[daxfohl]

I disagree with not scheduling before holidays. If I like a candidate I'm not going to forget about that just because of a holiday.

The first person that makes a good impression almost always has an advantage IMO. The hiring manager will remember that person, and human psychology makes your memory of that interview better than it actually was. So for someone to unseat you they have to do significantly better. (And obviously the reverse goes if you are among the last to interview). I think recency bias would only into play if the first couple successful candidates reject their offers or something.

Most important is to get your resume in early though. After spending that first weekend with the mind-numbing task of sifting through hundreds of resumes, a hiring manager is only going to look at new ones if absolutely nothing works out from the first batch.

[lnanek2]

As an American, I totally feel the same. But working with some of my European counterparts, they can just totally disappear for a month or two when they vacation, like into a black hole. They just take vacations more seriously. If one of them was a decider for a hiring decision, we definitely wouldn't hear back from them until after. Not anything good or bad about it, it's just a different culture.

[decebalus1]

On a tangent, I'm an American and I disappear for a month when I take vacation. It probably has something to do with the fact that I was born in Europe or with getting tired of half-assing vacations and getting burned out. I'd like for 'black hole' vacations to be normalized in the American workplace. I'm doing my part!

[conductr]

I'm an American and do this too. Also, I don't take work home. I leave my laptop at work. It's a signal I do on purpose and I regularly talk about my life balance priorities. I don't mind working long hours during projects or busy times but I like to keep it in the office. So long as it's infrequent, couple times a year, something may totally blow up and I'll just go into the office on the weekend. If I'm out of town or not physically able to make it, well that means I can't physically pull out my laptop and dive into my work regardless of my location. I consider that a "not my problem" situation. I've found, if you give in to the instant responsiveness and availability, it becomes expectation. I'm mid-career and have done that, but at this point I go into jobs setting my terms and don't mind telling a C level or BOD member they can wait until I get back in the office. I don't even do that usually because I just don't respond outside of regular hours. It's not for everyone, and I may someday alter this, but I find it suites me at the moment. I have a young child and I'm not jumping on calls/emails/texting during our already limited time together. It works just fine but if I were to do this at a junior level it would have been career suicide. My experience is what has given me the leverage to demand my work style.

[daxfohl]

I'd imagine if a hiring manager is doing that though, they'd not schedule interviews straddling the gap.

The whole article is kind of weird though. The interviewee doesn't really have that much flexibility in scheduling interviews. Unless it's for a company with centralized recruiting that's always hiring, in which case when you schedule makes no difference at all.