What can one expect from a telephone interview?

[thawolfman]

Got one on Monday @ noon.

Any ideas as to what to expect? Kinda weird, but whatever...

Anyone work for these guys: http://www.hewitt.com ?

-Ben-

 

[Sideswipe001]

I had one. Just basic questions about your interests and experience. Think of it as someone sitting with your resume asking more specific questions.

 

[minendo]

I've had three telephone interviews. All three of which resulted in onsite interviews. One of which resulted in an offer.

The one that resulted in an offer was the one I wanted.

 

[thawolfman]

Originally posted by: minendo
I've had three telephone interviews. All three of which resulted in onsite interviews. One of which resulted in an offer.

The one that resulted in an offer was the one I wanted.

Hotness! :beer:

Edit: But it still doesn't answer my question

 

[amish]

i just had one a week and a half ago. it was a situational interview. if it is one of those be prepared for some difficult questions about situations that you have hopefully been in.

 

[minendo]

Originally posted by: thawolfman

Originally posted by: minendo
I've had three telephone interviews. All three of which resulted in onsite interviews. One of which resulted in an offer.

The one that resulted in an offer was the one I wanted.

Hotness! :beer:

Edit: But it still doesn't answer my question

It really depends on the company and their screening process. Expect questions relating to team work as well as knowing about the company. Additonally, be ready to answer why you are a good candidate for the position.

Most importantly have questions for the interviewer(s).

 

[Savij]

You've got an advantage on phone interviews: You can make notes on your projects and school work. Make sure to include decisions that had to be made, coworker and partner conflicts, how you handled difficult situations and deadlines. Write down questions you want to ask the company "What will a typical day in this position be like?" "What groups of people am i going to have to interact with, customers, mangers, sales people?"

 

[T2T III]

Originally posted by: Savij
You've got an advantage on phone interviews: You can make notes on your projects and school work. Make sure to include decisions that had to be made, coworker and partner conflicts, how you handled difficult situations and deadlines. Write down questions you want to ask the company "What will a typical day in this position be like?" "What groups of people am i going to have to interact with, customers, mangers, sales people?"

That's right. Also, I'd suggest keeping a copy of the resumé out during the interview in the event they heavily ask you questions based on that piece of paper. It'll be easier to respond to certain questions if the dates are in front of you.

 

[minendo]

Originally posted by: Tiles2Tech

Originally posted by: Savij
You've got an advantage on phone interviews: You can make notes on your projects and school work. Make sure to include decisions that had to be made, coworker and partner conflicts, how you handled difficult situations and deadlines. Write down questions you want to ask the company "What will a typical day in this position be like?" "What groups of people am i going to have to interact with, customers, mangers, sales people?"

That's right. Also, I'd suggest keeping a copy of the resumé out during the interview in the event they heavily ask you questions based on that piece of paper. It'll be easier to respond to certain questions if the dates are in front of you.

Excellent point. Keep your resume handy.

 

[cyclistca]

It's like a normal one except you get to do it in your underwear. :Q

 

[Drakkon]

If its a one on one interview just be prepared for it to be more casual than anything else. I hate when people get all uptight on the phone with me, cause all im going to ask is just the basics, why would you want to work here, what have you heard about us, what do you see yourself doing for us, hows the waether there, how about them dbacks (nobody best be talkin negative bout my dbacks)

If its a group interview where your on a speakerphone to their reps try to establish your own speaker connection yourself. With them all asking questions you'll want to be taking notes on who asked what and try and respond to them as personally as possible and having hands free when talking to many is a definate plus.

 

[thawolfman]

Originally posted by: cyclistca
It's like a normal one except you get to do it in your underwear. :Q

Or even naked :Q



Edit @ Drakkon: I believe it's just a one on one interview. I spoke with her for about 10 minutes just a little while ago, and it seemed to be very laid back. She asked me some simple stuff like gpa, how far's the commute, is that a problem, and the position starts on 10/11...would that be a problem?

Thought that last one was kinda interesting...

Anyways, she seemed cool so hopefully it'll go good on Monday.

Thanks for the advice so far guys!

 

[T2T III]

Originally posted by: cyclistca
It's like a normal one except you get to do it in your underwear. :Q

Yup, and you can also drink a beer to calm your nerves, too. :Q

 

[thawolfman]

Late night bumpage...

What kind of questions should I ask?

Should I inquire about salary, or let them bring it up?

 

[paulney]

The following applies strictly to soft. eng. interviews, I don't know about other areas.

When I do a phone interview, I usually have a list of questions that effectively weeds out deadbeats based on whatever position we are hiring. The list is typically designed by the whole team, where everyone contributes from his domain expertise with an emphasis on the future candiadte's job role. So, I wouldn't ask questions about your education or your work atittude - that's going to come into light when you personally come for a face-to-face interview. That's the right time to ask salary questions, etc.

Whether or not the candidate is acing questions, I ask courtesy quesiton: 'Do you have any qestions for me?' Typically people either have none or ask smth about when they will be contacted. If you don't have any questions - that's fine. After all, it's just a screening to save the team's time.

 

[thawolfman]

This is the position that I'll be interviewing for (the top one.)

Is it a good idea to use my education to explain past experiences in certain scenarios, etc? I'm pretty limited when it comes to the experience that some of these jobs "require", so I was wondering if responding to questions based on how I acted/reacted in groups is ok?

 

[benliong]

Originally posted by: paulney
The following applies strictly to soft. eng. interviews, I don't know about other areas.

When I do a phone interview, I usually have a list of questions that effectively weeds out deadbeats based on whatever position we are hiring. The list is typically designed by the whole team, where everyone contributes from his domain expertise with an emphasis on the future candiadte's job role. So, I wouldn't ask questions about your education or your work atittude - that's going to come into light when you personally come for a face-to-face interview. That's the right time to ask salary questions, etc.

Whether or not the candidate is acing questions, I ask courtesy quesiton: 'Do you have any qestions for me?' Typically people either have none or ask smth about when they will be contacted. If you don't have any questions - that's fine. After all, it's just a screening to save the team's time.

Hey Paulney, can you give us some example of what kind of questions you ask to screen people out?

Just out of curiosity.

 

[thawolfman]

^

 

[Gibson486]

They are gonna ask you questions about your experiences. Be prepared for "So, tell me about your self".

 

[thawolfman]

Yeah, she asked a lot of situational questions. Thankfully I was able to use experiences from my classes to answer these questions.

Seemed to go alright, but I do admit I was a little bit shaky. Not expecting a call back, but I wouldn't count myself out completely.

 

[paulney]

Originally posted by: benliong

Hey Paulney, can you give us some example of what kind of questions you ask to screen people out?

Just out of curiosity.

Since I'm now working in C++ shop with emphasis on network, the questions are liek this:

C++
- When and why would you use virtual destructors?
- You have a crashing program but it doesn't hit main() in the debugger. What's happening?

Threading / synchronization
- What are deadlocks, races and thread starvation? (extra credit What is priority inversion?)
- What is the difference between a thread and a process? (For win32 people - What's the difference between a critical section and a mutex? Why would you use one over the other?)

Sockets / TCP
- What i/o functions does a TCP/IP server program make and in what order?
- What are TCP and UDP and what features do they provide over plain IP?

Scalability concerns
- What is refcounting and why do you use it?
- List some things to avoid when writing highly scalable servers
- memory allocation / deallocation. Which is worse allocation or deallocation?
- context switching
- locality of reference
- blocking i/o
- memory copies