Please estimate the time needed for job interviews
One of my HR friends (she’s a recruiter) told me about an incident which happened to her few weeks ago. There was this candidate who went to her company for a job interview. The scheduled time was 1pm and the entire interview process (the test, the form filling and the interview process itself) took 2 hours 30 minutes. It ended at approximately 3.30pm.
Guess what happened next?
The interviewee, or in other words, the person who needs the job, started complaining to my friend in a not-so-polite manner. The person told my friend why didn’t she inform him earlier that the interview process was going to take so long, bla bla bla and he has this appointment he needed to attend in another far far away place at 4pm.
When my friend told me this, my first response was “Friend, just fail that guy. He’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to manage his time and he’s too unprofessional to blame others for his own mistake”.
As a job candidate, one should always allocate at least 3 hours for the entire interview process. I’ve been to an interview which took me 5 hours (the manager forgot about my existence). This is because each interview process can be quite different from one company to the other. Some companies require you to take a lot of tests, some don’t. Some companies have long-winded interviewers, and some just don’t bother that much. So it’s pretty hard to predict how long the actual interview is going to last. That’s why it’s very dangerous and risky to schedule another important appointment right after the interview. Always leave a buffer of 2 to 3 hours between the 2…. unless you can fly or teleport.
Remember that time management is very important. If you cannot even manage the schedules for your interviews and appointments, what makes you think your employer will give you the job? You are just another disorganized person to them.
Oh, and even if nothing is going right for your schedules……you should never ever blame the interviewer. That’s way too unprofessional.
The guy’s interview slot was 1pm. He set up a work appointment at 4pm. So he attends interviews on company time and grumbles about other people not being professional.
Usually, the face-to-face interviews need to be at least 1hr long. For technical jobs, expect at least a 0.5hr to 1hr written test…
Anyway, the guy should not scold the interviewer, he should have made arrangements with the next appointment that he had been delayed. That’s only being courteous.
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@ Damien
Surprisingly, we do have quite a lot of people attending interviews during office hour.
@ Angie
I would say 3 hours, to be safe. Anything less, it might become bit risky.
I think the guy might have been screwed pretty badly by the interviewer. LOL.
erm.. i allocate whole days for interviews. the least i’ve done is half a day, but that also didnt leave any room for mistakes or an unfortunate turn of events.
@ wankidd
half day should be safe though. my record is also half day interview, because the palia hiring manager forgot my existence. =_=