Last Updated on May 3, 2022 by Brie
I had my first conference call today, so while I am far an experienced conference caller, here are some tips that I really wish someone would have told me before I accepted the call. Now I thought I was ready, I did the whole shebang, I printed out what I was going to say and laid it by my laptop to discreetly look at it while I was talking, in case I got nervous and lost my train of thought. (usually I am a BIG believer in knowing your stuff before you present anything and having no cheat sheet with you, but since the other person couldn’t see the cheat sheet then I figured I could forgo my belief a bit.)
I got to the conference room where I would be making the call from about 10 minutes early to adjust to the tinny room and mentally prepare myself for trying something new like this. I also set up my work space so that I would be ‘prepared for anything’. So, I then awkwardly sat there in the tiny room waiting to see if the other person would come on line. I messaged them through the messenger app and gave them the all clear that I was ready to go a few minutes after the ‘meeting start time’ because I hadn’t heard anything yet. I have no idea the proper etiquette on how to imitate the meeting, so if anyone wants to enlighten my readers with their wisdom in the comments, we would all love it. anyhow once the meeting started up it wasn’t as awkward as I had anticipated. It was actually very interesting to discuss research with someone more experienced and knowledgeable than myself, as well as someone who is from another country. While I think it may have been a little hard for use to understand one another, it was still a valuable experience and something I would do in the future.
Tips:
- Use a good video chatting social media account: I used zoom.us because it was recommended by the professor of my college class to use. You can access a free account here. (not an affiliated link) Anyhow I found this program to be very user friendly, as much so as skype or snapchat video calls, but it had a professional touch to it. Anyway, the most important thing is that all parties involved in the chat have an account with the same social media software for chatting, and that you use a recognized name/email address that will be known by the ‘professional world you are communicating with’. And no, cutebunny189@blahblahblah .com is probably not professional.
- Have what you will say prepped: For my first conference call I had a PowerPoint presentation which I shared on my screen when I was talking about my research project. I also had my cheat sheet (which I don’t usually advocate but for the purpose such as a conference call it would work). I was pretty much ready and knew my topic for this conference call.
- Don’t do the meeting at home: So, for me this was important seeing how I am a single mom. If I were to do the meeting at home with my daughter she would be bouncing all around my computer, begging me to play with her, then throwing a temper tantrum on the floor it really wouldn’t be that professional, and when you are discussing research it is best advised to keep it pretty professional. Don’t worry, your little girl would rather be at the babysitters, having a blast with her friends than sitting quietly through mommy’s conference call.
- Prepare you small talk/discussion: I will honestly say to you guys that I one, wasn’t prepared for small talk, and two didn’t think discussion questions were needed. This lacking on my part made for some very awkward moments which we both had to just laugh off. Granted, that the person I was meeting with, while she had not prepared, discussion questions over our topics either. just come up with three get to know you questions, I say three because that was what I awkwardly scrambled to come up with while we were talking, (you all can now see why I don’t Vlog, thinking and speaking in front of the camera is really not my thing). Prepare three discussion questions over your topic as well.
- Record your meeting: Make sure that this is ok with all parties involved, but if you record your meeting you can always go back and look at the topics that were discussed impromptu, the advice that was given to you about your research, and just anything else that was said, and this way you don’t have to be distracted taking notes (as I was part of the time, learn from my lessons ladies).
***Bonus Tip***
This tip is just something silly and fun I did before I made my first conference call, I turned on the webcam on my computer, before anyone was in the ‘meeting room’, and I took a selfie just to remember the moment and lighten the mood. So, for our selfie culture out there, here’s another selfie to add to your bucket list.