How to Start a Phone Interview as the Interviewer

The interview is a sensitive point in the hiring process. It can be the outright determining factor for successful recruitment. According to career plug, 58% of job seekers reported declining an offer due to a poor candidate experience. That’s why you need to start a phone interview as the interviewer and come armed with the right questions.

So, before we even begin interviewing candidates, we need to ensure that we’re prepared. In terms of one-way interviews, that means you need to understand who your ideal candidate is. What are their skills and experience? How will they fit into the role? Are they a dedicated specialist or a generalist? Answering all of these questions beforehand will give you a roadmap to choosing the right screening questions.

We cannot stress enough how integral your choice of questions will be. A phone interview is a non-visual medium, and that means you’ll need to be clear and concise in the interview for the best results.

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Of course, choosing the right phone interview questions is easier said than done. You need to choose a set of questions that you can standardize; that can be applied to every candidate without bias. To this end, utilize one-way phone interviews. This asynchronous interview format helps mitigate bias and makes interview standardization as easy as recording a single interview. Every candidate will receive the same interview, which will be ideally tailored to include everyone who may apply.

Questions to Ask in an Interview as an Employer

The questions you ask in an interview as an employer need careful selection. One-way interviews require your questions to be short, to the point, and ideally open-ended. Simple yes-nos will yield very little results and waste both your and the candidate’s time. As such, we’ve compiled a short list of solid questions to ask candidates in a one-way interview.

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• Tell me about yourself. - This is an excellent open-ended question to start a one-way interview. Its purpose is twofold. On one hand, it is an easy question to open the interview with to help the candidate relax. On the other, the information the candidate provides in this context will speak to their personality.
  
  
• What do you know about our company? - Another open-ended question, this one ensures that the candidate is familiar with what your company does and knows what to expect from working for you. It is also an opportunity to mention experience that may be relative to the position.
  
  
• What skills or qualities make you right for this role? - This freeform question provides the candidate an opportunity to sell themselves. They’ll likely discuss the skills they possess, and how they believe they’ll relate to the position.
  
  
• Tell me about a project you’ve worked on where… - A common question, this explores the candidate’s work history. Plus, in the one-way interview format, the candidate has time to consider an answer.

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• How do you define work ethic? - Here, we see a straightforward question that remains open-ended. The candidate’s reply will indicate their general work philosophy and how they may fit into your existing working culture.
  
  
• How would you solve this hypothetical problem? - This question allows candidates to demonstrate their problem-solving skills. However, it is important that the exact phrasing of this question should be short and direct. A complex problem is not ideal for one-way interviews.
  
  
• Tell me about your ideal work environment. - An important part of recruitment is finding the right candidate that not only possesses the right skills but will be comfortable in the workplace. Matching a candidate that will thrive in your environment is vital for both productivity and retention.
  
  
• Where do you see yourself in five years? - As a standard interview question, this works in one-way interviews to quickly assess a candidate’s goals.
  
  
• How do you define a successful project? - Here we see a one-way question suitable for assessing both a candidate’s ambition and work ethic.
  
  
• What attracted you to this position? - This is a simple way for a one-way interview question to evaluate candidate enthusiasm.
  
  
• Have you ever faced a challenge like XYZ and how did you overcome it? - Similar to the hypothetical question, this will allow the candidate to demonstrate both experience and practical problem-solving skills.

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This is only a short list of solid one-way interview questions. As with a live interview, you should tailor your exact questions and phrasing according to your company and industry. Just remember that questions should be short and easily understood. Additionally, take particular care when designing your own questions to avoid bias whenever possible.

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Self-Guided Phone Interview Tips

More businesses are shifting to automated phone screening every day. And this is only practical. These one-way interviews allow recruiters to screen more candidates, improve the candidate experience and mitigate bias in the hiring process. The benefits go on and on, but right now we need to discuss the self-guided phone interview tips you should know to maximize the effectiveness of these interviews.

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Self-guided phone interviews are not as much of a departure from the traditional live interview as you might think. After you pass the initial setup, all that is left is to really design a singular interview for a role. You would go about this in much the same way you'd do a traditional interview with some nuanced differences. Let’s take a look at some simple phone interview tips.

For example, focus on the most important questions and only include the ones you feel are most pertinent to your ideal candidate. These questions should focus on identifying candidates’ soft and hard skills alike. These are the skills that will separate the most qualified candidates from the rest.

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Additionally, you will want to coordinate across your entire hiring team. Self-guided phone interviews are quick and easy to screen. As such, it’s easier for the entire team to collaborate and discuss individual candidates. This not only helps find superior candidates but unifies your hiring team behind what an ideal candidate looks like.

To experience how self-guided phone interviews can change how you screen candidates, check out Qualifi today for a platform that makes self-guided interviews and team collaboration as easy as a few clicks.