Phone screening

A phone screening is the filter interview: a short call —15 to 30 minutes— where a recruiter verifies the essentials before inviting you to in-depth interviews. Its goal isn't to pick the best candidate but to quickly rule out those who don't meet the basics. Passing it depends less on shining than on not fumbling the simple things.

What they will ask

The questions repeat across almost every process:

• "Tell me about yourself": your elevator pitch, in under a minute.
• Motivation: why this role and what you know about the company.
• Deal-breaker requirements: availability, location, work mode, language, work permits.
• Salary expectations: in Latin America this usually comes up in this first call, not at the end of the process.
• Your current situation: why you're searching or why you left your last job.

How to prepare

• Keep your resume in front of you: the recruiter is reading it while you talk, and dates or figures that don't match raise flags.
• Research the salary range for the role in your market and answer with a range, not with silence.
• Prepare one short real case —what problem, what you did, how it ended— in case they ask for an example.
• Take the call somewhere quiet and, if it catches you off guard, offer to reschedule: better than improvising while walking down the street.

How Ingenium works on this

The Career Accelerator's storytelling step includes practicing the phone screening on video, telling a real case from your experience. Your Career Coach gives feedback on that recording, and the 22-point diagnostic identifies from the start whether your story and salary expectations are ready for that first call.