Phone Interviews: Personal Feedback and Strategies for the Future

Just today, I finished my second phone interview ( a pre-screen interview I think) with a tech company. My first was with Google and the second was with Laserfiche. I wanted to take the time to talk about the two phone interviews, how important they are and how I thought they went. Then, I'll try to talk about strategies for doing your best on these phone interviews.

Firstly, phone interviews are so important that you have to take them as if they were real in-person interviews. Especially during this time, companies have too many job applications and they have to filter through them somehow - one of these ways is through a pre-screen phone interview to determine things like technical knowledge, communication and the ability to communicate difficult technical concepts, and basically whether the candidate has the right qualifications and values - all this leads up to, most likely, an actual in-person interview. It suffices to say that if you do not perform well during your phone interview, you will not proceed to the next step in the process.

Google Phone Interview:

First, some feedback on my Google phone interview. I certainly won't reveal the questions they asked me but I will say that this phone interview was the most technical I've had in a while (even including all my in-person interviews with other tech companies). Depending on what position you are interviewing for, you will have to know your stuff inside and out. I certainly did a lot of research on how to prepare for phone interviews, and almost all of them mention that you should practice speaking on the phone, whether it be on your voice mail or with a friend quizzing you.

To prepare for my phone interview, I wrote down some questions that I thought the Google recruiter might ask me and then some sample answers as well. I then tweaked a lot of those answers so that they were focused, talked about my qualifications and how they matched with the job position's needs. I also wrote down questions that I thought would be good to ask Google. What makes Google tick? Well, I didn't ask that but I certainly gained a bit of insight as to what it would be like to work at Google.

Laserfiche Phone Interview

The Laserfiche phone interview focused very much on behavioral questions. Again, out of respect for the company, I will not divulge specific questions, but my recruiter asked me a lot of questions about who I was, why I made the choices that I did, and also a few questions about why I would want to work for Laserfiche and what values were important to me.

Again, to prepare for the Laserfiche phone interview, I thought of and provided sample answers to some of the questions that I thought they would ask. For both phone interviews, I did some research on the company, its products and thought a bit about what the direction would be like in the future. Again, I also wrote down some questions that I thought would be good to ask and I had a really pleasant conversation with the recruiter (we started talking about how I participated in Toastmasters and how she was involved in public speaking).

General Strategies for Phone Interviews:

Probably the most important thing is to get a good night's rest before the phone interview. If you need things like your resume or a note pad, set everything up on a desk where your phone is and make sure you know when exactly your recruiter will be calling (be aware of time differences!).

The next most important thing is to take your time to collect your thoughts before giving your answer. I was quite nervous during my phone interview with Google and it certainly came across as I rushed to orate my answers, but I tried to calm down as the interview progressed and I tried to think about my answers before trying to communicate them to my recruiter (it also helps that the problems were quite difficult and I needed time to think about them :P).

In regards to the above point, you should do a lot of research about the company, its products as well as its competitors (you never know what can come up in a conversation). You should also figure out if you need to brush up on anything (ie. from a technical standpoint, if the position is a development position in Java and you haven't programmed in Java for a while, you should really read up on documentation). I certainly feel a bit nervous but I'm actively trying to make an effort to read through documentation on programming languages as well as trying to find projects to implement so that I have a chance to practice.

When you do a lot of research, you'll inevitably have great questions to ask the recruiter - this will help to show that you did research and also show that you are very much interested in what the company does.

The other thing that I find is if you do get into long discussions, the discussion will a lot of the time focus on what you said earlier in the conversation (for example, if you mention that you have had great ideas at your previous workplace, your recruiter may ask you for an example). Make sure you have something in mind when you mention something very general or abstract - it helps to transition from one point to another without missing a beat because your thoughts and communication skills will seem very strong.

Well, that's all I can think of for now - hope you get to the next step in the interview process !