Dear Rachel,
I am actively looking for a new job, but I obviously need to do it on the QT. How do I go about scheduling interviews in a way where my supervisor won’t find out? I don’t like the idea of sneaking around, but at the same time I know I’m going to have to leave work for interviews. How do I manage all this? I’m a planner in New York. Sign me
Interviewing Irene
Dear Irene,
Fortunately, these are pretty good times for media planners and buyers looking for new jobs, demand being quite healthy, especially for people with digital experience. Finding a job should take far less time than two years ago, say.
I can fully understand your desire not to have to sneak around. You also don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you feel you have to lie to anyone.
It’s perfectly reasonable that you should want to move up in your career, and you shouldn’t have to feel guilty about any aspect of your search for a new job.
As for the scheduling of your first-round interviews, I would make it very clear to whomever you talk that you have a job and that you have to set up meetings at times that don’t interfere with your current obligations.
Trust me, you will be respected for that.
The people you are talking to will understand perfectly, and they should be happy to work with you to meet during lunch hours or even after work. If they are interested in you, they should be accommodating.
If they won’t work with you, you don’t want to work for them. Move on to the next opportunity.
At some point, when talks do get serious, you will likely be called upon to appear at an interview in the middle of the day. In such a case, I would take a personal day from work, rather than try to figure out how you can slip away unnoticed for an hour or two.
If it’s a big interview, the last thing on your mind ought to be any worries that your absence will be discovered and you’ll be in Dutch once you return to work. Your thoughts that day must be entirely on the big interview, and you ought to be totally relaxed when you show up for it.
And don’t feel obligated to explain why you are taking a personal day. They call them personal days for a reason. If need be, take it as a vacation day.
In the end, your goal ought to be twofold: find that perfect new job and leave your old job on the best of terms. It can be done. People do it all the time.
