Talk me through a project you've worked on in the past
- Describe the overall architecture of the project. High level is fine.
- What's one thing you liked about the project.
- What's one thing you disliked about the project.
- What's something that, in hindsight, you would have done differently?
This is a great question for interviews in my opinion, phone or otherwise. If they can talk intelligently about a project they've worked on, chances are they "get it". You're hiring a junior level developer, so it isn't important that they be an expert yet, but they should at least understand their field well enough to talk about it. Usually the people you will want to hire will have no trouble running with this, while the people you may want to stay away from will answer in a couple of sentences or less.
What do you do to stay current?
- What blogs do you read?
- What books have you read / are you reading?
- Anything else?
In an industry that's changing constantly, I think it's important for them to be staying current. This isn't the most important question I ask in an interview, but if they can't come up with anything to say, it's not a great sign.
Tell me how you would write a Bicycle class
Maybe a better question for an in person interview so they can actually write some pseudo code, but I think it could work for a phone interview as well... Describe a bicycle (it has handle bars, wheels, etc. Someone rides it.) and have them describe how they would model the class(es). Nothing ground breaking here, but if they struggle with this question, they likely are still TOO junior to be an asset.