Know who to meet next. Know what to ask.
Every invited candidate gets a focused conversation about the role, without filling your team’s week with screening calls. The interview follows answers worth exploring, so your live round starts past the small talk.
How would you keep this payment service responsive during a traffic spike?
Why Phone Screen exists
A résumé can show where someone worked. It cannot press on a vague answer, change the constraints, or ask what happened next.
That takes a conversation. The people best placed to have it already have a week full of work.
A full calendar is a bad reason to miss a good candidate.
Phone Screen gives every person you invite the same chance to talk through the role. Your team joins later, with the answers in front of them and a sharper place to begin.
From invite to review
Finish the first round knowing where the next one should start
The candidate takes a structured phone interview. Your team reviews the answers, the evidence behind the scores, and the questions that deserve a closer look live.
Set the conversation
Choose a role-specific starter or draft from the job brief. Review the interview setup, then send the invite.
They answer on their phone
The candidate starts from their invite and answers a normal phone call. No app, camera, or hunt for a shared hour.
Pick up where it got interesting
See the answers behind every score, then read the transcript or play the private recording when the exact words matter.
Inside the call
The first answer is only the start
Your team chooses the questions and scoring rubric. The AI interviewer stays inside that plan, asking for examples, pressing on tradeoffs, and clearing up vague answers.
Get the story behind the bullet point
Candidates talk about work they owned, disagreements they handled, and the conditions where they do their best work. Six scored traits point back to what they said, with questions for the live round.
Change the problem. See how the answer holds up.
Start with a system, add scale or failure, and listen for how the design changes. When code matters, put a read-only exhibit in the candidate’s browser and discuss the real lines.
On the candidate's side
An interview that fits between everything else
The candidate chooses when to start and answers a normal phone call. There is no app to install, camera to configure, or time zone arithmetic.
- The recording and transcription notice appears before they start.
- They enter the number where they want to receive the call.
- The call arrives on the phone they already use.
- If they miss it, they can return to the invite and try again.
I understand this call is recorded and transcribed for the hiring team.
Keep this page open. Your interviewer may share read-only code during the call.
Optional code companion
Bring the code into the call
When a technical answer needs something concrete, the interviewer brings a snippet or small project into the browser and points to the lines under discussion. The call keeps moving, and the code stays read-only.
- One snippet or a small project with two to four files
- The interviewer opens a file and highlights the lines under discussion
- The candidate can select the lines they mean without interrupting the call
- No editing, code execution, or wider repository browsing
async def charge_with_retry(request): attempt = 0 while attempt < RETRY_LIMIT: try: return await gateway.charge(request) except GatewayTimeout: attempt += 1 await sleep(backoff(attempt)) raise RetryBudgetExceeded()The interviewer asked what should happen after a gateway timeout.
The interviewer can ask about the selected lines next.
- The interviewer controls when the code is shown or hidden.
- Read and select only. The project cannot be edited or run.
For the hiring team
The next interview starts with the interesting part
Every score points back to an answer. Review the moments that mattered, see where to probe next, and open the transcript or private recording only when you need the full exchange.
Maya separated transient gateway timeouts from non-retryable failures, added a retry budget, and explained why idempotency must be in place before a second charge.
How would she cancel in-flight retries when the request deadline expires?
Her backoff strategy was sound, but she did not explain how retry state survives a worker restart.
Build the interview
Start with the role brief
Choose one of five ready-to-review interviews, or give Challenge Creator the role brief and shape its draft before you invite anyone.
Five complete starting points
Ready-made interviews for communication, React, Python, backend, and forward-deployed roles.
Built from your role brief
Challenge Creator drafts the questions and scoring plan. Your team reviews every word before anyone is invited.
See where the next interview begins
Walk through the candidate’s call and the team’s review in one demo, including the optional code companion and the questions carried into the live round.