What days of the week are job interviews most commonly held on?

January 12, 2012 1:38 PM

In the process of requesting a favorable schedule at my part-time job that allow me to interview for positions on my days off. I'm just going to assume that these interviews can last a full day, so I don't think there's a chance I could work and interview in the same day. I am seeking a position in marketing research. If I should need to work two to three weekdays, which days should I request off? My guess is that employers are usually busy the beginning of the week, Monday and Tuesday, so maybe most interviews fall later in the week. Thanks for your help!
posted by AngryTypingGuy to work & money (8 answers total)

Most HR Departments are going to be used to accommodating applicants' busy schedules.
posted by radioamy at 1:54 PM on January 12, 2012

As someone who interviewed for people for marketing research positions (and have interviewed for positions for work in marketing research) I can say there's not really a preferred day for interviews. They're conducted when they can be scheduled with the team. I've been in interviews on either side of the desk on each day of the week.

Personally, I hated interviewing people on Fridays since I wanted every moment of the workday to get things done so I didn't have to do any work on the weekend. I also worked for a multinational and so my colleagues in Asia and Europe had many hours of their Monday workday to fill my mailbox on with work on Mondays.

But I think in your case, asking for Wed/Thu off would probably work best. (Which is really confirming the bias you introduced in the question). Most people you're interviewing with will provide you some flexibility on dates/times. Unless you're needing to travel, or going for a senior leadership position, you'll probably need at most a half day which if you can't schedule midweek you can make it to due to that flu bug that is going around.
posted by birdherder at 1:59 PM on January 12, 2012

The thing is most of the companies I'm interested in have group interviews, which probably are not scheduled every day of the week. So I'm thinking they're going to be ones scheduling an interview on their time, not mine.
posted by AngryTypingGuy at 1:59 PM on January 12, 2012

The last three interviews I've done have been on Wednesdays and Thursdays, for what it's worth. These were individual interviews (I was the only interviewee), but with multiple interviewers at once, so less scheduling flexibility.
posted by c'mon sea legs at 2:15 PM on January 12, 2012

There is no way you are going to find any sort of a consensus. Ever.

The only thing I would say is to have non-consecutive days off that way you are pretty much always available tomorrow or the next day.

See you think companies are busy at the beginning of the week which is REALLY untrue at my company, we are way busier at the end of the week. And at my last company we would usually end up calling interviewees at the end of the week because we were busy at the beginning of the week but that meant that their interviews were usually scheduled at the beginning of the next week. So yeah, you are never going to have a gold-standard.
posted by magnetsphere at 2:35 PM on January 12, 2012

I would choose Monday and Friday as the least requested days for interviews but I think you're over thinking this. Interview times are mutually decided upon. Companies realize that any proposed time has to be accepted and that sometimes people are not available at a suggested time.
posted by shoesietart at 3:11 PM on January 12, 2012

I assumed they would be evenly distributed, but I just pulled our candidate interviews from the past year and Tuesday gets 24.1% of the interviews. Weird. Monday is the slacker at 15.6%
posted by Lame_username at 8:51 AM on January 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

In the past several weeks, I've had 1 Tuesday, 2 Wednesdays, 1 Friday, and I have 2 scheduled for Monday. I also had one scheduled from 1 Thursday but it was rescheduled.
posted by firei at 12:28 PM on January 13, 2012