Posted: 4/21/2011 9:53:29 AM EDT
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Quick background.
I'm a systems/network admin for a hospital. Medium sized environment, around 200 servers including VMs, 1400 employees. I'm happy where I'm at although I have an hour drive one way, and wasn't looking for a new gig. Few weeks ago a former coworker of mine contacted me about a position they had open up at his new place of work. Cut to the chase. I'm very interested in the job, from what he's described it would be a great opportunity. I have his recommendation helping me, but I've never worked in an environment the size of this place. I'd rather not say the location, but almost 10k servers and over 200k employees. 30 minute technical phone interview next week and I've never done one of these. What should I expect? Any gotchas to look for? Any general advice? |
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Not in IT, but I had a 30-minute phone interview a few months ago.
It ended up being more like a 15-minute interview, but that's not the point. The point is, a phone interview is pretty much like an in-person interview, minus body language cues. That can work to your advantage, if you think about it. Also you can surf the Web while you're stalling for time if they ask a question you can't answer right away. To me, a phone interview seems LESS stressful than an in-person interview. Mine went south in a hurry, but only because they were interviewing for a completely different job than I thought they were trying to fill (classic miscommunication). I was more relaxed than I would be in face-to-face, possibly just because I didn't have to get monkeyed up in an uncomfortable suit or do it on "their" turf. Good luck. YMMV. |
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Quoted:
Not in IT, but I had a 30-minute phone interview a few months ago. It ended up being more like a 15-minute interview, but that's not the point. The point is, a phone interview is pretty much like an in-person interview, minus body language cues. That can work to your advantage, if you think about it. Also you can surf the Web while you're stalling for time if they ask a question you can't answer right away. To me, a phone interview seems LESS stressful than an in-person interview. Mine went south in a hurry, but only because they were interviewing for a completely different job than I thought they were trying to fill (classic miscommunication). I was more relaxed than I would be in face-to-face, possibly just because I didn't have to get monkeyed up in an uncomfortable suit or do it on "their" turf. Good luck. YMMV. Unfortunately I can't surf the net while stalling. I'm not going to do an interview from my work desk which is shared office space. I'm with you on the more relaxed/no suit part though. |
It will really help if you're completely hideous like  ... If not just use your skills, same rules apply over the phone, be open, polite, smile. Only had one phone interview and it was less than 15 mins. It was of course followed by a in person interview which helped ease me since at that time I hadn't had many interviews under my belt. I have a harder time remembering peoples names that i'm talking to on the phone for whatever reason, so i guess it's good to make note of the person's name. You could always keep a note pad with you to write down your questions and how the person talking to you went about their questions. Kind of like a debriefing for yourself once the call is over so that you have an idea of how the next interview might go.
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