Telephone Interviews for University Positions
Seven Tips to Get a Face-to Face Job Interview from Telephone Call
Mobility of researchers, teachers and administrators in universities ensure that for many posts, there is a long list of well qualified professionals before the final short list of candidates meets the university interview panel.
As part of the short listing process, human resources departments may encourage that all references are called for applicants on the long list. In many cases where the interview panel can not agree on a short list or where the field of applicants is extremely strong and plentiful, telephone calls to the long list of applicants will be made.
Some of the panel – often two or three academic staff – will set up teleconference arrangements and conduct telephone interviews with the long list of applicants. Some universities follow a protocol of giving 48 hours notice with a set time and date for the applicant to receive the call. In other universities, representatives from the appointing panel may call you at your contact telephone number – which may be in a shared departmental office in your current university – without prior warning.
Seven Tips for the Telephone Interview
In Knock ‘Em Dead, also published as Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions [Kogan Page, 2003], Martin John Yate stresses that the interviewer has “only ears with which to judge you” and set out seven tips for overcoming this in responding to a telephone interview:
- Take a surprise call in your stride
- Beware of over-familiarity
- Allow the person on the phone to do most of the talking
- Beware of giving yes/no answers
- Be factual in your answers
- Speak directly into the telephone
- Take notes
As an applicant for university posts, the main objective is to pass this telephone interview stage with representatives of the appointing panel and receive a date for a face-to-face interview with the whole panel.
Preparing for the Telephone Interview
If some warning has been given of the date and time, then the area around your telephone – the walls, the floor, a table in your office and so on – can be set up with information props, your curriculum vitae and worked answers to stock questions about teaching, research or administration relevant to the post.
If the telephone interview for the job that you desire happens at a time or on a contact number that is less than ideal – perhaps during a supervision of a research student at your current university – be confident and professional in saying that you are not at liberty to speak at length and seek to arrange another time that day.
Telephone Interview and Face-to-Face Interview Panels for University Posts
In a similar fashion to face-to-face university-based interview panels, telephone interviews for university posts offer the cue that they are drawing to a close when the applicant is asked whether they have any questions. Be succinct at this early stage and end with a request for information about when and from whom you will hear about the outcome.
Telephone interviews can be tricky to perform well in for the interviewer/s and the applicants. The applicant who has less desire for the university post after the telephone call and is called to the later interview panel should attend the face-to-face interview for practice and to press for further details about the areas of concern.
