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Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

tanayagrawal.substack.com

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Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#2
While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion.

If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire them."

Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to worry about such micro-optimisations.

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#3

While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion. If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire them." Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to worry abo…

Absolutely agree!

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#4
> Schedule subsequent interview rounds close to each other

Pre-covid, if you were not from the bay area, this happened naturally. You just tell the companies that you are traveling in the bay area in a given time frame and would like to schedule your interviews in that period. Not sure if post-covid it has become simpler.

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#5

While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion. If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire them." Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to worry abo…

Came to say the same thing. As a candidate you really don't control internal processes and I don't believe you can influence the scheduling much. If they like you (and you like them), everything will happen fast.

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#6
post #4

> Schedule subsequent interview rounds close to each other Pre-covid, if you were not from the bay area, this happened naturally. You just tell the companies that you are traveling in the bay area in a given time frame and would like to schedule your interviews in that period. Not sure if post-covid it has become simpler.

Ah, I see! I guess this is more relevant to covid/post-covid times then due to the virtual nature of interviews. I did all my interviewing in the second half of 2020, and I had majority of interviews taking 3-4 weeks, which was a lot! I was even rejected a couple of times as the company just hired someone else and I hadn't even finished my interviews :/

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#7
It's pretty tough to follow these rules. Mornings only gives you half the time. All rounds at once and as soon as possible would also mean you got in touch with all the recruiters at once and they got back to you promptly.

In practice you more likely to see a steady drip as you ramp up your search. Some recruiters get back fast, some slowly. There's no real way you can control this other than giving some feedback as you progress so that firms that you like will hurry up a bit and firms that are your backup can be held a bit.

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#8
> You should avoid scheduling interviews post-lunch

Interesting opinion when weighed against studies like PNAS' famous parole decision study that found morning and right after lunch were the most favorable rulings: https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#9

While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion. If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire them." Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to worry abo…

Can you recommend how to go about this? It's the first i've heard of this strategy, and interviews are a big fear of mine. I would have assumed most of these "pay for feedback" things to be scams in one way or another. Thoughts?

Re: Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews

#10
post #5

While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion. If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire them." Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to worry abo…

Came to say the same thing. As a candidate you really don't control internal processes and I don't believe you can influence the scheduling much. If they like you (and you like them), everything will happen fast.

I so wish this to be true! But it is not always the case. You as a candidate can power through the interviews(scheduling), get ahead of the line, and indeed influence decision making.
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