If you are reading this article, you are probably looking for guidance on how to conduct a phone interview, or make the most of one. We have good news–we will give you a 5 minute phone screen example, a 30 minute one, tell you how to make the most of a phone screen, and also provide you several phone screen interview questions you can ask your candidates.

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• Free 5-Minute Phone Screen Example
• Free 30-Minute Phone Screen Example
• Top 5 Tips to Make the Most Out of the Phone Screen
• 15 “Ask Anyone” Phone Interview Questions
• 9 Phone Screen Questions For New Grads
• 11 Phone Interview Questions for Sales Roles
• 13 Personality-Based Phone Interview Questions
• 3 Easy Phone Screen Closers
• 25 Worst Interview Questions and How to Avoid Them
• Most Common Illegal Interview Questions

5-Minute Phone Screen Example

Goal of the 5-Minute Phone Screen

The 5-minute phone screen is best for hourly roles like a customer service rep, a waiter, or a retail associate. You may do the 5-minute phone screen yourself or delegate it to an employee or assistant to ask the phone screen interview questions and take notes for you.

We highly recommended having the candidates you think are a good fit from their resumes fill out an employment application form PRIOR to the phone screen. You can find one here. This will narrow down the list of people you want to speak to and will hit on the basic issues like eligibility to work in the US and years of experience that should be clear prior to a phone screen.

What You Are Evaluating

In the 5-minute phone screen, you are evaluating basic qualifications for the job, such as:

• Is the candidate articulate?
• Can they speak English fluently?
• Are they friendly – how is their temperament?
• Are they prepared for the call?
• Cultural fit

Example 5-Minute Phone Screen for Customer Service Representative

***Remember, ask all candidates the same questions in the 5-minute screen to be fair and to help you compare candidates.***

Hello, this is Susie Smith from ABC Company calling for Jeremy. Is this Jeremy?

Great, is now still a good time for us to talk for 5 minutes regarding the Customer Service Representative role?

Wonderful. This will be a very short interview with a few set questions, so if it feels like we are moving fast, it’s because we are, and don’t let it bother you. If you could, why don’t you tell me, in 30 seconds or less, why you are a great fit for this role?

(cut person at 30 seconds, or close to it)

Thank you for that. We are looking for someone with 5 years of customer service experience, with the most of their experience being on live chat and phones with customers. Tell me about your experience with live chat and phone support.

Great. Now, tell me what you would do when you have one of those “impossible” customers on the phone. Walk me through how you would get them to a win-win situation, or tell me a story about what you did when this happened to you.

Why are you leaving/did you leave your last position?

Two options to end the call:

If candidate seems like a good fit:

Excellent, I am very impressed with you in these few minutes. We will be inviting people who we think are a good fit to move further in the process this week, where I can answer any questions you might have on the role. Look for me to email you about next steps.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to speaking with you again. Good bye!

(follow up with interview invitation, be it for a longer phone screen or an in-person, within 48 hours)

If candidate should be rejected:

Thank you very much for your time today, Jeremy. We have just started in the hiring process and are doing these quick 5 minute calls. I will be circling back to you with our decision within 48 hours if we want to move forward. Please look for an email from me.

(follow up with rejection email within 24-48 hours)

Thank you for your time today. Good bye!

30-Minute Phone Screen Example

Goal of the 30-Minute Phone Screen

The 30-minute phone screen is meant for higher level roles like a General Manager, Associate Consultant, or Property Manager. For such roles, a 5 minute screen likely won’t give you enough time to evaluate the candidate. This 30 minute screen will delve into more details on the candidate’s background and experience, as well as gauge fit for the role and company. Most likely, you’ll be doing this phone screen yourself.

What You Are Evaluating

You are trying to evaluate the following in the 30-minute phone screen:

• Range of the candidate’s skill set
• Their relevant experience
• Their knowledge of the industry
• Their comfort with the day to day responsibilities of the job
• If they are a potential cultural/team fit for your company.

Phone screening is only effective if you know what you are looking for before doing the calls. You can also then adjust the example below to fit your needs and align it with your job description. If you haven’t written a job description yet, rewind for a moment and go to our resource to help you.

Example 30-Minute Phone Screen for Store Manager

***In the 30-minute phone screen, you might not ask the same questions for everyone. Questions may vary based on the candidate’s background and level of experience.***

Hello, this is Susie Smith from ABC Company calling for Jeremy. Is this Jeremy?

Great, is now still a good time for us to talk regarding the Store Manager role?

Wonderful. If you could, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and about why you applied for this role. Why are you a good fit?

Thank you for sharing that. Tell me about your favorite past job and your responsibilities there.

(Potential to ask a follow up about how the skills in that favorite job apply to your company/ your open job).

When you were a Store Manager previously, tell me about some achievements you had. Did you increase sales? By how much? Did you reduce payroll or change the hiring process to be more efficient?

Excellent, thank you for those. So tell me, do you have experience doing the hiring/firing of Store Associates?

As a manager, tell me about when you hired someone who just wasn’t getting “it”. What did you do and why?

What did you do to make sure your team felt like a team? Did you hold weekly staff meetings? How do you make the work fun?

Now put your sales hat on. Have you been in our store and looked at our products? What did you think?

(Depending on answer – What would you do to improve our sales? What did you see in our space that you would change and why?)

Give me your elevator speech. In 30 seconds, tell me why I should give you this job.

What questions do you have for me about this position and the company?

(If you like the candidate- you might want to proactively go into the benefits, company culture, day in the life- but always leave a few minutes for questions from the candidate).

Two options after the candidate asks questions:

If candidate seems like a good fit:

Excellent, I am very impressed with you in this phone screen. We will be inviting people to move further in the process this week. Are you interested in coming in for an in-person interview? What is your availability like?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to meeting you again. Good bye!

(follow up with interview invitation within 48 hours)

If candidate should be rejected:

Thank you very much for your time today, Jeremy. We have just started in the hiring process. I will be circling back to you with our decision within 48 hours if we want to move forward. Please look for an email.

(follow up with rejection email within 24-48 hours)

Thank you again for your time today. Good bye!

Top 5 Tips to Make the Most Out of the Phone Screen

Know What You Want:

What are you trying to get out of the call? If you need to ask a key question, ask it! You also might want to list out what you want to get out of the call, or link your questions directly to your job description. If you don’t have a job description, let us help you to write one.

Remember, when asking phone screen interview questions, be sure to raise any concerns or red flags you thought of when seeing the candidate’s resume. This is your opportunity to ask the candidate about them and save everyone some time in the process.

Have A System:

Ask the same questions to each candidate in the quick 5-minute phone screen. In the 30-minute phone interview, you may ask different questions based on the candidate’s background and experience level. In either case, ask your key questions early on. This helps you to:

1. • Get the answers you want early on.
   • Allows you to compare candidates accurately and fairly.
   • It saves time – If the candidate is not a good fit, you can end the screen politely and move on.

Be Prepared:

Have an Excel spreadsheet, Word doc, or good old pad & pen ready with each candidate’s name, phone number, and the time for the candidate’s call on it. Have their resumes either up on your computer ready for viewing or print them out and organize them in advance.

Focus:

Set aside a block of time to bang through 5-10 phone screens for the same role right in a row. If you’re doing the longer 30-minute phone screens, try to set aside a day or two of the week to focus on these. Not only will you be able to focus more on the candidates, but you will also get a better sense on those who stands out compared to others (or who lags). Do not interrupt this time–close your door or work from home. Even put a sign on your office door if you have to!

Be Friendly:

Remember, this is not just the candidate’s first impression on you, it’s your’s on them. Leave every candidate wanting to work for you, even if you don’t want them to! Smiling on the phone doesn’t hurt either–your demeanor can help you sound confident on the phone.

15 “Ask Anyone” Phone Interview Questions

These 15 questions can have a dual purpose. They can be included in nearly any phone screen for any position at any level, or they can be good “filler” questions, perhaps if a candidate gets shy.

1. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you to got to where you are today in your career.
2. What reasons do you have for leaving your current (or most recent) job?
3. Why do you want this job? Why do you want to work here?
4. How would you describe your work style?
5. What is a typical day like at your current (or most recent) job?
6. What are the common mistakes you have observed for [insert job title] in your peers?
7. What do you know about our company?
8. What is your perfect job like? Walk me through a day of it.
9. What is your least favorite aspect of your field/ job?
10. What is your ideal manager like and why?
11. What achievement are you most proud of so far in your life?
12. In your opinion, what makes the difference between a good [ insert job title] and bad [ insert job title]?
13. What was your favorite job of your past jobs and why?
14. What type of projects do you enjoy working on?
15. Tell me about a time you failed, or felt like you did. What did you learn?

9 Phone Screen Questions For New Grads

New graduates come from a different, mobile-phone run planet, but tapping into this talent can be important for a business on a budget or with entry-level roles. Getting a new grad to open up about their skills and where they want to be long term is the goal of these questions.

1. Do you remember applying for this role? Why did you apply?
2. Where do you see yourself in five years? What are your long term career goals?
3. What do you hope to get out of this job? Skills? A long-term path?
4. What do you do to educate yourself in our field outside of the classroom? Do you read blogs or other publications? Which ones? Tell me about an interesting article you read recently.
5. Tell me about what you did for extracurriculars at school. What were you involved in besides your courses and why?
6. Did you have any part time jobs or internships while in school? Tell me about them.
7. Who do you most admire and why? This could be a celebrity, someone from your personal life, an athlete, it’s up to you.
8. If you could take one more class from your college for free, what would it be?
9. What was your favorite course at school and why? Was it the subject or the professor or both aspects that you enjoyed?

11 Phone Interview Questions for Sales Roles

If you are interviewing for a salesperson, you may have heard how difficult it is to find sales talent in today’s market. Your phone screen will be very important to weed out the poor candidates from the good ones.

Remember, a good salesperson is savvy at selling themselves–use a combination of our Ask Anyone phone screen questions and the questions below to gauge their fit for the job. Probe the person about their career path (many salespeople are “job jumpers”–probe why and ask for references).

1. How do you see yourself contributing in this position?
2. What motivates you in the workplace?
3. What is your process for making a sale?
4. Tell me about a time you did not make the sale. What happened, and what would you do differently next time?
5. If you had to teach someone how to sell, what advice would you give them?
6. If you have two tight deadlines, how do you prioritize and how do you communicate your timeline for completion to others?
7. Is it better to be perfect but late to the party or is it better to be just good and on time? Why?
8. Tell me about a time you didn’t make quota. How did you change and plan to make it or exceed it for the next time?
9. What was your favorite product to sell and why?
10. Sell me my own product in 60 seconds. (Follow up: How would you go about selling it in the field?)
11. Give me your “stats”. What have been your biggest quotas met, number of deals closed… any sort of numbers to give perspective to your success would be helpful.

13 Personality-Based Phone Screen Interview Questions

Personality phone screen interview questions, though a bit lighter in nature and more cliche than our other groups, are important to round out a good phone interview to give you a full perspective of a candidate.

While you can’t really assess personality completely over the phone (although you could try Skype or Google Hangouts for a video call), getting a feel for a candidate’s softer aspects is important. You want to hire someone who will fit in with your company culture, the person managing them (be it you or someone else), and with the team.

1. Why have you had X jobs in Y years? Can you walk me through your career path?
2. What major challenges and problems did you face in your last role? How did you handle them?
3. What kind of company culture do you do well in?
4. Are you better at working alone or with a team? Why?
5. Do you consider yourself to be introverted or extroverted or both?
6. What are your hobbies outside of work?
7. How do you handle stress and pressure?
8. What do you do to relieve stress?
9. How would your current (or past) manager describe you?
10. How would your best friend describe you?
11. Tell me about the relationships you’ve had with the people you’ve worked with. How would you describe the best ones? The worst?
12. Who do you admire most in your field/industry? Why?
13. What has been the most satisfying moment in your life? Why?

Easy Phone Screen Closers

Sometimes, ending a phone screen can be awkward, especially if the candidate is not a good fit. Use our suggestions below to organically end an interview. No matter what the next steps are, always thank the candidate for their time and tell them when and how you will be back in touch (phone or email?).

If the Candidate is a Good Fit

1. What questions do you have for me?
2. Give me your elevator speech. In 30 seconds, tell me why I should give you this job.
3. Why are you the best candidate for this role?

End the call by scheduling the next interview to save time and keep the candidate moving quickly through your hiring pipeline.

If the Candidate is Not a Good Fit

It is up to you and what you are most comfortable with if you want to let the candidate know on the current call or via a follow up email that they were not a good fit. Some people feel bad to tell a candidate right away, but others think that it saves time. It is up to you. Here are some options:

1. Thank you so much for you time today. I just realized that I need to cut our time short due to a meeting that is in my agenda. I apologize. We will be in touch soon. (this helps you politely end a phone screen early if it’s clear that the candidate is not a good fit).
2. Thank you for your time today. I unfortunately feel that this is not a good fit because (insert actual reason). We will not be moving forward, but I wish you the best of luck.
3. Thank you for your time today. Now that we have talked a bit more about the role, do you still feel like this is a good fit? Why? (Candidate may self-select out of the process; if they don’t, then close with, “Thank you for that. We will be in touch soon.”).

Next Steps

After you’ve finished the phone screenings, here are some steps you should take:

• Decide on candidates you like-what do you notice they have in common? Write some notes next to each person’s name about what you like the most and what you want to know more about during the in-person interview.
• You could even score the candidates with an overall rank, or you could rank them in a few major areas like Verbal Communication Skills, Job Skills, and Personality for the Role.
• Set up the in-person interviews. If you aren’t sure how, try our resource. We recommend setting up your top 3 candidates for their in-person interviews either in a row or within 48 hours of each other. This will allow you to compare the top candidates easily, and ideally, it will also allow you to make a hire within a week or less!

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