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I'm moving to another country and have put my resumé online to get a preview on job possibilities before I actually travel. There's a 5h time zone difference to the place I'm applying to, so I'm getting calls at 3am from recruiters.

  • Can I cause a bad impression if I add "(please call after 13:00)" next to my phone number in the resumé?
  • Would you rather explain: "due to the time zone difference, please call after 13:00"?
  • Or would you just turn off your phone while you're sleeping and hope recruiters to try again later?
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    Is there a reason that you have to hope recruiters call again later? I would expect that they'd leave a voice mail and that you could call them back at a time that was more convenient to you. Recruiters are generally going to be accustomed to people not immediately answering because, for example, they are currently employed. Oct 19, 2015 at 16:49
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    Dont bother. People do not "READ" resume's they skim them. It will just be ignored anyway Oct 19, 2015 at 19:44
  • @Chad Well they read the phone number
    – paparazzo
    Oct 20, 2015 at 5:27

3 Answers 3

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Instead of specifying times to call, consider telling them your timezone. It sounds like that's your problem -- not that you can only accept calls during a certain window, but rather that they assume you're local when you're not.

"(phone number) (UTC-4)" or similar provides the information they need and isn't overly wordy. If that doesn't work, the call will go to voicemail. If they bothered to call you in the first place, the odds are very good that they'll leave a message, same as for somebody who couldn't take the call because he was sitting in the middle of a cube farm. Recruiters are used to getting voicemail, in my experience.

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A recruiter calling you means that they are interested in your profile.

So, they will definitely put efforts for calling you up whenever you are comfortable, or will try to come up with a time slot which is comfortable for both of you.

So, a message like this would be enough:

please call after 13:00(Time-zone)

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If the recruiter is calling you, they obviously are interested in your skills or services for their company, so I'm sure they'd be more than willing to comply with any time zone difference you have and call you at an appropriate time. I would put somewhere in the Resume or Cover Letter that due to the time zone difference if they'd be so kind as to call you after a certain time, otherwise you will return their calls when you have time(wake up).

Most recruiters are pretty easy to work with and are tasked with finding good employees, so they're going to work around your schedule to get to talk to you if they're interested. It shouldn't be viewed as unprofessional or anything of the sort to let them know of a time zone difference, and they know people are in different places and certain things need to be set for each person individually.

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