A phone interview leaves very little behind. There’s no video to watch again and no shared screen, so unless someone pressed record, the only trace of the call is whatever the recruiter typed while the candidate talked. The candidate can’t see you typing on a phone line, but they can hear every key.
Phone interview recording fixes most of that, but a phone call sets its own conditions. Nothing on the call tells the candidate it’s being recorded, and the line can blur a number or flatten a voice. I’d record every phone interview the candidate agrees to, and build the habits around those two limits: ask out loud, then check what you heard before the call ends.
Skip those habits and the screening note ends up resting on a pay answer no one can check and an impression of how the candidate sounded on a bad line.
Say the recording out loud, because the line shows nothing.
A video call usually puts some sign of recording on everyone’s screen. A phone call puts nothing in front of the candidate, so the notice you sent with the booking needs confirming out loud once the call starts.
Ask once the candidate is on the line, before you press record, and wait for a clear yes. Then start the recording and tell the candidate it’s running. If they decline, keep the recording off and take the whole call with notes by hand.
Recording law differs from one place to the next, so agree the wording of the ask with whoever handles legal or privacy questions at your company. Nothing here is legal advice. Notice before the call and how long to keep the file are both covered in a guide to storing interview recordings.
Get the line clear enough to quote.
A recording you can’t make out settles nothing later, and on a phone call the line is the whole recording. Set the call up for sound before the first question:
- Wear a headset, and take the call somewhere without background noise. A speakerphone picks up the room along with your voice.
- When you book the call, ask the candidate to take it somewhere they can talk without interruptions.
- Before the first question, ask whether they can hear you clearly, and listen to how they come through.
- Check that the recording has started before the candidate starts answering.
If the line keeps breaking up, offer to call back or move the call. I’d rebook a bad line before I’d send a hiring manager a note built on answers I half heard.
Even a clear line flattens tone, and a nervous candidate can sound unsure on it. If tone ends up weighing on the decision, have the hiring manager play that stretch of the recording and judge it, instead of reading a word you picked to describe it.
Write down what a phone call hides.
A phone call takes away things you’d lean on in any other interview, so the few notes you take should cover for the line:
| What the phone takes away | What to write down instead |
|---|---|
| A line that carries every word | The moment the line broke up, marked as heard in part, so you can ask that question again before the call ends |
| Numbers you can trust the first time | Every date and pay answer, so you can read each one back |
Keep it to those. Anything else you type while the candidate talks is noise on their end of the line.
Read the facts back before you hang up.
A phone line will turn “fifteen” into “fifty” without telling either of you, so the numbers are the answers most worth checking. A misheard notice period can stay hidden until someone drafts the offer.
Before you close, read back what you wrote down:
- The start date, or the notice period.
- Where the candidate is based.
- Their answer on pay.
- Any name you’ll need to spell later, such as a previous employer.
The candidate corrects anything you misheard, and the version the candidate confirmed is now on the recording in their own voice. It can feel pedantic, and I’d do it on every call anyway, because it also shows the candidate you were listening.
Copy those facts into the screening note exactly as the candidate confirmed them. A separate guide has a recruiter screen template for the rest of the note.
Where Metaview fits in phone interview recording.
The read-back and the hiring manager’s listen both rely on a recording someone can open again after the call. Metaview handles phone screens as well as video interviews.
Metaview’s Notetaker keeps a recording and a transcript of each call it captures, and sorts the conversation into structured notes. Recording needs the candidate’s consent first, and on a phone call, the spoken ask in the first section is how your team gets it.
- 1A card headed “AI Notes,” opening on “Hi Kevin! Here is the summary of your conversation with Rebecca A.”
- 2An answer noted as a short point under its question, such as “7 in total.”
- 3The headline of the web page section this crop comes from.
Metaview captures every spoken word of a call it records, so the dates and pay answer the candidate confirmed in the read-back are in the transcript, and no one has to rely on what you typed.
From the same conversation, Metaview drafts the scorecard, and the recruiter goes over the draft and rates the candidate before it’s submitted. Ashby and Lever take it directly, and in Greenhouse the recruiter pastes it in. All three appear among the applicant tracking systems on Metaview’s integrations page.
- 1The line under the page heading, “Metaview works with all the tools in your recruiting stack.”
- 2The filter list, with “Video conferencing” between “Applicant Tracking Systems” and “Calendar & scheduling.”
- 3The Greenhouse tile in the grid of applicant tracking systems.
A transcript can’t show the questions the call never reached. In a 2022 post on scorecards, Metaview’s co-founder Shahriar Tajbakhsh put that gap in writing:
Interviewers should note things they wish they could contribute to or what they would need to know to have a more confident opinion to evaluate candidates, but didn’t have the time.”
On a phone screen, the gap is often what the call couldn’t show, such as a project the candidate described and had no way to share. That line goes into the note by hand, because no transcript holds it.
Teams can give screening calls a note template of their own, so every phone screen’s notes come back under the same headings.
- 1The section’s own headline, “Choose the template that fits your conversation.”
- 2A “Topic Highlights” template, stacked in front of “Final round.”
- 3A “Screening Call” template, shown beside its “Detail” and “Format” options.
A phone recording holds the candidate’s voice and whatever personal details came up on the call, so where it’s kept counts. Metaview will match how long it keeps recordings to your company’s own retention policy if you ask, and you can delete any recording at any time.
Play one phone interview back against its note.
Once a week, take one recorded phone interview and play it beside the screening note your team wrote for it. Listen for three moments, and fix the habit that slipped:
- The opening. If you can’t hear a clear yes before the recording runs on anything else, move the ask so it comes before the record button.
- The read-back. If the dates or the pay answer in the note differ from what the candidate confirmed, copy the facts into the note straight from the read-back.
- Any passage marked as heard in part. If the recording is no clearer than your note, offer the call back sooner the next time a line breaks up.
Where the note and the call disagree, trust the call.
Go from the recording to a scorecard draft.
Book a walkthrough of a scorecard Metaview drafted from a recruiter screen, before anyone rated it.
Frequently asked.
How should I handle a candidate who takes the phone interview on speakerphone or in a shared space?
Ask before the first question whether they can switch off the speaker or move somewhere private, and offer to move the call if they can’t. Someone else in the room may end up on the recording without having agreed to it, and the candidate may hold back answers they’d give alone.
What should I do if a candidate asks me to stop recording partway through a phone interview?
Stop it straight away and say on the call that you’ve stopped. Note where in the call it happened, finish the interview with notes by hand, and record in the screening note which part of the call was recorded.
What if a candidate agreed to recording when the call was booked but says no on the call?
Go with the answer on the call. Leave the recording off, run the interview with notes by hand, and mention in the screening note that the candidate declined when the call began.
Can I record a phone interview when an agency recruiter is also on the line?
I’d ask everyone on the line, the agency recruiter included, and wait for each yes before recording. Your team’s recording policy sets anything else that applies.
What if a phone interview recording fails?
Write the screening note straight after the call from what you wrote down and remember, and mark it as written without a recording. Then find out why the recording failed before your next call.
