OVERHEARD IN THE RECRUITING LOUNGE is a weekly feature on things going on in the recruiting side of CCD.

It’s late October.

You’ve got a first round interview with Company ABC on campus, but you’ve just been invited for a second round interview with Company XYZ for the same day.  What’s a senior to do?

Well, you’ve got a couple of options here.

1. Cloning.  You can try cloning yourself but in the off chance that it goes wrong, or just doesn’t work out you may want to check out the other options below.
2. Attend the first round interview with Company ABC.
3. Attend the second round interview with Company XYZ.

So let’s say you go with option #2, and attend the first round interview with Company ABC.

Pros:

• You get to be seen by a company within a candidate pool of your peers.  The obvious benefit is that many companies that interview on campus are specifically looking to target Babson students which gives you a higher chance of success.
• You are able to keep your obligation with ABC without the appearance of being flaky.

Cons:

• You miss your chance at a second round interview.  But did you try seeing if you could reschedule?  Sometimes companies offer several second round interview dates, often within a few days or weeks of each other.  Try asking the employer if there’s another date that you could come in for the second rounds.

So let’s say you go with option #3 and attend the second round interview with Company XYZ.

Pros:

• You’ve got a second round interview!  Hooray!  You’re one step closer to getting an offer.

Cons:

• You miss your first round interview with ABC which may or may not be able to be rescheduled.  Depending on the timeliness of your decision, you may risk jeopardizing another Babson student’s chance of getting on Company ABC’s interview schedule.

Either way, YOU have to make a decision.  So what do you tell the other company?  Well, this is a classic situation of “You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t.”  Here in CCD, we argue about this.  Do you tell Company ____ that you are blowing off their interview for another company’s interview?  Or do you tell them something more vague, like,  you “have an off-campus engagement that just came up?”  We even asked employer’s which would they rather hear and their responses were split 50/50.  Some employer’s felt that hearing that the student had another interview (a second round at that) made the candidate more attractive.  While others argued that hearing this made the candidate seem “not as serious” about the application to their specific company.   Additionally, using a vague response can make the candidate seem flaky but in other instances, keeps the matter elusive and unquestionable by the employer.

Like I said, damned if you, damned if you don’t…

So what’s a senior to do?

It’s your call.  Make a decision.  Whatever you choose, be sure to handle the matter in a professional and timely manner.  Failure to do can cause you to burn bridges all over the place, which is NOT what you want in this kind of environment.  When all else fails, and you’re really just stumped… swing by CCD and talk it out with one of the counselors.  Drop in hours are M-Th, 1-4 p.m.

And that’s what we overheard this week in the recruiting lounge…