How do you respond when the interviewer misses your phone interview?

March 5, 2011 1:14 PM

I had a phone interview for an entry level position at a small tech startup, but the interviewer is about forty minutes late with no signs of appearing. How do I respond? Possibly relevant: When I confirmed the interview, I forgot to "Reply All" and didn't CC it to two people. Because of this, my interviewer might have missed my confirmation or something.
posted by grammar corrections to computers & internet (11 answers total)

(Apologies in advance if I am totally overthinking this. The job search drives me sort of nuts sometimes.)
posted by grammar corrections at 1:19 PM on March 5, 2011

Who scheduled your phone interview? Call that person, explain the situation, and ask if you can reschedule. If you're really interested in the job, I'd be very gracious about it and say something along the lines of, "I had a phone interview scheduled for 3:30pm, and I haven't gotten a call yet. I'm guessing that something urgent came up, and I'd like to see if there might be a better time for Mr./Ms. Interviewer. Here are some times I'll be available today and tomorrow: Time 1, Time 2, etc."
posted by pecanpies at 1:19 PM on March 5, 2011 [5 favorites]

Just hang in there and accept the lateness gracefully. However, keep that tardiness in mind if you get an offer. That type of behavior may be a foreshadowing of other problems with the job.
posted by lampshade at 1:20 PM on March 5, 2011

Also, you might want to send a quick email with that same message. The point of a phone call is to try and get in touch with someone (and thus reschedule your interview) immediately. An email would still convey your desire to reschedule, but you likely won't get an immediate response.
posted by pecanpies at 1:21 PM on March 5, 2011

Although this is a bad sign, in my experience companies forget telephone interviews surprisingly often.

An in-person interview gets to stand me up only once before getting DTMFA'd. A telephone interviewer would get one more chance. Pay attention to the quality of their apology.

Otherwise, try calling the scheduler as pecanpies suggested. If the scheduler doesn't pick up, you can send an email to "all" with much the same content.
posted by tel3path at 1:25 PM on March 5, 2011

The scheduler is also the interviewer. I don't have their phone number, but I will shoot an email with that message.
posted by grammar corrections at 1:27 PM on March 5, 2011

Another thought: is there any possibility that perhaps the interviewer was expecting you to call him/her, versus the other way around? When I worked in recruiting setting up phone screens for entry level jobs, we would always request that the candidate call the interviewer. You'd be surprised at the number of people who never called. Kind of weeds out the people who don't give a shit, were randomly applying to any & all jobs they ran across on Career Builder, were irresponsible, etc. We were generally pretty understanding if somebody needed to reschedule, even if they didn't call until after they'd missed the interview, but yeah - there were many we just never heard from again.
posted by pecanpies at 1:28 PM on March 5, 2011

Did they specify Saturday at any point in the proceedings? I wonder if someone who normally let's their computer do all their thinking about time was trying to wing it and meant to say they would call you Monday.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 1:36 PM on March 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

When you send the email make sure to put all your contact details in there again, just in case they're trying to ring the wrong number. It's surprisingly easy for them to write something down wrong and not notice. They may just not be able to get in touch with you for some reason rather than totally stood you up.
posted by shelleycat at 1:42 PM on March 5, 2011

They emailed me back, apologizing and saying they meant Sunday, so we'll see how it goes. Thanks MetaFilter.
posted by grammar corrections at 2:11 PM on March 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I got the followup interview, but didn't get past that. No worries, though, I found a gig and I might have a second offer this week!

Thank you MetaFilter!
posted by grammar corrections at 6:56 AM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]