choosing when you interview

Choosing when you interview.

The reason to choose your time.
When you successfully gain an interview for a job position you quite often are able to schedule your interview yourself working within a short timeline, usually a day, sometimes longer, a few days, a week etc. Obviously you might also be told when to present yourself in which case you will have no or little chance to re-schedule. The reason why it is good to be able to schedule it yourself is because there are optimum times within an interview timeline when you will maximize your chances of success.
Choosing when you interview – the worst times

Most people wouldn’t put too much thought into the timing other than either going first to get it out the way or going last to allow the maximum time to prepare. Being first to interview makes you the benchmark because interviewers will inadvertently compare a candidate with who they have interviewed previously. Also there are dangers of your interview time being nibbled into as the interviewer and company basically get up to speed and efficiency in the interview process. It’s also not beneficial to be the last interviewee because of a phenomenon called decision fatigue. During any lengthy process it’s this fatigue that affects critical thinking which in turn might affect decisions made over which candidate was the best. There is also evidence that Mondays and Fridays are also bad for the usual well documented reasons.

Choosing when your interview – the best times

The optimum time is just before the middle of the interview period which equates to between 10am and 11.30am if the interviews will last a day or if the timeline is a week then Tuesday seems to be the best times.
There has been some research done which appears to show that the middle of an interview period is also not a good time to interview because of an effect called narrow bracketing that makes interviewers compensate later in the timeline for positive ratings given early in the period.
Finally

However although the above is well worth taking note of if you are able to schedule the interview but remember that by far the most important things you have to do in order to get a job offer are to look respectable and sound respectable on the day plus demonstrate that you can do the job, answer and ask questions and prove to the interviewer that you will be a good fit for the company culture.

Steve Blythe  (Recruitment and Social Media Commentator).

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