Phone Interviews and being on the other side of the table

I've had a few phone interviews over the last few weeks. There's the school whose department I really like but I'm not 100 percent sold on the job. Then, there's the school where the department sounds a bit like it's a mess but I know I'd love the job. Then, my dream job at what could very easily become my dream school in a fantastic location - but I'm just not so sure how my interview went; I didn't feel that great about it and some of the questions threw me off a little - and of course, there's the fact that I don't have any experience supervising full-time staff yet...but how am I supposed to get that if nobody's willing to give me a chance?
And then there's the job that would be fun, in a department I could definitely be happy in - but they're moving so slowly with their job search that I'm just not sure if I'll even get a chance to go to campus (if offered an on-campus) before I leave for Austria.

And you know, I really really dislike phone interviews. Maybe going through a placement would have been a better option, but a lot of the jobs I'm now applying for weren't even open back then. Hmmmm. It's just that phone interviews are so awkward. I hate not being able to see people's faces and getting some kind of reaction from them. Often times during phone interviews, I find myself rambling on because I just don't know if I've really answered their questions or what they think - so I keep adding little random things in an attempt to save the situation and probably end up making it a lot worse. Argh. If I never had to do a phone interview again, I wouldn't complain. Ha.

I've also spent quite a lot of time on the other side of the table. It's hard for me sometimes to answer the candidates' questions. I don't want to make the school look bad, but we all know that I haven't had the best experience here (I mean, I'm leaving after one year...and that's so not me). So do I tell the truth or do I make something up?

I'm especially intrigued by the interviews of what would be my future supervisor if I were to stay here. There's a lot of great things that these candidates have been saying. But I just can't help being skeptical. Yes, they may want to do all these things, but would they be able to? For example, they may want to support us in having balance, but does our current structure and the leadership's expectation really allow us to have that?

I'll definitely be curious to hear from my colleagues who are staying here what their experience will be like next year.