10 Last Minute Reminders for your Call Center Job Interview

Knowing how to answer common call center interview questions is never enough. The interviewer will not only be listening to your answers but would also be observing HOW you answer his/her questions. For this matter, it is important to keep in mind some behaviors that you need to exhibit and avoid.

Maintain Eye Contact

On top of the list of behaviors that one needs to exhibit is maintaining eye contact. Maintaining eye contact is a good way of showing self-confidence. Averting the eyes of your interviewer may give that person the impression that you're shy, unsure of what you're saying, or that you're lying. Remember that call centers are looking for assertive and competitive individuals. So if you're not any of that, it's good to at least look like you are. Mind over matter.

Maintain Good Posture

Maintaining a good posture is also a good practice that one should exhibit during a job interview. As with averting the eyes of the interviewer, slouching would make you look as if you're unconfident and timid. Do you ever see world leaders or powerful businessmen slouch? You get my point.

READ: Do you need an accent when working in a call center?

Smile

When the interviewer introduces him/herself, it is a very good idea to wear a warm smile on your face. A smile would defnitely make you comfortable and confident aside from making the interviewer feel at ease.

Talk Slow

When I say talk slow, I mean speak clearly. When you speak too fast, there is a huge tendency to mumble. If you have a nonneutral accent, enunciating is a very good way to make your accent neutral.

About hand gestures

While hand gestures are alright, be sure to minimize them. Excessive hand gestures can have the potential of making the interviewer uncomfortable, especially if you look as if you are debating with somebody. It can also make you look like you're unable to get your message across effectively, thus making the Interviewer think that you're inarticulate. If you're more comfortable using hand gestures, use them minimally.

Voice Level

Often, interviews are conducted in enclosed spaces. It is a good idea to tone your voice down if you are inside a small room (with the interviewer being the only other person inside). If you are a soft-spoken person, be sure to make your voice louder if you are in an open area.

Fillers
Instead of using the usual ummhs and uuuhhs, a good filler is a prolonged 'and' and 'then' (E-e-ennd, D-e-e-en). Silence is not so bad all the time. A two-second silence is definitely allowed.

Accent

While having an American accent is definitely a plus, you can still pass your call center job interview with a neutral accent. The best way to achieve a neutral accent is to talk slow and enunciate. Don't bother procuring an American accent, it would only make you look silly and desperate.

Absolutely NO Tagalog

If Tagalog is your first language, it is pretty hard to speak in straight English for a good fifteen minutes or so. It is inevitable that a Tagalog word may slip out of your mouth. When those instances occur, keep the Tagalog words at bay with all your might. Swallow them as you feel them coming out. Then continue as if nothing happened. If the worst happened and the Tagalog word did escape, carry on as well as if nothing happened. Pray to Jesus that the interviewer did not hear it.

READ: 5 Call Center Interview Questions And Answers For Fresh graduates in the Philippines

Nervousness

It is vital for you not to be nervous when being interviewed. Nervousness would usually be common among those applicants who are dreading the outcome of the job interview because they would have to report to somebody (at home) of the results. If you don't have somebody at home waiting for the outcome of your job interview, then it is very possible to combat your nervousness. Just think that nobody ever needs to know that you failed. You can also keep this thought in mind when the butterflies set in: there are many call centers out there.