If you haven’t seen me on LinkedIn, I’m in the middle of a hiring blitz right now so the job hunt is all I’m thinking about! Today, we’re going to talk about the screener call and 3 questions you’ll almost always have to answer.

First off, “screener” can look different for different roles, so I’m just going to talk about what’s common in product & design. The screener call is typically with the recruiter or HR person, is short (~15 minutes), and has two main purposes:

Today we’re just going to talk about the vibe check, because salary conversation is a whole other thing.

The “vibe check” is typically a couple of general questions to get to hear how you speak and why you’re on the market. We’re checking to see if you’re a baseline decent communicator, seem friendly, and also if there are any obvious red flags. People have definitely failed screeners before because “the vibes were off.”

A lot of screeners will open with the recruiter saying, “so, tell me about yourself!” You can assume they’ve read, but not memorised, your résumé, so you don’t want to just rattle it off. This question is really about telling a bit of a story about who you are and how you’ve gotten here.

For example, instead of just saying, “I was a senior designer at [company],” you would also add in a bit about what projects you worked on there or the kind of impact you had. Recruiters are probably screening multiple senior designers, and you don’t want to sound the same as the rest of them. Talk about what makes you interesting!

In terms of how long you should talk, there’s definitely a sweet spot. A lot of candidates will ramble for multiple minutes and it’s hard to hold attention with that. 1-2 minutes of intro is a good length.

For this one, you want to be honest, but positive. It’s important for your prospective employer to know what would make you leave, but you don’t want to accidentally sound like you’re difficult to work with. Here are a few ways to tackle some common reasons people leave their jobs:

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Lack of growth and development in my role/company
This can be reframed as, “I want a role where I can take on more scope and responsibility,” or “I want to be challenged.”

I don’t want to work for my manager any more
First, figure out what specific traits/behaviours your manager does that you want to avoid, and reframe from there:

If your manager isn’t technical/able to train you → “I’m looking for stronger mentorship above me,” or “I’m looking for strong [product/design/whatever] leadership.”

If your manager isn’t supporting you effectively → “I’m looking for a role where I can have more autonomy,” or “I’m looking for a company that has a more formal support and coaching culture.”

The culture here is not what I want
Similar to the manager question, focus on what culture you do want to be working in and use that as your jumping-off point:

If the current culture is toxic → “I’m looking for a place that values psychological safety and healthy conflict.”

If the current culture is siloed → “I’m looking for a place that default to cross-functional collaboration.”

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Not every reason for leaving will need a reframe. The main thing to focus on is not sharing complaints, but instead giving the recruiter a preference.

This question requires you to have some understanding of the company and the role you’ve applied for, otherwise you risk looking like you’re just blindly applying to anything. There’s typically no right answer for this question, but there are definitely wrong answers.

Ideally, you can have more than 1 reason the role interests you. Some common things I hear:

Before your screening call, I recommend:

The more screeners you do, the more comfortable and easy it will feel! And if you spend some time preparing, you’ll be a lot more confident on the phone. You’ve got this 💪

If you’re on the market for a new job right now, you might be interested in these other posts:

And if you’re Melbourne-based and looking for a role in Product Management, Product Design, or Engineering, check out our open roles!