During the academic years of '93 - '94, '94 - '95 and '96 - '97, I had the opportunity to engage in roughly 25 phone interviews for various teaching-oriented positions in mathematics at four-year colleges and universities. I encountered difficulties with this process during my first search, and this hampered my ability to garner on-site interviews. But, with practice and patience, I overcame the problems with telephone interviewing which had previously plagued me. What follows is a brief glimpse of my travails with phone interviews, and what those of you who are new to the process might do to prepare yourselves.

I like to term a phone interview as "pesky" as it was, for me, the biggest obstacle to overcome in the job search process. Going into my first search, I had no experience with phone interviews and I never was a big fan of phone conversations. Typically phone calls from schools would come at times that caught me off guard; perhaps I had just gotten home and was trying to unwind or I might have been sitting down to dinner. In several instances, I tried to hold conversations when I had not had the opportunity to prepare for the particular school contacting me. Suffice it to say that my inability to ask intelligent questions of my interviewer(s) certainly did not boost my chances of making the final on-site interview list!

Another thing that hurt me was the extra pressure I put on myself. In the fall of '93, it was becoming more apparent to the entire mathematics community how dire the employment situation was getting. By early April of '94 I had received numerous rejection letters indicating that applicant pools topped 500 or 600; I knew as a result that a phone call from a school saying I was a semifinalist was make-or-break for garnering an on-site interview. Needless to say, my confidence was shaken when I would undergo a phone interview and then not get an invitation to campus for an interview. In retrospect, I realize that perhaps as many as 30 candidates would get such "semifinalist" calls asking us if we were still interested in and available for their positions, so the odds were against me anyway.

Enough talk of the truly "bad old days." What can you do to get ready to make a good impression when you get that all-important phone call? First, a pleasant demeanor is essential. If a prospective employer doesn't like your tone of voice or how you come across over the phone, it minimizes the chances that they will want to meet you in person. I once read somewhere that if you smile while speaking into the mouthpiece, your voice has a more positive sound on the other end, though I have no hard data to support that claim. Second, if you do not already have an answering machine, be sure to get one! This serves two purposes. One, it catches important messages while you are away, obviously. (Make sure to get a unit that allows up to at least a 60 second message; anything less is insufficient, believe me!) Also, an answering machine has the added benefit that if you are not ready/able to talk, get the message and return their call at your earliest convenience. You can turn the advantage back to your side by taking the needed time to look up facts about the department and the school as a whole. It took me an entire year to learn this! The lack of an answering machine has cost many a candidate, as schools with large semifinalist contact lists may not get back to them. A third piece of advice is to get some practice doing phone interviews if you have no experience. Get a friend who is in the same boat to trade calls with you, asking questions and conversing about professional goals. What follows are some questions asked of me and that I asked my callers; neither list is in any particular order....remember to be succinct and always be positive!

Questions asked of me:

1. What experience do you have that you feel would make you fit in well here at XYZ College?
2. Briefly describe your research interests. What are your future research (or scholarly) goals?
3. Here at ABC University, your teaching load will typically be 12 semester hours in the form of four courses, three preparations. What plans do you have to keep your research/scholarship active?
4. What has been the most significant event (or achievement) in your professional career thus far?
5. What to you is the most amazing (important) result in mathematics at the undergraduate level?
6. Our students here at XYZ University are not all math majors. Tell us about your teaching style and expectations of students when you might be teaching college algebra at 8:00 followed by differential equations at 9:00.
7. One of your letter-writers indicated a strong ability on your part in dealing with "difficult audiences" in Math for Elementary Teachers. Please elaborate.
8. Describe your best and worst experiences with teaching.
9. What experience do you have in working with students in some form of undergraduate research projects?
10. What is your favorite course to teach, and why? What is your least favorite, and why?
11. Where do you see yourself professionally in the next five to ten years?
12. What experience do you have teaching with various forms of technology? What kinds of assignments have you given that make use of technology?
13. Briefly describe your innovations in teaching. Tell us what worked out well, and what didn't work out so well.
14. What did you enjoy most about your experience as a graduate student?
15. I notice here that you're in Project NExT. Tell us about your experiences in that, and how it has helped you.
16. What do you do for relaxation (recreation/hobbies)?

Questions I asked my callers:

Remark: Some of these questions may be better reserved for on-site interviews. Often, the questions I asked were not exactly worded as those indicated below. Use your judgment!

1. How many math majors do you typically have? How are they broken down into pure math, secondary teaching (etc., if applicable)? How many of them have a second major, and what are their second majors?
2. How large is the typical section of college algebra (or intro. stat., or other service course)?
3. What software packages do you have available for classroom and/or student use?
4. What are your computing facilities like? What sort of computer would I have for use in my office?
5. What is the starting salary range? (I only asked this if I had interviewed elsewhere and expected an offer. A question like this can be taboo.)
6. What benefits would be available to me, and how soon would I qualify?
7. How does the tenure/promotion process work at XYZ College?
8. (From my third search) What is the likelihood of my getting credit for prior full-time teaching experience (for salary consideration, or for going up for tenure early)?
9. Who was the last person in your department to get tenure/promotion and how long ago was it?
10. Is there any sort of cap on the percentage of faculty who may be tenured at any time? (This is rare, but still occurs. I did ask this only once in a phone interview when it became clear to me that there was some trouble with the tenure system at that particular school.)
11. What are the mathematical interests of your department members? (Be careful not to use "research" unless it is a research school; not everyone may be doing active research. "Scholarly interests" would also be a good substitute.)
12. What do you anticipate the teaching schedule(s) to be for next fall for the individual(s) filling your vacancy(ies)?
13. What sorts of projects have undergraduates been involved in recently?
14. After graduation, what types of employment have your math majors obtained? If any have gone on to graduate school, where?
15. What are some activities department members engage in outside the classroom?
16. What do department members there do for relaxation?