Phone Call with Prospective Supervisor?

[MathToEconomics]

I contacted potential supervisors and have finally received a response from one! yay! He messaged to talk tomorrow morning, so I don't have a lot of time to prepare. What should be the expectations from the phone call? How in detail with it be on research topics? How long should I expect it?

These were the things I was expecting to prepare for:

• Be familiar with one paper that relates to your research that they wrote
• Have a pitch prepared to begin 
• Have a few questions prepared for the supervisor

Anything else I should be aware of? 

[fuzzylogician]

I suggest you browse the interviews subforum. There have been multiple discussions there about how to prepare for interviews and what questions you might expect.

The things you are contemplating sound reasonable. The first bullet point may never come up as is, but something like the second likely will, in the form of "tell me about yourself" or "so why do you want to work with me/in my lab." Also be prepared to talk about any prior research experience you've had, how your interests have developed or what inspired them, and overall fit with the lab/PI. It's also good to have a couple of questions prepared, but not too many, and not things that are obviously available online. If this is pre-admissions, you could end by asking about a timeline for decisions by this lab/department, among other things. Also, you might ask about funding, how many students they expect to accept, if there are new projects in the pipeline (applications submitted to [funding agency] or recently funded), what alumni tend to do, what type of students do best in [lab/department].

Finally, remember to relax and breath. This is as much for you to gauge interest in the PI as for them to gauge interest in you. It's fine to ask someone to repeat a question if you didn't understand it, and to say that you don't know the answer to something if you don't (that's better than making something up or rambling). It's also fine to say you're nervous, and even to say "let me start over" and basically redo an answer, if you get flustered. Good luck! 

[Quickmick]

In addition to @fuzzylogicians good advice, I would be prepared to let them know why field x. Every POI I have spoken with wanted to know why study "fill in blank." While I didn't have a canned answer, I had thought about it enough to be able to discuss it. This might come into play if your username is indicating you have been a math major and are going to study econ. You might also get a question about your future plans. My Skype interactions have been 30-40 minutes, in person have been about the same (with an equal amount of time added for tour the dept. kind of stuff), and phone interactions have been the briefest at 15-25 min. In terms of my expectations I did want to know some things about livability, funding, basically things I could get more insight into from a person as opposed to the internet...but what I really wanted to know was: did I get the feeling that I liked the person/how our personalities jibed (at least to have an inkling as to if I would like to work with this person for years) to understand a component of 'fit' that goes beyond published research interests.

Good luck, I hope it goes well.