we are often asked: “if there are multiple candidates, should i be the first, second or last interview?”..tough question
here is our experience…if there are only three or four candidates and they are all being interviewed on the same day, it really doesn’t matter much if you are first, last or in the middle…
now if there are more than that, like six or seven on the same day..or the inteveiws are spread out over a few days, it is best to be dead last…if you can’t be last…be first…
if you are first, you “set the bar”…and you had better be good!…over the next day or two after the interview, email or call and remind the hiring authority who you are and how good you are by reinforcing what he or she said they wanted….
if the interviewing process is carried out over a long period of time…like days or weeks…try to be last…it takes advantage of the “law of recency”…people remeber best what they saw last…
so often, hiring authorities leave the decision to hire someone to the very last moment…lets face it, hiring is an emtionally difficult thing to do and since it is uncomfortable, it gets left to the last moment…soooo, if you are the last candidate interviewed, you have a better chance…
now it only ammounts to a 15% or 20% better chance of being hired, so don’t let it go to your head…however, you need all the advantages you can get
