[NamTaf]

How do you cope with people who are presently employed but want to interview? Do you expect them to find two days of absence from their present employer to test themselves at your company?

I mean for me that's no problem, but I don't live in the US and therefore have pretty liberal employee leave arrangements. I know that many companies in the US are a lot harder on giving out leave. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if this issue is minimised in the tech sector with their progressive business approaches.

[gizmo686]

I've never been in the job market yet (still in school), but I have seen some of the hiring process for teachers at my high school.

For every position they are hiring, there would typically be 2 or 3 candidates who spend the day in the school (including teaching a class).

Is getting 2 days off of work really that difficulty (if you plan far enough in advance)?

[Tloewald]

Yes it's terrible.

If you work in the US and have kids for which you take any level of responsibility chances are you can barely keep up with a typical schedule and have very little leave to play with. Pulling two days out of your ass for a job interview is almost impossible.

For a sufficiently awesome job, sure.

[NamTaf]

Correct. I get 4 weeks leave a year plus have flexible working arrangements (1:1 time in lieu if my work schedule e.g.: meetings permits), but that's partly because I'm ex-government (we were privatised) and also because I work in Aus, where 4 weeks is the base standard. Then I get personal leave (illness, caring for ill family, etc.) on top of that.

I know that in the US, it's often less. I've heard friends mention only a handful of days per year for leave, with sometimes needing to take that for 'sick' leave because of such low limits. For them, 2 days off to do a single interview would be impossible.

Obviously they're at the low end of the leave spectrum in the US, but given that the culture there is on the whole more restrictive I wasn't sure how that would affect interviewing.

[marceldegraaf]

Yes, people who are currently employed will have to take a few days off for this. As we're in The Netherlands that is usually no problem. One of the reasons we pay people for these two days is to compensate them for the two days off they'll have to sacrifice.