Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, Second Edition

Nailing the Phone Screen

As we discovered in last chapter, it’s almost a miracle when the phone rings and a recruiter wants to set up a phone screen. The fact is, someone, somewhere in the organization has successfully mapped you to an open position. This is a really big deal because, in my experience, the chance that you’ll get this job has improved logarithmically. It’s not 50/50, but it’s vastly better than when you were a random résumé sitting on my desk.

As with last chapter, I’m going to walk you through the precise mental process I go through as part of the phone screen; but before we go there, let’s talk motivation.

The Purpose

I’ve got ...