Ten days after applying to Yodle, I got the phone screen.
The scheduling note was simple. Send a few times and a number where the recruiter could reach me.
I offered two windows in Eastern time, nine to ten in the morning or two to three in the afternoon. I was still working in Denver, so every New York conversation had to fit around the Beatport day and the two-hour difference.
Then I asked one more question. Would the interview be technical, high level, or mostly about personality?
I liked knowing what room I was walking into, even when the room was a phone call. A command-line quiz needed one kind of preparation. A conversation about scaling, team responsibilities, and what the company needed next required another.
The distinction was fresh in my mind. Another company had recently asked granular administration questions that did not match how the role had been described. I could do the work, but I wanted to understand whether they were hiring somebody to maintain a list of systems or somebody who could help redesign the environment as the company grew.
Yodle was growing quickly and investing in product and technology. The application had been about what I could add immediately, not just which commands I could recite.
The phone screen was the first chance to find out if the company saw the job the same way.
I closed with the same line I used in almost every application then: I look forward to hearing from you.
This time, they already had.