Phone Screens: The Impression

[jason adam]

If you had long hair, why would you even waste your time or energy on a company that would dismiss you because of it? If I knew a company didn't hire me because of some aspect of who I am, then that's one company I'm glad I didn't get a job with!
And you are correct, it doesn't take many questions to determine if someone is going to be right for the job. And if a company's way of determining that fact is by asking questions like "Describe your work style", then you either answer them or you blow it off and look for a company that you feel is better suited for you. And by the way, you may think that you are coming off as excited, but attitude along with the ability to communicate will impact your chances of getting a job a lot more than being able to regurgitate technical information. And people who do interviews a lot can pick up on attitudes through body language and inflection a lot better than you can be at trying to "bs" your way through it.
No offense, but you either realize that getting a job in today's market means playing the corporate shuffle, or you continue to look for a job and complain about the way things should be, and maybe get lucky enough to find a company that conforms to every ideal you have. If you don't like it, create your own company and hire people the way you think they should be hired. If someone wants to wear piercings all over their face that's fine, it's their choice, but it's also fine for a company to choose not to hire them because of that.
I always think it funny when people scream about acceptance, but they themselvese are not accepting of the right for someone NOT to accept them (as long as that non-acceptance takes a non-violent form). But then, that's a completely different topic than phone screens, which I still assert are a useful tool (keyword is tool here folks)!

[Mark Herschberg]

Originally posted by Tim Baker:
I'm not saying it's not possible for some situations to have personal life experiences that are relevent but in my case, there never seems to be anything relevent to the question they asked...I see very little value in what they ask.

Eric S. Raymond recommends to engineers that they think of managers as "differently abled."* It's a good point. Managers and engineers think differently. To a certain level, it doesn't matter if you think their questions are valuable or relevant, it only matters if they do.
Now, better candidates (meaning those with more success) prepare for their interviews by trying to understand how the other side is thinking. You don't have to do this, but if you take the time to understand what they think this is important, you're likely to communicate better with them, give them better answers, and overall have more success interviewing.

--Mark

*"Differently abled" is the poltiically correct term for hanidcapped people.

[Tim Baker]

Jason you've never been at one of my interviews, so you have no idea what sort of attitude I give accross. And I don't try to BS my way through the interviews, I answer all the questions they give me to the best of my ability no matter how stupid they are. In some cases this requires a little BS on my part, but it's them that are promting the response.
and Mark you never know before hand what the format of an interview is going to be. The only preperations you can do are general ones, however these questions I am talking about in particular are not general questions but specific ones which require specific recalls. If they gave me a list of the questions before hand I'm sure I could prepare and come up with very nice answers, but strangely enough I've never been sent a list of questions before an interview the questions you can prepare for are ones like weaknesses strengths, ambitions, how you work in a team, what do you think are the good points about working in a team etc etc

[jason adam]

Originally posted by Tim Baker:
Jason you've never been at one of my interviews, so you have no idea what sort of attitude I give accross. And I don't try to BS my way through the interviews, I answer all the questions they give me to the best of my ability no matter how stupid they are. In some cases this requires a little BS on my part, but it's them that are promting the response.

First, I'm not attacking you personally so I hope I don't give that impression. When I say "you" or "your" or something along those lines, it's the plural form, meaning anyone in general.
Second, true, I don't know what your attitude is in any of the interviews, but given the attitude that you've been expressing here, how different can it be? That quoted statement above alone is quite negative, wouldn't you agree?
All I'm doing is trying to give advice on how the "real world" works. You say you're fresh out of college. I remember how I thought when I was in the same situation, and I probably would have been expressing similar points of view. Experience, however, tempered my opinions, and reality eventually sets in. As Mark so succinctly put, life is not fair, so you make compromises to make it as bearable as possible.

[Mark Herschberg]

Originally posted by Tim Baker:

and Mark you never know before hand what the format of an interview is going to be

And you don't nee don't know. No one goes on only one interview. You interview at quite a few places. While any one may be a little unusual, on average, they all ask the same types of things: about experience, about situations.
Just look at this forum, plenty of people ask "What questions can I expect on a J2EE interview" and they get useful responses. You'll probably respond, "but that's technical stuff, and there's less variability." If you understood how the interviewers thought you'd recognize that there are regular types of questions, simply phrased differently.
But you're more then welcome to think me wrong. Honestly, I responded above not for your benefit (your mind is made up), but for the benefit of the others who will read this thread.
--Mark