Interview Scheduling & the new grad - advice?

May 1, 2012 6:45 PM

I'm a recent MLIS grad who just scored an interview with a municipal information management office. Unfortunately, the job is 4 hours away and Greyhound can't get me there for a face to face interview before mid afternoon. I plan to ask about interview slots in the late afternoon, but would it be unreasonable to ask about a skype interview if none are available? Other suggestions are also very welcome.
posted by peppermind to Work & Money (8 answers total)

Best answer: Rent a car, if you have a driver's license.
posted by amelioration at 6:48 PM on May 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You could rent a car, or take the Greyhound the day before and then stay in a motel that night, presuming something like that is affordable for you.
posted by box at 6:48 PM on May 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Do whatever you need to do to be in town when they want to do the interview.

As an employer, it raises huge red flags for me when it is difficult to schedule an interview or I have to jump through hoops. Reasonable, maybe not, but I bet I'm not alone in that.
posted by HuronBob at 6:50 PM on May 1, 2012 [6 favorites]

Best answer: "In case it's helpful for scheduling purposes, it would be easiest on my end if we could schedule the interview for late afternoon, but I'd be happy to work around your team's schedules if that proves inconvenient."
posted by argonauta at 7:09 PM on May 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Could you just go the night before and stay in a hotel?
posted by pullayup at 7:15 PM on May 1, 2012

Response by poster: Why didn't it occur to me to rent a car?!
posted by peppermind at 7:20 PM on May 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sounds like you have your answer, but for the benefit of any future searchers- I just ran a round of interviews for an internship in my library. We had so many applicants it would not have been worth it to do a skype interview, someone else who could make it in person could have easily replaced an only available by skype candidate. One of the reasons we wanted in person interviews was to see if people would show up on time. That said, we wouldn't have had a problem accommodating a preferred time of day for an interview.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 4:47 AM on May 2, 2012

We just went through a round of interviews at my office. 3 were in person, 1 over Skype. The Skype girl was talented and clearly a good fit for the company but didn't pack the same oomph as the ones we met in person. Also, we hesitated about whether there would be any snafus in her moving to our area to work - she was about 8 hours away and moving to our city after graduation.

So, yes, glad to see that you are renting a car. Good luck!
posted by amicamentis at 6:18 AM on May 2, 2012