How NOT to job hunt

Kate Lorenz

This morning on the bus I couldn't help but notice the woman across from me as she made a phone call. (Cell phone chatter on the bus is just one of my personal pet peeves.) But just seconds after she started talking, I realized she was having a job interview.

I was dumbfounded. Despite how desperate job seekers claim to be, they still make the simplest job search mistakes. One of the golden rules of job search: Find a quiet place to do a phone interview

So when I got to work and saw the headline "Jobseekers interview while using toilet" in my inbox, I just had to click.

Turns out a firm in the UK just conducted a study related to telephone interviews. The study revealed "shocking levels of complacency among candidates during telephone interviews." Hiring managers reported interviewees:

• Being clearly drunk on the telephone at the time of the interview;
• Using the toilet;
• Having a bath;
• Eating while on the phone;
• Outside walking their dog;
• Arguing with a family member
• Being pulled over by the police for being on the phone while driving.

Remember: Even though they can't see you, they can still hear you. Avoidable mistakes can cause immediate rejection by some recruiters: 40% cited if a candidate was clearly doing something else while on the phone, 33% cited not preparing for the interview properly, and 19% cited poor telephone manners.

Are you guilty of one of these? Was it ever unavoidable? How did you handle it?

This article has been reproduced with permission from CareerBuilder. For more articles, check out The Work Buzz.