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How are the questions in a phone interview different from the in-person interview?  At my company we always do phone interviews first.  This is usually done by HR, but sometimes done by the hiring manager.  When I (as the hiring manager) have done the phone screening, I have used most of my questions then.  In the in-person interivew then we are either rehashing stuff already covered or have little to talk about.  I imagine this problem is less of an issue for exectuive or more senior candidates? 

How do other people handle this?  Any recommendations? 

FYI.  I am a engineering manager and hire entry level to senior level engineers, but all as individual contributors and team leads, but not managers. 

bug_girl's picture

I am always surprised at how often people do not seem to take phone interviews seriously. I have had candidates that were at the top of my list that just plummeted after a phone interview.

I usually ask the same types of questions over the phone as I do in an on-site interview--behavioral questions, plus some general background questions.  I ask more soft-skill type questions over the phone (dealing with conflict, etc), since they can be useful for a screen. Especially if someone is not giving it 100% of their attention, or like, totally, you know, like, has some, like, communication issues, when they are, like, under stress. ;p

On site, we ask more technical questions, or more scenario based questions.