Using the Telephone to Get Interviews (continuation)

3. The strengths and skills statement. The skills section of your JIST Card includes length of experience, training, education, special skills related to the job, and accomplishments. Rewriting the content from this part of your JIST Card for use in your phone script may take some time because your script must sound natural when spoken. You may find it helpful to write and edit this section on a separate piece of paper before writing the final version on your script worksheet. After completing this, you should read the final version out loud to hear how it sounds. You should read it to others and continue to make improvements until it sounds right.

4. The good worker traits and skills statement. Simply take your top adaptive skills, which you pinpointed in chapter 2 and are listed at the end of your JIST Card, and make them into a sentence. For example, "I am reliable and hardworking, and I learn quickly." These are some of the most important skills to mention to an employer, and putting them last gives them the greatest emphasis and may influence the employer to give you an interview.

5. The goal statement. The goal of the phone script is to get an interview. So I suggest that you be direct and use "When can I come in for an interview?" as your goal statement. The reason is that this assertive approach tends to work. If you say, for example, "May I come in for an interview?" (or "Could you please, please, let me come in to talk with you?"), the employer has an opening to say "No." And you don't want to make it easy for the employer to say no. Employers can reject you without your help.

Use the Phone Script Worksheet to write out your final draft, but write rough drafts out on separate sheets of paper until you are satisfied with your script. In writing your phone script, consider the tips that follow:

• Write exactly what you will say on the phone. A written script helps you present yourself effectively and keeps you from stumbling while looking for the right words.

• Keep your telephone script short. Present just the information an employer would want to know about you and ask for an interview. A good phone script can be read out loud in about 30 seconds or less. This is about the same time it takes to read a JIST Card. Short is better!

• Write your script the way you talk. Your JIST Card is a good basis for a phone script, but it uses short sentences and phrases, and you probably don't talk that way. So add some words to your script to make it sound natural when you say it out loud.

• Use the words I use. As you write your phone script, avoid being too creative. Over the years I refined the words provided in the Phone Script Worksheet. In order to avoid specific problems, I suggest you use them as they are presented.

For example, do not write or say, "Good morning, my name is ________" because that will build a bad habit, which you will realize all too late on one overcast afternoon. I have learned the best words to use through years of making mistakes, and there is no need for you to make the same ones. Start my way, and you can change it to your way after you have mastered mine.

• Practice saying your script out loud. I know that your neighbors may think you are nuts, but reading your script out loud and perhaps in front of the mirror etches it into your mind in a way that reading it to yourself cannot do. It has something to do with neural pathways and cognitive retrieval stuff. It also may be something more spiritual, having to do with the way we define ourselves. However, the fact

remains that reading an honestly prepared phone script out loud helps you accept that all the good stuff your phone script says about you is true. Having this information etched into your subconscious also helps you in an interview.