#8 Recently Interviewed said:

I just had a phone interview with Microsoft a little over an hour ago. Now I am wondering: What is the best way to start off an interview? I felt like the first couple of seconds were an awkward "Hello, erm, ugh... Yeah, I'm <name>" moment and I didn't really know what to say, and it almost felt like the interviewer expected me to say something in particular... What would be the best thing to do to make a good impression when starting off an interview?

Dear Recently Interviewed:

I saw your question in the comments section of Matt’s Five ways to fail my phone interview post and felt it needed a post of its own. 

When I read your question, my initial response was that this responsibility falls on the recruiter. They need to ensure that you are comfortable at the beginning of the phone interview and clearly explain what you’ll be talking about in the next 30 minutes. While I’m hoping this happens the majority of the time (maybe I’m in dreamland), there probably are one off situations where there is that awkward moment at the beginning of the phone interview. For those situations, I wanted to give you some ideas on what you can say to fill the gap.

• Where did you find my resume?: If you haven’t previously spoken with the recruiter before, this is always a good question to ask. It not only gets both of you talking, but you’ll also find out which career site your resume is getting hits on.
• Talk about the product and Microsoft: Here’s an easy way to sell your passion for the team you are interviewing for. If you know the product team upfront, you can talk about how excited you are about the opportunity because you’re an avid user of the product. I would recommend this opening only if it’s genuine and you truly know and have used the product. This conversation might just lead into a question of “What would you do to improve the product?” So think about your answer to that question ahead of time. If you don’t know the product, that’s ok too. Your recruiter will give you a detailed description of the team and product during your conversation. You can, however, sell your passion for Microsoft.
• Discuss a common interest or unique fact: I always review the resume before calling a candidate to see if we went to the same school or lived in the same city at one point. It’s an easy ice breaker. If I don’t have anything in common with them, I look to see if there is anything unique that stands out (for example: curling as a hobby, created the MTV Music Awards website or lived in Australia). You can take this same concept and reverse it. Do a search on the recruiter’s name on LinkedIn or Live Search prior to the phone interview.  Most recruiters use LinkedIn to network so you’ll have a good shot at finding them on there. Look at their profile and background and see if you have anything in common with them. If not, look for anything unique that would be an interesting point of conversation. They'll be impressed you did your research. Just be sure to inform them where you found their information, so you don’t catch them completely off guard.
• Sports and weather: This sounds so cliché but it works in Seattle. We have some diehard Mariners and Seahawks fans. Just be careful with talking about UW and WSU as there is quite the rivalry between those schools! Also, our weather changes rapidly around here, so there’s always something relevant to comment about weather wise.

Hopefully this helps in case you’re ever again in one of those ‘Hello, erm, ugh…’ situations. Also, I'd love to hear other ideas that readers might have used in the past.

-Lisa