Telephone interview tips (1 Viewer)

[Arizona Ron]

I had a phone interview yesterday. I think AZR nailed it. We went through lots of short work stories, enough details to show my skill set, but not enough to bore.

I walked around a lot and was fairly animated - I don't think I could convey the same energy level sitting down.

Be prepared to have the interview go long - I was thinking 30 minutes and we went 1.5 hours.

yes and yes. Be the show if you can. Keep in mind the person doing the interview is most likely inconvenienced by the entire process. If they're on operations/functional side the business, they'll have to report to their managers or HR about: "how did it go?". If that person's response is "it went good, he knows the job" - it's a check mark in the plus box on that call.

 

[Notorious T.R.E.]

DD> Conference me in as your hype man.

 

[Dan Lambskin]

How about one really long story?

Shark move might be to break up one really long story over six questions, gently segueing and picking up where you had left off in the previous question. That would demonstrate good attention to detail IMO.

Tell them the one about the whores in Africa

 

[Dan Lambskin]

found it

50k So I was in Africa about ten years ago and as you can imagine, pretty much anything goes there. Gas stations consisted of benzine in a glass bottle, kids would fight like jackals over a snickers you just gave them and I have actually seen a chick fill a pot hole in town with a healthy poop in the middle of the day. I was there with the Air Force and there are a lot of rules governing behavior, dealing with the population and things that could hurt the credibility of the mission. So we were in Northern Cameroon near the Tchad, Nigeria and Central African Republic borders, the outer edges of the Sahara. We were staying in a pretty decent hotel for the mission which was to deliver and administer various medical treatments to villages all over this wasteland. Pretty cool, people walked 50 miles to come get a tooth pulled! So General Order #1 was absolutely, under no circumstances...were we to have the secks with any local chicks. Reason? Estimated Aids rates in the local area were 30% to 60%!!! Problem was when we'd get back to the hotel each night there were 15-20 scantily dressed African women, fully browned and delicious. Anyway, they were all hookers. So they had to remove them every night after complaints from the command staff but they kept coming back. So I wasn't going to let a good opportunity pass me by so I asked one of the girls what their rates were. I was referred to a man in a felt hat (Even if it wasn't felt I wanted it to be, so it was) who tried to tell me it was $100 for an hour. I said nothing turned and walked away. So the guy chased me down and almost tackled me. He said $50? I said $10? He said $40? I said $10. He said no, I left. So I told this story to some weird guy we were out there with (he was an inoculation specialist or something) and he said he had never had a black woman. I told them he would be taking a big chance even with latex and he said he had other ideas. So the next day I went back to the Felt Hat and began what was to be an hour of intense negotiations. I said I would not pay $40 for one, but would pay $40 for three. His starting point for three was $150 which I told him made no sense if he was giving me one for $40. When we finally settled on a price we had to start all over again because he wanted to pick the girls, some cost more than others apparently which I thought he was making up on the spot (Nigerian guy). So finally we settled on three girls of my choice for $65. Now the guy that wanted one had already given me $40 plus a $20 "finders fee" which allowed me two girls for $5. But I wasn't crazy enough to do anything with chicks that might have Aids-ridden ######s, so I took all three girls to the hotel manager's office where we had access to a cot and the twot. Went to get the guy and brought him down to see the girls but did not tell him there were three. When he got there he said, "so which one do I get?" I said, "all three, two on me buddy." I told him I needed to see all the girls naked to make sure they met his high standards first so I had all three strip down and then felt sick I wasn't able to do anything. He assured me all he was getting was a handy and whatever else, but no penetration (I didn't care, I did it for the comedy and the borderline criminal aspects). Left the guy and the girls, went about my business and then to my room (we were staying three to a room IIRC). About two hours later I heard a knock on the door next door and heard, "sir, we have a problem!" The vice commander was next door, he went with the MP to investigate. Apparently the guy I got the girls for not only had intercourse with them but also left his DNA in one of the girls on purpose, which the girl didn't agree to nor particularly care for. So a huge fight broke out and the girls took the guy's cloths and locked him in the office. The MPs heard the ruckus and responded and when they got there they saw a naked Airman on top of the guy with the felt hat, rolling around on the floor with a couple of homeless dogs. The girls were screaming, a crowd formed and some bystanders (possibly gangsters) had even brandished a weapon. MPs broke it up and they did interviews and all of that. I was ####ed, no way this dude was going to leave me out of this I thought...I was gonna be sent home in disgrace for arranging a prostitution ring. So that night, nothing. Next day, nothing. No one came to talk to me. A few days later I finally saw the guy and he just smiled, nothing was said. They sent him home that day but he allegedly told the MPs a story of deceit and betrayal, a heinous crime was committed against him. He said that the guy in the felt hat wanted his seed and the three girls were the man's daughters. At knife point he was to impregnate all three, or die. Stranger things have happened in Africa... Not sure if he ever got the Aids. :dropsmicwalksoffstage:

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

Write down each question they ask you and use a stop watch to time your responses, no answer should be more than 3-5 minute.

Study the company, job description and your resume. Come up with a handful of questions you would ask if you were conducting the interview and write out the answers. Don't read off the answers verbatim if they ask one of the same ones but use your written out answers as a guide.

Ask them to describe the most significant project or accomplishment that the team you would be joining had over the past 12 months.

Ask them which is most important to them when reviewing their staff: loyalty, creativity,

teamwork, results

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Just get a friend who's really good at phone conversations to do it. How will they know the difference?

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Just get a friend who's really good at phone conversations to do it. How will they know the difference?

Well it's a specialized field and they might not know the answers.

I guess I could do the Newman behind the bookshelf feeding Kramer the poetry angle.

 

[flapgreen]

Breathe heavily into the phone before every word

 

[xulf]

Breathe heavily into the phone before every word

It moved.

 

[Nugget]

I have an interview on Friday with an outfit in Kansas City. I hate phone interviews not because I don't do well, but because you lose any chance to really connect with the interviewer/panel. Plus I'd imagine they have some local knobs coming in to interview in person, so you have to know these out of the park.

Comedy encouraged in here, but a few tips would be helpful also.

Update?

 

[jon_mx]

Write down each question they ask you and use a stop watch to time your responses, no answer should be more than 3-5 minute.

Study the company, job description and your resume. Come up with a handful of questions you would ask if you were conducting the interview and write out the answers. Don't read off the answers verbatim if they ask one of the same ones but use your written out answers as a guide.

Ask them to describe the most significant project or accomplishment that the team you would be joining had over the past 12 months.

Ask them which is most important to them when reviewing their staff: loyalty, creativity,

teamwork, results

I am not sure about a stop watch, but short and to the point is key. You have to assume they will be interviewing multiple people and you don't want to be the one who rambles on and on while they are just listening hoping you will stop soon.

 

[TheIronSheik]

Call the interviewer "Craig" no matter what their actual name is.

 

[msommer]

Call the interviewer "Craig" no matter what their actual name is.

Whatever happened with Craig?

 

[TheIronSheik]

Call the interviewer "Craig" no matter what their actual name is.

Whatever happened with Craig?

The job was not ideal. As much as I wanted to take it, I just didn't love it. So I figured I'd stay here until the perfect job comes along. Or at least something that I think is a better fit than my current position.

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Update?

Thanks for asking.

I think it went well. They told me up front it was going to be approximately 60 minutes with 12 questions, nice work-related and three hypothetical. I figured out right away that none of them were in my field, these would essentially be my peers as fellow department heads. In fact, I'm not even sure they knew exactly what I'd be doing, they just wanted someone in that position that they know could help them meet their end of the business cycle. I would say they were all over 50, the guy and one of the women were cool. The other woman was more serious but she opened up some toward the end.

I think of the 12 questions I did very well on ten, talked in circles on the other two. I will say that about halfway through I dropped the robotic and procedural answers and opened up, so the second half of the interview was strong. I said. "that's a very good question" on two of them and I killed both those I think. I knew what their main focus was also, and I kept hitting that. It paid off too because I had already answered some of the later questions with my answers to questions earlier in the session.

I walked around as suggested and offered a lot of short stories and examples. On one of the questions I think I misunderstood the scope of the question, but covered all basis just to make sure. That's one of the questions I seemed to talk forever on, but looking back it probably wasn't more than four minutes or so.

At the end I asked two questions and after I asked the first the guy said, "well you've commented on a couple of our questions being really good, well this one is too...." I had them all laughing and it was a good banter session at the end. I was once told by someone to tell them that you really want this job, make it known and repeat whenever possible. I think this was important to these people, and I think they want someone from outside the organization for the job. I don't think they have anyone pegged from the inside based on what I heard, which is big.

They also went out of their way to tell me what the process was and how long it would take to hire someone. I think they had interviewed two of the four others before me, and two more today. Monday interviews are not preferred IMO, I left them with a good vibe going into the weekend which I think is helpful. Not sure I'll get it or whether I'll even take it if I do, but I think I did pretty well. I would imagine they will have me out for a face to face if they decide I'm their guy.

Anyway thanks for the inputs, serious or otherwise. This thread was helpful.

 

[Arizona Ron]

Good stuff man, sounds like it's working out.

 

[Notorious T.R.E.]

Excited for road trips to see DD! Let's get it!

 

[WainiacS]

Obviously Late:

1st: Google 'behavioral interview questions' Answer 10 - 20 on a sheet a paper. This is your rough draft to your stories and helps you plug in right away.

2nd: Do not sit while talking.

Sounds like you did well! :fingerscrossed:

 

[Doctor Detroit]

Obviously Late:

1st: Google 'behavioral interview questions' Answer 10 - 20 on a sheet a paper. This is your rough draft to your stories and helps you plug in right away.

2nd: Do not sit while talking.

Sounds like you did well! :fingerscrossed:

I looked at the job announcement and highlighted the four major areas of the requirements and then made a matrix. So I had a topic header then below it I had specific examples I wanted to use for those answers. For me I'm a visual person so having things there to reference was key, this is the one advantage for me personally of phone over in-person interviews.

I basically had seven of the 12 questions answered in the end, although I didn't use a few of the examples I had scribbled down. There just isn't much time, you are either talking or listening intently as they ask a question. I wrote the questions they asked down in shorthand, and asked them to repeat two of the two-part questions they asked.

 

[Doctor Detroit]

I suspect I got the Kansas City job but I think there is a hold up in the funding for the position which makes me uneasy. I did another phone interview last week that went horribly, I was asking myself at one point if I KNEW what I was saying?

Today I did an in-person interview, and it was the strangest interview I've ever had. It started off with the typical questions and then the guy who told me at the beginning of the interview, "I'm not here" chimed in saying how challenging the job would be. From that point forward it was basically a rundown of how screwed up the directorate I would take over is, how the employees are unmotivated and how the person taking the job would have to spend months just dealing with personality issues. So for the next 45 minutes that's all we talked about with an occasional question about specific skill sets I have. There was laughing, joking, and it was completely relaxed. This is a job with an agency I can't mention interviewing for!

At the end they asked if my references were up to date and both gave me their card. It was chaos, never been involved in anything like it. Seems like I have a great shot at getting it, but I'm not sure I would even want it. Almost complete autonomy though and it's more money.

 

[Notorious T.R.E.]

I want you to have it for the cornholes. That should be enough.

 

[Tick]

Dogs barking in the background is always a plus.

Your text is small.

I walk around during phone interviews.

I've always found the STAR method best from both sides - as an interviewer and as a candidate. Even if they aren't asking questions in this format, I answer this way. It kills. http://careerservices.wayne.edu/behavioralinterviewinfo.pdf

 

[msommer]

I suspect I got the Kansas City job but I think there is a hold up in the funding for the position which makes me uneasy. I did another phone interview last week that went horribly, I was asking myself at one point if I KNEW what I was saying?

Today I did an in-person interview, and it was the strangest interview I've ever had. It started off with the typical questions and then the guy who told me at the beginning of the interview, "I'm not here" chimed in saying how challenging the job would be. From that point forward it was basically a rundown of how screwed up the directorate I would take over is, how the employees are unmotivated and how the person taking the job would have to spend months just dealing with personality issues. So for the next 45 minutes that's all we talked about with an occasional question about specific skill sets I have. There was laughing, joking, and it was completely relaxed. This is a job with an agency I can't mention interviewing for!

At the end they asked if my references were up to date and both gave me their card. It was chaos, never been involved in anything like it. Seems like I have a great shot at getting it, but I'm not sure I would even want it. Almost complete autonomy though and it's more money.

GL, and whip 'em into shape!

 

[Nugget]

I suspect I got the Kansas City job but I think there is a hold up in the funding for the position which makes me uneasy. I did another phone interview last week that went horribly, I was asking myself at one point if I KNEW what I was saying?

Today I did an in-person interview, and it was the strangest interview I've ever had. It started off with the typical questions and then the guy who told me at the beginning of the interview, "I'm not here" chimed in saying how challenging the job would be. From that point forward it was basically a rundown of how screwed up the directorate I would take over is, how the employees are unmotivated and how the person taking the job would have to spend months just dealing with personality issues. So for the next 45 minutes that's all we talked about with an occasional question about specific skill sets I have. There was laughing, joking, and it was completely relaxed. This is a job with an agency I can't mention interviewing for!

At the end they asked if my references were up to date and both gave me their card. It was chaos, never been involved in anything like it. Seems like I have a great shot at getting it, but I'm not sure I would even want it. Almost complete autonomy though and it's more money.

Additional update?

 

[fantasycurse42]

This is a righty call (assuming you're a righty).

Def going to want to go righty... Never go leftie on this type of call.

ETA:

You should flip the #### during the interview... First he's up here and you're down here, but then you start asking the questions and flip #### around. Flip it on him.