I used to be terrible at interviewing. I know when I see other people going through similar problems, and make every attempt I can to work around them. There is only so much you can do though, and you have to accept that you will miss out out on some good candidates.

The phone screens I performed were just a quick first round check to see if a candidate would be a valuable employee for us. They weren't supposed to be super in-depth or time consuming for either party. The whole thing is basically one big ice breaker. Hoping that I can hit on some topic that will cause a candidate to expose some skill, knowledge or enthusiasm that would move the company forward. There was very little structure. It was all about finding skill overlap, and then trying to decide if they would pass an in-person round of interviewing. If I hit on an ice-breaker at the end of a conversation, it means I had already exhausted all of the others.