Well, I would say I would prefer a face-to-face interview to a phone interview because this allows me to give my future employer an idea about my manners, appearance, body language, communication skills, etc. In a phone interview the focus will mainly be on your communication skills. Even though you might have to invest a bit more time and effort to prepare yourself for the face2face interview, compared to the phone interview. But I think it also depends on the type of job you are applying …. if it is a job in which you would have to deal a lot with people on the phone they might be mainly interested in knowing how you come across over the phone. They might test you with a straight call. If the company has a lot of applicants they might want to do the first screening over the phone before they might invite you for a face2face interview.
But what do you think? Share your thoughts!
Discussion: Would you prefer a phone interview to a face-to-face interview? Why?
Posted by Karin Schroeck-Singh at 25 Jun 2009, 3:29 AM 
Categories: Discussions, Job Interview
Tags: discussion phone interview job interview prefer a phone interview to a face to face interview face to face interview Karin Schroeck-Singh
Categories: Discussions, Job Interview
Tags: discussion phone interview job interview prefer a phone interview to a face to face interview face to face interview Karin Schroeck-Singh
Well personally i would prefer a face to face interview as this gives me a chance to also judge a company that i might spend upwards of 20 years of my working life with. Here in India mostly we have face to face interviews. Well from personal experience here we dont really have just one interview, more like a series of interviews.
Firstly one has to apply for the job, and for that you have to turn up at the company office and request forms for this particular position. Once you have the required forms you are given a date on which the company would except them by. Sometimes I have seen people filling up the forms right there and submit them, mainly because they are well prepared and have all the required documents at hand.
Secondly the company short lists some candidates. These candidates are then required to sit for a common examination. This makes sure that people who have been short listed have not faked any qualifications. Now based on how well you do in the examination you might get a face to face interview.
Thirdly usually face to face interview means that you have a good chance, but still one cant think that he is the only one. I have seen 4-5 applicants being called for a face to face interview and then only one being selected.
However sometimes all are hired because they have enough seats. This mainly is the case with telephone sales and like companies.
So getting a face to face interview with a senior executive in a company is a privilege in India and not many applicants have the fortune to do so. This is only the case if you are an exceptional candidate or maybe someone with big connections (or influence ). Or in an ideal world applying for a senior position within a company.
But I dont think that one is ever offered the job on the phone. The most a company can do is to pay for the travel expenses for the candidate. If it were up to me then I would take the face to face straight and cut the rest. But that realistically is not possible.
However a major advantage of a phone interview might be that:-
1) A company can't really judge you on your appearance (e.g age, religion).
But then they can judge you on other things like your accent or maybe some lack of fluency in a language.
So all in all I can't really find many advantages to a phone interview. Maybe someone else would care to point them out for me.
Karin a superb effort by you and keep up the good work.
Thanks
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