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Job searches require phone lessons for text-happy students

[1]
Lackluster phone skills can be a stumbling block for recent graduates in the job market.

With piles of resumes and cover letters waiting to be sifted through, employers more and more weed out applicants with quick phone calls. That can mean trouble for recent college graduates with overdeveloped texting thumbs.

Teens and college students rely on text messages and eMails as their primary form of communication with friends, making phone calls somewhat of a relic in the college demographic, according to a national survey.

Companies aren’t impressed by timely texts, however, so recent graduates looking for work need to know the finer points of actually speaking to someone, not typing to them, said Lesley Mitler [2], founder and president of Priority Candidates [3], a New York-based company that counsels students in their job searches.

Mitler, whose expertise was in executive job searches before starting Priority Candidates in 2009, said tutoring recent college graduates on the do’s and don’ts of phone interviews has become a central part of her job-hunting process.

Too much filler, not enough annunciation, frequent babbling: these are the definite don’ts of phone interviews, and Mitler often sees the faux pas among out-of-work 20-somethings.

“This is not a generation of people who use the phone as a regular form of communication at all,” she said, adding that almost-exclusive texting and eMailing has “eroded” students’ communication skills. “It’s a skill that they seem to be way behind in, but you’re going to have to talk on the phone if you’re in the business world.”

Mitler tells her clients to avoid cell phones for official interviews – landlines are clearer and less prone to static interruption – and to have their resume and notes in front of them. If a student doesn’t make an impression within the first 10 minutes of the phone call, he or she has likely lost their chance.

In a slumping job market, Mitler said, employers sometimes have thousands of applications for just a few positions. They’re not going to invite every applicant in for a face-to-face interview, so screening phone calls has become the most efficient way to wade through the applicant pool.

“And you don’t have long to impress them,” Mitler said.

Eighteen percent of adults 18-24 years old send more than 200 text messages a day, according to a study released last April by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project [4].

About seven in 10 U.S. teenagers send text messages, up from 51 percent in 2006, according to the Pew research [4]. Teen respondents said texting is the most common form of communication with friends, but phone calls remain the main way to contact their parents.

Adults send and receive 10 texts a day, compared to 50 for the average teenager. Both groups make and receive about five phone calls per day, according to Pew.

The rise of text messages, the Pew study said, hasn’t completely done away with traditional phone calls.

“Overall, adults and teens are just as likely to have used their mobile phone to call someone just to say hello and chat, though adults are a bit more likely to do this more frequently,” the study said.

Keeping in touch without interrupting a person’s class, workday, or social gathering is appealing to college students who carry their smart phones wherever they go.

“I feel very comfortable communicating electronically,” said Katherine Rossi, a senior at The George Washington University’s School of Business. “I find, as many of my peers would agree, that electronic forms of communication are non-invasive or non-disruptive. It’s up to the person you are communicating with to respond when they feel comfortable. Phone calls interject in people’s lives and force them to respond at that specific moment in time. … While electronic communication allows someone time to formulate their response and give a better answer.”

Rossi said her phone skills improved during her college career as she applied for jobs and internships that required a series of over-the-phone back-and-forths.

Talking with business pros was good experience, Rossi said, but it was often difficult “to steer the conversation where you want it to go.”

On the phone with potential employers, she said, college graduates need to “think about their word choice more than they would in a face-to-face interview.”

Mitler agreed. Interviewers aren’t sitting in an empty room void of distractions when they call job candidates – they’re checking eMails on their computers and smart phones, glancing at stacks of resumés, and reading through cover letters.

“You have to assume that you need to get them to focus on you,” she said. “That’s why you have to start strong and grab someone’s attention.”