Telephone interview

nachos

Hi,

I've got a telephone interview for a graduate position as a software developer in amazon coming up soon. Problem is, it's telephone interview. I've never done one of these before, so can anyone told me what they're like? Anything different from normal interviews?

I've also been told to expect some coding. Can anyone give me any tips in doing this?

Cheers:)

mp3guy

Make sure no one else in the house tries to make a call while you're being interviewed, or use dial-up for that matter

nachos

mp3guy wrote:

Make sure no one else in the house tries to make a call while you're being interviewed, or use dial-up for that matter

Are ya telling me this from experience;)
I plan on giving them my mobile number (which will be plugged in to charge!)
Plus, I think they'll be calling from the states

johnnyrotten

Wear a nice suit:rolleyes:

homeOwner

nachos wrote:

Anything different from normal interviews?
I've also been told to expect some coding. Can anyone give me any tips in doing this?

I've only ever had one phone interview for a job and they are way more relaxing for the interviewee than a face to face. Make sure you go into a room that is quiet and let the other person finish what they are saying. I am always cutting people off on the phone because I think they have finished a sentence (I hate long pauses) and we both end up talking at the same time.:p

I am guessing that this is a preliminary interview so they can get a basic idea of what you know and either dismiss you as a runner for the job or decide to bring you in for a second face to face interview. So you need to make a good impression.

Over the phone they can only ask you broad technical questions but have a few books open in front of you on topics you want to talk about, but dont let them hear you turning pages!

On the techie side of things since you are a grad they are not expecting you to have any experience, be able to talk about your final year project in detail and talk up your coding abilities and the courses you did in final year.

Good luck - amazon are a good company to get in with. If i had C++ I'd be interviewing with them myself!:D

Khannie

I've interviewed and asked the interviewee to code. We do two tests: One for algorithmic ability, one for language knowledge...mine is the algorithmic test. What I've been looking for is this:

Nice clean code. Specifically a good, well implemented algorithm in a small number of lines of code. You don't need to be anal about keeping lines down. It's far more important that your code is easily understandable by the next person that comes along.
No logic errors.
Comments, but not obvious stuff like "int i = 0; //counter".
Syntax errors don't matter if you're doing it on paper.

If you're even a reasonable coder, relatively fresh out of college, you should have nothing to worry about. All that stuff's fresh(ish) in your head.

Edit: They're not gonna give you an algorithmic test over the phone. They'll just be looking to test your language knowledge (like "what's a virtual method", what's the "friend" keyword for), that kind of stuff.

Civilian_Target

Just had a phone interview there this afternoon - it was pretty horrible.

Its much harder to tell how you did, theres lots of long awkward pauses while they write stuff down at the other end, but you can't see them so you don't know when to continue, etc.

Its substantially more confusing, and it makes you harder to be more personable (making it much more rigid than a regular interview) so the only thing you have to work with is your answers. So you'd better have some fairly good bull**** to hand

Khannie

CT: What kind of questions did they ask you?

(edit: or was it with a different company?)

nachos

Khannie wrote:

CT: What kind of questions did they ask you?

(edit: or was it with a different company?)

I wouldn't mind getting a bit of info either. How long did the interview go on for?
Was there more than one person performing the interview (a conference call).
What kind of things did they ask?

Cheers

OY

I interview for the company i work for and phone interviews are only slightly different from 'real' interviews.

Some tips...

- My biggest pet peeve: answer the phone with 'this is _______' not just 'hello'. I hate it when somebody knows they have an interview scheduled and answers the phone like that because it makes things kind of awkward.

- Typically it will be just like an interview scenario. Same questions apply. What is your strongest characteristic? What is your weakest characteristic? Where do you see yourself in 5 years, Tell me about a time when..., etc.

- I think that the questions they ask will depend on the position. I have no idea what they are looking for. We use the STARs format. Basically we look for a Situation or Task, the Actions taken by you and the Result. Specific examples are what score high so hence we use the 'tell me about a time when...' questions a lot. Think about what the position is and what qualities they will look for? Have you good examples that meet those qualities?

- Be yourself, the main thing that they will be looking for is personality, so just relax and talk.

Civilian_Target

It was for BT. I didn't get the job - and it was purely lack of preparation (why do you want to work for BT? Um, uh....)

But yeah, they asked me "Why do you think BT are great, and why are you good for us" related questions for about 20 mins, and then another 20 mins asking competency-based questions about how I had dealt with things in life, like "take an example of teamwork, what did you do in this team, etc..."

So overall the whole thing lasted for about 45 mins. I was interviewed by some woman who clearly didn't know much about the job I was applying for, but was obviously a professional interviewer because she did seem to know her stuff very well.

Figment

Any suggestions for a simple code test for PHP?
Had to interview a developer today by phone and didnt find it easy to get a sense of the person on the other end. Much prefer to see a face.

Civilian_Target

Yes - for web applications just ask them how they would parse in data coming by POST from input into a databases, not for full code, but for a general overview. They should be catching the post array, checking it, parsing out any potential SQL injection attacks, changing the quotes and putting it in the database. At the end of the day, SQL injection is still one of the most dangerous security flaws in PHP and data checking is essential for PHP.

Khannie

Civilian_Target wrote:

I was interviewed by some woman who clearly didn't know much about the job I was applying for, but was obviously a professional interviewer because she did seem to know her stuff very well.

HR.

I hate HR interviews.

Last interview I went for went swimmingly until the HR part. She was a complete idiot. Ended up escorting me out of the building after she asked me how much money I wanted.

I have a phone screen on Tuesday (tomorrow). My first ever. I feel like they're kinda rude. You should be screened on your CV IMO, then meet up face to face.

OY

Khannie wrote:

I feel like they're kinda rude. You should be screened on your CV IMO, then meet up face to face.

Anbody can look great on a CV. I think the whole point of a phone screen is to see if this person worth bringing in for a face to face?

IMO from the companies standpoint i think it is absolutely worth eliminating the bad apples with a phone screen. Normally there are a number of interviews with the same candidate on a face to face and there is nothing worse than getting everybody in a room to do a wrap up only to find that all involved feel they wasted their time with this one! Time is money!

Phonescreens stop this from happening. Is it 100% fair, probably not... but i think it works ok. It definately weeds out the bad candidates without wasting everyones time!

Civilian_Target

OY wrote:

It definately weeds out the bad candidates without wasting everyones time!

Thanks

OY

Civilian_Target wrote:

Thanks

Am i the biggest jerk in the world or what??? Sorry man, i definately did not mean it like that. All i meant to say was there are times when phonescreens come in handy as you can catch obvious no candidates before bringing them in. But most people are not obvious nos and in this case it is up to the company.

In a perfect world everyone should be given the chance to interview face to face. I am sure that you were not an obvious no. Sorry about that!

Civilian_Target

Don't worry - if I was offended I wouldn't have replied in the first place...