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[der_gadfly]

I was on a phone interview the other day, and although none of the questions were really out of the ordinary, the SC did seem to have an odd mix.

"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" (on a beach surrounded by half-naked members of the opostie gender who cater to my every whim)

"Why did you leave teaching, take another position, then go back to teaching?" (um, 800 pound gorilla says paycheck)

"What is most attractive about us and what is least attractive about us?"(lessee... paycheck and the commute, respectively)

almost nothing about the position skills or knowledge.....

As per fora wisdom, I have more or less put it on the back burner and will not agonize, but it truly was not what I had expected....

Anyone else ever get a real odd mix of questions?

[helpful]

Phone interviews are often times when the SC is trying to get to know the applicant in order to narrow down a long list to a shorter list. Deeper questions await in your face to face interview.

[lyndonparker]

Sometimes for a telephone interview each member of the SC has one question they really feel strongly about and insists on asking. For the relatively short amount of time allotted for a telephone interview, the mix can seem rather odd. General answers about your qualifications can be gleaned from your application materials, though, and if folks are truly insistent upon asking "their" question, that's how it works out.

[polly_mer]

Der_Gadfly,  if you think those are an odd mix of interview questions, then your standards are too low or you aren't interviewing at the places I have interviewed.  Until they ask about your knowledge of a particular culture's death rituals or how you would teach without a common language, any materials, and a leaking roof, you ain't experienced odd.

[der_gadfly]

Der_Gadfly,  if you think those are an odd mix of interview questions, then your standards are too low or you aren't interviewing at the places I have interviewed.  Until they ask about your knowledge of a particular culture's death rituals or how you would teach without a common language, any materials, and a leaking roof, you ain't experienced odd.

perhaps. It wasn't so much the questions in and of themselves, it was just some kind of vibe over the phone.... The position was for one thing, yet the interview seemed to lean overly on just one small aspect of the job. The overview they gave was good, but led me to realize that their original ad was written by someone in HR who did not fully understand what the SC needs. So in that sense, odd.

Oh I did get the one about teaching in a diverse environment once: I have taught in urban institutions, and this was for yet another urban institution.

[glowdart]

I have had interviews with places like lizzy describes.  They have often had the courtesy of telling me that they had to ask us all the same questions and that the same person had to ask the same question of each candidate. 

Another time, though, when they were clearly working off of a set list to keep the management happy, I really wanted to say, "Did you not read my CV?  Why are you asking me which classes I have taught?  Did you not request syllabi for those very classes?  Why are you asking me which texts I would use in those very classes?  Do we have not have more substantial things to discuss rather than these fact-based questions?" 

I got chastised for daring to continue on after the first question with a list of other courses which I could teach -- courses from their curriculum and then special topics courses.  Thus, after essentially reading the booklist off of the syllabi that had been sent in response to the syllabi & texts question, I asked: "Would you like me to tell you WHY I chose those books?"  They said no. 

They did, then, ask a really in-depth teaching question about a particular scenario in a particular class.

Odd. 

[compdoc]

Reading the OP's post, I realize I have had odd mixes of interview questions. However, I mostly just put it down to "everyone gets to ask theirs." I've been on an SC and we did that. We had the group consensus questions and we each got one of our own.