[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.