Have phone interviews become more common? (interview, degree, jobs, career)

[henderson14]

Before the recession, I used to always get called in straight into in-person interviews. Now it seems like there is ALWAYS a phone screen first. Is it just me or is this normal now?

[fuji1]

They were always common for me even as a local candidate. 100% phone interviews first if you're not a local candidate.

[MLSFan]

sounds right... seems in person meetings are becoming rarer and rarer these days.

most prefer to shop online, bank online, play online instead of shop in stores, bank in person, play outside...

why would jobs be differently? They do what they can to avoid in person meetings then claim it is for "cost savings"

[Hemlock140]

I have been a supervisor or manager for a long time, and we did a lot of phone interviews for tech jobs back in the 1980s, with a lot of applicants in other states. In the last 3-4 years I can only remember doing 1, and that person was in Europe finishing a graduate degree. We seem to have plenty of local applicants now.

[NC-guy]

Phone interviews are a required first step in our interviewing process.

We actually have been able to weed out a lot of bad candidates as those who are difficult to schedule or need to reschedule more than once without a clear rationale.

To be clear - we usually* don't rule anyone out based on just the phone interview, but if they were a problem before the face-to-face they better be sharp as a tack an impeccable when we finally meet with them.

EDIT
* I do remember two specific candidates (for different positions) who each had no less than 3 phone interview rescheduling.

One of them we let them know at the third request we were no longer interested (she never provided a rationale outside of "time conflict") the other had very dramatic excuses (two family members died and a car accident) so we gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was great on the phone interview so we decided to arrange a face to face but then he started the same pattern (another death and a tree falling on the house) so we just said we were no longer interested.

[yellowbelle]

Normal now.

We do two levels of phone screens, first with the recruiter, then with the hiring manager. Back around 2000 it was just recruiter phone screens, but always some sort of call first, even if it's just to talk the basics "why are you looking to make a career change" and "what's your target salary".

I'm not sure if the two-call approach is standard. I'm not a fan of how it slows the process, but it saves us from flying in candidates that are total duds.