What are the tips to conduct a technical interview over the telephone?

Phone interviews are an excellent way of getting early and effective feedback about a candidate, and for them to get feedback about you and the role you have offered.

A phone interview is an excellent interview activity to include when you’re recruiting.

I believe the phone interview is a really important step in the hiring process as it is an effective way for both parties (hiring manager and candidate) to speak to each other before a fully fledged face-to-face interview.

Here are some ideas and thoughts on how to conduct a good phone interview

• Expect to conduct the phone interview over lunch or before or after work
• Time-box the interview
• Structure the interview
• Plan Accordingly
• Send them full details
• Pair Up
• Make Notes
• You must compensate for this lack of visual clues by actively listening to what is being said and appreciating that sometimes the words won’t always convey the true message.
• Don’t eat or drink
• Give plenty of time for questions
• At the end of the interview be sure to state what the next steps are.  You may not want to tell the candidate what your decision is (in fact I would recommend you don’t) but do state what will happen next. Are you going to let the recruiter know? Are you going to be back in touch tomorrow or next week?
• Write up your notes
• Try dropping the use of a phone and replacing with services like Skype, Google Hangouts or GoToMeetings. These are really good ways of empowering both parties to see each other. It’s not quite the same as face-to-face interviews but they are a good compromise.