I never received a confirmation email, so I assumed he was busy on Friday morning and we’d schedule something for the next week. At 10am, I was woken up to my phone ringing. I answered and it was the hiring manager plus another colleague calling me about the position. I was in shock/panic because I honestly had no idea they would be calling me. So they started off telling me how impressed they were with my resume, and then jumped right into asking me why I’d be a good fit for the position. And that is where I really panicked. This was an actual PHONE INTERVIEW. I really thought I’d be talking to them about the position details so I could determine if I was interested. I somehow asked them for more information about the position so I could buy some time to grab my computer and pull up the description. I went into how I thought I’d be a good fit, and then they asked me a few more questions about my background and experience. I’m a little calmer now because I think I recovered somewhat well, but it was short lived because they asked me what questions I had for them. Clearly I hadn’t prepared any questions except how much does it pay, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking them that right off the bat. So I somehow came up with 3 questions for them. They asked me one final question, “we normally give our candidates a chance to wow us with a last statement as to why we should hire them since Company X is so competitive.” Yikes. I talked about a few of my strengths that I knew were important to the company in general and backed them up with a few examples from an old boss and project.
My surprise phone screen was over. I’ve never really had that experience where I had no idea someone would be calling and I was completely unprepared. I honestly didn’t think I would be offered the position because as a former recruiter, I would be able to tell that I was super unprepared to start off the interview. I talked to my Dad shortly after and he laughed at the situation and even thought they may have caught me off guard to see if it was really was flexible and adaptable to different, “surprise” situation. So I took it as a learning experience, and hopefully I won’t have to experience a surprise phone interview again.
Later in the afternoon, the recruiter called me and said she had some feedback about the interview. She said the hiring manager liked me, and wanted to extend the offer. I told her I’d let her know in the next week because I wanted to make the best decision. Clearly, I recovered better than I thought. My past as a recruiter definitely paid off in the situation because I knew how to recover and knew certain things to do and tell them. So my first interview of this internship search process turned out to be a success! At least now I know that I will have an internship this summer!
