in your organization are already practicing one or more of these top ten tips. What can you do to instill a culture that embraces a well defined alternative approach?

The odds are even greater that many members of your competition are practicing several of these top ten tips for getting rid of customers. As your competition becomes more prolific at practicing the art of losing customers, what can you do to create an environment that rewards associates for embracing and evangelizing customers?

There is a very simple barometer for measuring which side of the customer-centric fence your organization inhabits. Just ask this one simple question, "What gives you a greater sense of satisfaction, getting rid of an annoying customer or keeping one?"

• Act responsibly to protect the finances, assets and investments of your customer, they are investing in you
• Be honest and trustworthy, especially when it seems uncomfortable to do so
• Only make promises that you can keep and then keep them
• Exercise Truth in Advertising
• Design automation for customer ease and convenience, not for avoidance
• Treat customers with courtesy and respect, they are your shareholders
• Take ownership and command to find solutions and then coordinate internally if other resources are necessary
• To keep the competition away you need to 'win' your customer with every contact
• Numbers and Accounts are for identification, but authentic relationships are for people
• Listen

Words of Wisdom

"Sow good services; sweet remembrances will grow them."
- Madame de Stael

"Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be."
- Og Mandino

"Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality."
- Peter Drucker

Source: http://www.businessknowhow.com
by John Mehrmann

Top 10 Popular Inventors

The top ten most popular inventors. The following popular inventors were determined by reader usage and research demand.

1. Thomas Edison 1847-1931

The first great invention developed by Thomas Edison was the tin foil phonograph. A prolific producer, Edison is also know for his work with lightbulbs, electricity, film and audio devices, and much more.

2. Alexander Graham Bell 1847-1869

In 1876, at the age of 29, Alexander Graham Bell invented his telephone. Among one of his first innovations after the telephone was the "photophone," a device that enabled sound to be transmitted on a beam of light.

3. George Washington Carver 1864-1943

George Washington Carver was an agricultural chemist who invented three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes; and changed the history of agriculture in the south.

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4. Eli Whitney 1765-1825

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794. The cotton gin is a machine that separates seeds, hulls and other unwanted materials from cotton after it has been picked.

5. Johannes Gutenberg 1394-1468

Johannes Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and inventor best known for the Gutenberg press, an innovative printing machine that used movable type.

6. John Logie Baird 1888-1946

John Logie Baird is remembered as the inventor of mechanical television (an earlier version of television). Baird also patented inventions related to radar and fiber optics.

7. Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790

Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, the iron furnace stove or 'Franklin Stove', bifocal glasses, and the odometer.

8. Henry Ford 1863-1947

Henry Ford improved the "assembly line" for automobile manufacturing, received a patent for a transmission mechanism, and popularized the gas-powered car with the Model-T.

9. James Naismith 1861-1939

James Naismith was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented basketball in 1891.

10. Herman Hollerith 1860-1929

Herman Hollerith invented a punch-card tabulation machine system for statistical computation. Herman Hollerith's great breakthrough was his use of electricity to read, count, and sort punched cards whose holes represented data gathered by the census-takers. His machines were used for the 1890 census and accomplished in one year what would have taken nearly ten years of hand tabulating.

Source: http://inventors.about.com
From Mary Bellis