Ask HN: Phone interviews during work Forgive me if this has been asked before. How do people deal with interviewing when actively working? Phone interviews take 45 mins to an hour and are not always worth taking an entire day off, besides the fact that there could be several. If your employer doesn't like you working from home and you have limited PTOs, what is your solution? Has anyone used Regus business lounges? What about coffee shops? Are they any good? |
Far from what recruiters and companies say if they are serious in hiring you they will respect this. They understand you have a job and that whilst you are working for them it is inappropriate for you to be on the phone. (Doing this is a good way to see if a company really wants you. If you are their ideal candidate they will wait for you to become free).
Failing that you can either arrange first thing in the morning or last thing in the work day. That way you can start a little early or later without causing too much hassle for the recruiter.
Failing that, you need to try and arrange on your lunch breaks (guessing you get an hour or so).
I have done phone interviews literally walking about the neighborhood near my office. This has the added benefit that you supposedly speak with more confidence and authority when standing up and walking.
If you bill for something that isn't work that's fraud, although a five minute call is a lot different from a full-on phone screen.
Go somewhere quiet, don't bill for it. Common sense.
You're assuming OP is a consultant or freelancer. For most salaried workers, there's no such thing as billable hours, only a set salary per year.
An early or late lunch might work as well.
If there are lots of private conference rooms around you might be able to grab one of those and take the call on your mobile and then work through lunch.
Good luck with your interviews.
If they don't want to call you at the time you will be suggesting, then it's not a position worth going for.
If your salary reflects a 40-hr week, and you work 60, all you're doing is reducing the $/hr you make. If you do non-work-related stuff at work, and you expect compensation for it, you're billing your company for time you shouldn't be.
I refuse to believe you don't get this.
If they have nothing else to do and they're just sitting around then there's a systemic issue and the employee/employer relationship is broken in one or more of several ways, e.g., employer is over-staffed, employee is under-utilized, etc. An idle employee is a waste of money--e.g., they're effectively making more per hour and/or the employer is incapable of managing their resources, etc.
There's no extrapolation here. If you're idle at work then something is broken, and you're wasting the employer's money. If the employer is ok with the wasted money then it's all good, but the underlying economics haven't changed. If the employer isn't ok with this, or is unaware of this, then there's fraud.
The truth is most salaried workers aren't billed per hour.