Speaking during phone interview is quite the contrary to gabbing about the latest gossip to your BFF during the peak of the night. Not only is your audience taken into consideration, but your tone of voice, stature, and topic of conversation should be compromised.

For those of us entering the introductory stage of the interview process, or overcoming distance by interviewing remotely, a phone interview is tricky competition to an in-person interview. In an in-person interview, you have the privilege of taking advantage of the benefits of face-to-face communication: eye contact; feeding off the interviewer’s body language and gestures; the effortless flow of conversation. Breaking down the barrier of cell phone towers is essential to progressing to stage two. Thankfully, we some quick tips of how to make the most of virtual communication.

1. Walk around

Get off your booty and get pacing! Walking around while on a phone interview provokes you to actively project yourself and use hand gestures, which will make you appear more conversational than you would when simply lounging in the comfort of your cozy comforter.

2. Speak clearly

When we chat on the phone, we can tend to slur our sentences into subconscious mumble. Remember to be cognizant of your voice. The airwaves muffle the clarity of your pitch.

3. Cheat

Take advantage of your ambiguous presence and keep your resume at hand. The fact that you are not in the presence of your interviewer allows you to recite your latest accomplishments and experiences from the comfort of a cheat-sheet. Don’t worry – we won’t tell.

4. Be a loner

Society frowns on acting in the fashion of the popular reclusive term “loner”. But, when interviewing for your dream internship, straying from societal opinion and secluding yourself from the outside world for a half hour is more than acceptable. Being in complete and total isolation during a phone interview allows you to focus 100% on the interview and eliminates any external ruckus that may distract the interviewer.

5. Dress to impress

An outfit is not just an aesthetic; it’s a feeling. Dressing in a pencil skirt and slingbacks provides quite a different feeling than sporting yoga pants and flip flops. Even though there is no one around to “impress”, dress professionally during your phone interview to submerge yourself into a professional mentality and mature ambiance. Hahahahaha