Phone Interview Questions to Ask New Hires

Tempted to say “You’re hired!” to a job applicant that looks perfect on paper? Hold the phone! There are aspects of a candidate’s qualifications and personality that you can check during a phone interview.

If you’re not sure what to ask, here are ten phone interview questions to bring up during a phone screening and what the answers can tell you.

Why are you applying for this position?

The best candidates can give an answer that demonstrates how their experience, interests and character traits fit with what your business does. Candidates who give non-specific answers on this question (“It’s a great company,” “It pays well,” etc.) likely haven’t done their homework about your company.

Why are you leaving your current role?

Use this commonly-asked question to figure out whether the candidate left for reasonable cause or because he or she has difficulty getting along with others or putting up with minor inconveniences on the job. You want to hire someone who will remain committed to your business for the long haul.

Can you meet the physical requirements of the job?

Use phone interview questions such as “Can you travel/lift heavy loads/stand for long periods at a time?” to screen out candidates who don’t meet the physical requirements of a job. For example, an answer of “No” on the question “Can you travel for work?” is disqualifying for a sales role that requires a lot of time outside of the office and meeting with clients.

How does your experience qualify you for this position?

Candidates should be able to articulate how their knowledge and abilities align with the core skills of the job. You should lay out these competencies in the job description. If a candidate falters on this question, he may not have studied the job description or may not have the necessary skills or experience to do the job.

How would you describe your work style?

The answer to this question will tell you if the candidate is an independent self-starter who prefers to stay ahead of schedule or a procrastinator who needs constant managerial supervision to stay on track. You’ll know immediately whether the approach expressed aligns or doesn’t align with your managerial approach and the culture of your business.

What is your proudest professional achievement?

Candidates who made a measurable impact at their previous places of work will cite at least a few notable accomplishments. These achievements might include an award or the success of a major project. Use this question to assess the areas in which a candidate shines and whether his or her strengths could benefit your business, too.

Please give me an example of a time when you successfully led or motivated others.

If hiring for a leadership role, ask this question to gauge whether the candidate has a proven record in leadership. The answer may reveal that a person is more of a follower than a leader. The candidate should also give a concrete example of a successful project that he played a major role in from start to finish.

Describe your biggest work challenge and how you overcame it.

The answer to this question will tell you whether the candidate is capable of overcoming on-the-job hurdles such as conflicting deadlines or conflicting personalities. Candidates who remained flexible and adaptable are more likely to handle obstacles with ease and grace in their new role.

Which task would be at the top of your to-do list if hired?

The ideal candidate will prioritize the most urgent duty at hand above others of lesser priority. Let’s say the interviewee identifies a trivial matter for this question. Her answer might signal that she would get bogged down in details and overlook big-picture problems if hired.

Do you have any phone interview questions for me?

An engaged candidate will rarely give a “No” for this question. He will raise phone interview questions about his specific role, the organizational hierarchy or another question about the business to convey his knowledge and interest. The answer can also help reassure you as the interviewer that the candidate sees himself working at your business.

About the author

Manasa Reddigari has tackled topics ranging from computer software to home remodeling in her more-than-a-decade-long career as a writer and editor. During her stint as a scribe, she’s been featured by MileIQ, Trulia, and other leading digital properties. Connect with her on copyhabit.com to find out what she’s been writing about lately.

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How to detect Windows Phone 8.1 OS version programmatically?

The question in title is not the real problem. I went through many sites and blogs and go to know that Environment.OSVersion gives you the current OS version of the phone using our app. But the problem is, There is no OSVersion under the class Environment. Please refer the screenshot for better understanding.

My question why I am not able to see the OSVersion property under Environment class? Am I missing something?

6 Answers 6

Universal/WinRT apps only work in wp 8.1, so the OS version can only be 8.1. When they make wp8.2 or wp9, they’ll probably add a way to check what OS version is installed.

If you’re looking for the firmware version, you can get it with:

Copied from duped question:

Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight apps can use the .NET version APIs. There is no supported mechanism to get a version number in Universal 8.1 apps, but you can try using reflection to get the Windows 10 AnalyticsInfo class, which will at least tell you the version number if you are running on Windows 10.

Note: Checking the OS version is almost always the wrong thing to do, unless you’re simply displaying it to the user (eg, in an «About» box) or sending it to your back-end analytics server for number crunching. It should not be used to make any run-time decisions, because in general it’s a poor proxy for whatever-you’re-actually-trying-to-do.

Here is a sample:

Obviously you can update this to return the version etc. rather than print it to the debug console.

I found a tricky way to detect if a device is running a Windows Phone 8.1 or Windows Phone 10. I compared 3 different devices, a Nokia Lumia 925 ( wp 8.1 ) a Nokia Lumia 735 ( wp 10 ) and a Nokia Lumia 930 ( wp 10 ). I noticed that on wp8.1 there is no device info id ( it causes a not implemented exception ) but it exists on windows phone 10 on both tested devices. Morover the system firmware version format seems different between wp 8.1 and wp 10 ( the first is xxxx.xxxxx.xxxx.xxxx while the second is xxxxx.xxxxx.xxxxx.xxxxx ). Below my function:

I haven’t had the opportunity to test this on further devices, but so far seems to work. I use it to distinguish the code for the app rating function between Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows Phone 10, that in my specific case are not UWP

Hope this helps

If your app is Silverlight based, you can use System.Environment.OSVersion.Version across Windows Phone 8.0 and 8.1 as well as Windows Mobile 10.

Here is an example of a method we utilize when determining whether to display our own opt-in dialog for geo-tracking or let the Windows Mobile 10 present its own opt-in dialog.

Where should I ask questions regarding smartphones (Windows Phone 7)?

I have some questions regarding Windows Phone 7. Where should I ask?

4 Answers 4

Nowhere as of now. There’s a Windows Phone proposal in Area 51, you should follow & commit to it.

Regarding the title: Ask Android questions on android.stackexchange.com and bring your friends 😛

A federated Stack Exchange site covering all smartphone and other electronic devices was tried. It was called Gadgets. It didn’t work.

Now there are sites or site proposals about using most smartphone platforms:

• Android Stack Exchange
• Ask Different for Apple devices (iPhone, also iPad, iPod, Macs, …)
• Unix & Linux for Linux-based mobile phones (Maemo, Meego, WebOS)
• Windows Phone proposal (targeting all versions: Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, and future versions)

If you would like a site about other platforms (Bada, BlackBerry, QNX, Symbian, …), create a site proposal.

There is also a proposal for mobile phones in general, and on slightly related topics, one about e-books and readers and one about consumer electronics.

All developer questions can be asked on Stack Overflow regardless of the targeted platform.

As mentioned in this answer, there’s a Windows Phone proposal on Area 51, which has now gone on to public beta, meaning you can join the site and ask questions on it. As your question is about Windows Phone 7, you should use the 7.x tag, along with all other relevant tags.

If your question is about general programming with a windows phone, you can ask it on Stack Overflow with the windows-phone tag. As mentioned here, if it’s about the Android OS, you can ask it on Android Enthusiasts instead. If it’s about general use of the Windows Phone operating system, it would be on-topic for Super User.

So, depending on the question, you can ask it on Windows Phone, Android Enthusiasts, Stack Overflow, or Super User. Keep in mind that some questions may be on-topic for multiple sites, in which case you need to chose whichever one you think will work best.