This will seem strange to ask in this economy . How do I professionally cancel a face-to-face interview.
Here's the back story:
A small but well networked company wants to interview me face-to-face after a good phone interview. The face-to-face is tomorrow morning at 8am. After thinking about the position for a good while, I really do not think it fits with my career goals. I want to become a lawyer which I'm currently going to night school for. This new position would require some travel and some late nights and after speaking with counselors at the college I"m attending, professors are typically not lenient regarding attendance.
My current thought is to just attend the interview meeting in person, let them know politely that I am not interested, and then apologize and profusely thank them for their time.
My concern is that this ultimately reflects badly on me in the future and with their network but on the flip side I think going to the interview to let them know I"m not interested is better than giving them a call a day before my interview. The profession I am currently in is a very close circle so that is what I'm concerned about messing up.
What do you guys think is the best approach?
Tough one
Honestly, if I were on the other side of the table tomorrow morning, I'd be more than a little annoyed at having been ready to go at oh-dark-thirty, I mean 8:00 am only to find out you have no interest in the gig. I'd be wondering why you didn't call earlier to beg off.
Personally, I wouldn't recommend cancelling the interview NOR would I recommend saying "Nah, I don't even want this" before you get an offer. By doing either of those, you're deadbolting Door #3 and you'll never, ever know what might possibly be back there.
If it were me, I'd go through with the face to face interview. I would arrive with a positive attitude and I would fully engage in the process. I would indeed mention that I am going to school, that I am pursuing a law degree and that I have a few concerns about the travel & late nights. You never know - they may be completely flexible or they may even choose to commend you on your goals & offer the gig to someone else with less commitments on their plate. Either of those last two wouldn't be a smudge on your record in that networked company.
Besides which, I never turn down an opportunity to practice my interview skills. (And ... if you're aiming to be a lawyer, consider it an opportunity for you to use your powers of persuasion offer you the job while still being flexible!)
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Don't cancel
I would interview - its good practice.
You can always turn down the offer...
Well since I did not get any
Well since I did not get any responses before the interview, I did go through with the interview with a very positive attitude and not alluding to the fact that i did not want the position. I interviewed, got a response back that they liked me but were not ready to bring someone on board like myself.
So either that is code-speak for we just did not want him or they left the door open for the future. I think it's the latter because CEO and VP both said they enjoyed meeting me 2-3 times. Either way, it was a good interview experience(I wrote down some things I needed to fix that I noticed myself doing) and I made sure that I did not burn any bridges.
Thanks for the advice!