Legal Blog

By the time you come face to face with potential hires, you’ve already reviewed their resumes and maybe even finished conducting interviews by phone.

But the in-person interview is pivotal. It’s when you separate the wheat from the chaff, or the good hires from the not-so-good hires. This is crucial because hiring someone who doesn’t work out can cost your business in a number of ways.

Before he became famous for “The Simpsons,” cartoonist Matt Groening penned a comic strip called “Life in Hell.” His delightfully subversive cartoon often took aim at the conformity-enforcing, creativity-squashing corporate life of the 1980s and ’90s.

Sure, we now live and work in an era of typo-ridden texts and tweets, but that’s no excuse to submit a sloppy resume. In fact, being careless with your application materials can still prove costly.

Phone interviews are common for first-round screening of job candidates. They allow an employer to quickly get a feel for who you are and how you communicate.

Since a phone call will likely be your first chance to make a killer impression, you have to take it seriously and do the prep work. Here’s how:

Creativity is generally a good attribute for a job candidate to possess. That being said, don’t get creative with your job title when writing your resume or cover letter.