The Best Time Of Day To Schedule An Interview
What’s the best time to schedule job interviews or admissions interviews at colleges? First thing in the morning, says blogger Eric Barker—for two reasons:
“1) Research shows college admissions interviewers who have said yes to many applicants in one day are less likely to approve another that day, despite the arbitrary distinction.
Most people use similar informal groupings in their head for comparisons. Best to be first and not be on the losing end of such considerations:
Many professionals, from auditors and lawyers, to clinical psychologists and journal editors, divide continuous flows of judgments into subsets. College admissions interviewers, for instance, evaluate but a handful of applicants a day. We conjectured that in such situations individuals engage in narrow bracketing, assessing each subset in isolation, and then avoid deviating much – for any given subset – from the expected overall distribution of judgments. For instance, an interviewer who has already highly recommended three applicants on a given day may be reluctant to do so for a fourth applicant. Data from over 9000 MBA interviews supported this prediction. Auxiliary analyses suggest that contrast effects and non-random scheduling of interviews are unlikely alternative explanations.
Source: “Daily Horizons: Evidence of Narrow Bracketing in Judgment from 10 Years of MBA-Admission Interviews” from Psychological Science
2) People just seem to like things which are first.
Via Science Daily:
How people make choices depends on many factors, but a new study finds people consistently prefer the options that come first: first in line, first college to offer acceptance, first salad on the menu — first is considered best.
The paper, ‘First is Best,’ recently published in PLoS ONE by Dana R. Carney, assistant professor of management, University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and co-author Mahzarin R. Banaji, professor of psychology, Harvard University.
In three experiments, when making quick choices, participants consistently preferred people (salespersons, teams, criminals on parole) or consumer goods presented first as opposed to similar offerings in second and sequential positions.” Read more here.
Wow! Had always recommended that candidates do their MBA interviews either in mornings or right after lunch just for the obvious reasons – will be changing that advice now, based on this – very important to know! Lots of bschools have alumni do the interviews which means #1 above doesn’t apply (the alum are not the ones making the decisions and they would rarely ever see two candidates in one week, much less one day). For a school like HBS though – where every advantage is important – this is huge!
Psychologists have studied this phenomenon as well and it could also be due to the amount of self-control available, which is largely determined by glucose levels. Therefore, the judge’s breakfast can in fact influence his or her decision (http://goo.gl/HgiuJ). Greater self-control, more lenient and prisoners are more likely to be granted parole. Less self-control, harsher rulings. Weird, but this finding seems to be consistent across cultures.
So it seems that whenever we need to make a decision or need someone else to make a decision that favours ourselves, we should try to get it done early in the day. If not possible, do it after a break. Most importantly, avoid it during the late afternoon, where self-control levels tend to be lowest.