Questions to ask for contract position ? ?

[swamp]

Telephone interviews are OK, but they can be a pain unless you're on the bench and have time to do them. I've had to do half hour conference calls on my mobile sat in a quiet corridor at a client's site with a notebook on the floor. No way I was prepared to take time off for an initial telephone interview.

[NickFitz]

..the technical bit just turned into an exercise in how much I had happpened to commit to memory from textbooks and could recite back parrot fashion to the programmer.

Hate them for that reason as well, they nearly always turn out to be tech quiz, with someone on other end reading from list of questions

WTS. A few weeks back I had to do one of these things standing in the snow outside ClientCo's office as a bitter wind blew across the adjacent local cricket pitch. They kept it up for over half an hour

One of the questions was about what "transaction" meant in the context of an RDBMS. My reply (which was just explaining the terms abbreviated as ACID) was described as "textbook" (in an approving way). Other questions related to aspects of Java programming, and some more generally about OOP.

This led to them getting me in for a face-to-face interview, which had to be first thing Monday morning as I had to be in Yorkshire by early afternoon. At this interview, it transpired that I wouldn't actually be required to do much, if any, database stuff, and no Java programming would be involved

Still, they were sufficiently impressed that they changed their plans, rejected the other possible candidates both from the agency that sent me there and the other two or three agencies involved, and agreed to wait five weeks until my current gig was over. So when I finish up here at the end of the week, I walk straight into there next Monday

I'm still pretty annoyed about all those irrelevant questions as I stood in the snow though

[Drewster]

I'm still pretty annoyed about all those irrelevant questions as I stood in the snow though

"They" thought the questions worthwhile...

"They" considered you answered the questions "well"...
You got the gig... by my reckoning they were relevant...... and more important worthwhile!

Well done!