Here’s some food for thought; Have you ever thought about how good your phone manner is, and more importantly how to spell your name in phonetics?!
My name in Phonetics ~ This post-it sat next to my phone for a while.
I have been told that what gave me the edge in securing my work placement was my phone manner. I could have spent weeks analysing the reason I secured a placement, admittedly the skill/quality I would have picked on first would not have been phone manner. I think it is important that you’re confident over the phone. I was lucky to have spent 5 weeks cold-calling organisations via my Bradford Summer Experience before I started my placement at DH.I know you’ve probably heard this many times, but the jobs market is so competitive today. I just googled “Tough Job Market” and saw tons and tons of stuff! So, what tips can I give you on securing a placement/summer internship? I think apart from stating the obvious/general skills, such as good communication, team work etc, I’d like to be more specific about communication and say that having an excellent phone manner also goes a very long way!
I remember my first day of working at DH, I remember ringing the IT Helpdesk It was really quiet and felt like everybody was listening to me and I was so nervous that I couldn’t speak loudly enough. So I ended up repeating my name several times “Hi, my name is Numrah” “Mumrah?” No “NuM” M for …“Man? “Nan, so you mean Nunrah?” Out of all the words beginning with M, I chose “Man”.I could have chosen Monday, Mike, Mother. I’m sure that my phone manner wasn’t coming across in the greatest of light at this point – and now that I know this was the reason I was chosen for the job..! To make the experience worse than it was, I hung up, took a deep breath, re-opened my eyes and forgot everything that the man on the phone had just said. It was only 9.30am; the day didn’t start too great!!
So here are my top tips:1) always know how to spell your name in phonetics (here’s a little something to help you with that), 2) take your time, be clear with what you are saying and ask the receiver to repeat what they are saying if anything is unclear. Finally, 3)if you’re feeling extra chatty, and a couple of months into placement, feel free to divulge in conversation how good/bad the weather is!
Hope you’ve enjoyed my embarrassing story and find it handy to know your own name in phonetics.
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