Foo - stupid phone interviews... grrrrr

SO i just had a phone interview for a job i wouldnt mind getting, but why a phone interview?! Their office is only about 3 kilometers from my house.

On top of that, the interview was at 8.15pm That means the people interviewing me were probably at work for 12 hours. Civil Servants dont like working for any more than 6 hours, so they probably werent the happiest campers in the world.

I get called back next week so hopefully i get a second interview in person.

I had 2 phone interviews, then suddenly I got called in for an interview. It looks like it's turning into something else.

I'm cool with a phon interview. I don't have to get up or do any hygiene. Works for me. :beer: :D

Koffee

Stupid thing is that the phone interview was all HR type questions (describe a situation where....) to weed people out. You think that they would ask the technical questions first to weed the people that dont have a clue about the job first.

Even though the office is not far away, its a quick way of weeding out the wrong candidates and saving money.

A 1 hour phone interview costs the organization the pay of one person for one hour. If they bring you in, you have to be "taken care of" by HR, and usually carted around for about 1/2 day minimum to 4 or 5 different people for 45min - 1 hour each.

That's a LOT more expense if you aren't even "close" to the right candidate.


That being said...I hate phone interviews too. I've had quite a few in the last year or two. I hate when they ask time consuming technical questions. The rule in an interview is to let them see you are "thinking it through"...so you explain parts your doing next, what you are thinking (e.g. think out loud), but that's difficult to do on a phone interview. It ends up just being minutes of silence (or close to silence) for them and you are feeling like you are bombing because they are just hearing "dead air" even though you may be easily working the problem successfully.

Every job I've had in the past 3 years was a result of applying by email, a company being impressed, calling me up and saying "Hi, still want that job... perfect, work starts monday at 7." I haven't done a job interview since I had a job at a bike shop 6 years ago.

I use telephone interviews to see if the person is a good candidate to bring in for peer interview. I get a lot of information on work history and clinical experience (this would be for a healthcare profession) on the resume. From the tele interview, I want to get a feel for the candidate, hear from them what their expectations are, review the job and see if basic criteria are met. I will then bring in the top 2 or 3 candidates for peer interview. That system seems to work for me. It does save my staff a lot of time, if they only have to sit in on 2 or 3 interviews and I can do the tele work at the end of the day, or early evening from home.

There was three people in the room asking me questions.. Director of HR, Director of Engineering, and Executive Director of Engineering. Seems overkill for a 15 minute phone interview!

ewww...yea, that sounds a bit wacky. No, I don't handle my tele interviews that way at all. the group/peer interviews happen live and in person and only if the candidate is a good one. I can imagine that the whole thing felt a bit awkward, eh?

There was three people in the room asking me questions.. Director of HR, Director of Engineering, and Executive Director of Engineering. Seems overkill for a 15 minute phone interview!
Well....that does sound a bit rough, but at least its only 15 minutes. The phone interviews I've had were major technical difficult and dragged on for an hour or more. Many times they would end with a "do this problem (always a code problem) and email it to me...I wouldn't expect it to take more than an hour, so I should see the email by X:00 pm in my email - goodbye".

I find the phone interview a little awkward but I still prefer the to the 5-7 on 1 peer interviews I have done... it gets hard making eye contact with the person asking the question when they ask out of order.

Well, got a second interview. An hour and a half, face to face, with the same 3 people.

i've only had one phone interview and it went okay, although i wasn't entirely comfortable. but then again, i'm not 100% comfortable during interviews anyway. although if you do them enough, it really does get easier.

Well, got a second interview. An hour and a half, face to face, with the same 3 people.
congrats on the second interview! great job! let us know how it all works out.