Telephone job interviews are, in the main, viewed by employers as a recruitment cost saving process.
Think about it, to deliver a structured job interview requires time, resources and of course money. It makes much more time to plan for a face to face job interview than it does a telephone one.
With employers receiving hundreds of suitable application forms from high skilled applicants, recruiters need to be able to reduce the number of job seekers they will eventually offer a job interview to.
Initially, the employer will reduce the ‘suitable’ applicants down to a reasonable number through the application process, but as the number of applications received for each position rises, the employer needs to add in a ‘screening’ interview which is designed to result in only the most suitable candidates being offered a face-to-face job interview.
The telephone interview is the most common way to ‘screen’ applicants.
What questions are asked in a telephone interview?
A telephone screening interview is short. Unlike a structured job interview, where each interviewee is asked the same job interview questions, the telephone screening interview is an investigation.
Employers, after reading the job applications from applicants that they feel have the required skills and experiences, still need to reduce the applications to around 6-10 applicants that they will invite to a job interview.
While reviewing the application forms, employers may require specific information to ambiguous statements: “12 years sector experience…” The conscious interviewer will be asking “12 years experience in the same position? company? level of responsibility?”
It is this specific ‘data’ that will be the basis of the screening interview. In this way, each screening telephone interview will be different.
Applicants, even though interview questions are harder to predict can still prepare in advance for the telephone interview.
Below is a list of the types of telephone screening interview questions that will be asked during the telephone job interview.
Telephone Interview Question 1
Can you tell me more about your experience at X?
Telephone Interview Question 2
What were your specific duties?
Telephone Interview Question 3
Tell me about a problem that happened during this (project)?
Telephone Interview Question 4
Explain, exactly, what your level of responsibility was?
Telephone Interview Question 5
How do you put into practice the systems and models you learnt during your degree?
Telephone Interview Question 6
Over your years working in X sector what has been your biggest weakness?
Telephone Interview Question 7
How did you communicate across different departments?
Telephone Interview Question 8
What has made you apply for this role in this organisation?
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