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I've been working with a company for only one month, and I've received ongoing interest - such as requests for interviews - from resumes I sent out before I started my new position.

How should I respond to these interview requests? Is it a bad idea to take the interview? What would be the risks and/or tradeoffs?

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4 Answers 4

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First you need to make a personal choice: Do you want to leave your current employer, or not?

If you have no desire to leave simply tell the recruiters (politely!) that you are sorry, but you recently came to work for a new employer, you are happy where you are, and you are not currently looking to change employment.
Make sure to be polite - You may decide later on that you do want to interview with this other company, and you don't want to burn your bridges.

If you do want to leave your current employer, respond as you would to any interview request when you're seeking employment (schedule an interview, talk to them, get an offer, etc.) -- Be aware however that a history of serial short-term employment may not look great on a resume.

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    It might not even look great with just this one job of a month. If I were hiring and I interviewed a person who had only been at his current job for a month, that might make me concerned that he would leave my job immediately if something more interesting came along. At the very least, he would have to tell me why it turned out that he was so unhappy at a job he just started. And then you have a careful line to walk to not appear to be dissing your current employer.
    – HLGEM
    Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 14:04
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    @HLGEM absolutely true - unless your answer is honestly and truly "Well I really wanted to work for your company but you weren't hiring - now you are!" it's something that would be hard to spin...
    – voretaq7
    Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 18:04
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    that might even be believeable if the company was Google or some other big name.
    – HLGEM
    Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 18:36
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    @HLGEM - I think the problem of leaving after only 30 days is not a huge concern. At the very least it would raise their eyebrow on the situation. I would say that telling them that you really wanted to work for them, had applied to to open positions at their company in the past ( if this was actually true ), but had to accept what was offered is a valid reason.
    – Donald
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 13:21
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    If you take a job, and then leave a month later for somewhere else, you'd probably be best served by just not mentioning the one month job on your resume.
    – Carson63000
    Commented Jul 21, 2012 at 8:34
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How would you respond to the request normally?

There isn't much different at a new job except the following:

  • You may still be in a probation period.
  • You don't really know a lot about your new job yet (good or bad) so it will be hard to make any judgments about whether you should be considering different opportunities.
  • Responding may make you look flaky (unreliable, careless, prone to changing your mind) to the other company, and to your new one if they find out.

By "not much different" I mean you should only consider taking the interview request if there is a good reason to:

  • The opportunity is/could be better
  • You are unhappy in the current position
  • Any other reason you might leave a company

If you decide to decline, you should simply say "I've already taken a new position, but thank you for your response." And, if you'd like them to retain your resume for the future, say so.

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If you didn't intend to leave your current job, or the new opportunity looks flying sexy, it is a waste of time of everyone to attend the interview.

If you want to decline the interview, you can say,

"Well, I was looking for a job and might have been interested in a position like this, but I have just taken up another assignment so I'm not be willing change very soon."

I think this (just-joined-somewhere) is enough, for recruiter not to bother you.

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I read an advice from an article, that is recommended to have an interview every six months or year even if you are enrolled, that would help to understand what new things managers care about, or what skills are more important currently,

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    I think this is pretty awful advice for two reasons: First my time preparing for an interview is valuable to me, and I'm not inclined to do that much work if I'm not seriously looking (and if I'm not preparing what's the point?). Second my time interviewing someone is valuable to my employer - If someone used me as a practice interview and when offered a job they said "Oh, I'm not really looking, I'm just keeping my interview skills sharp" I'd probably instruct HR to never take another application from them.
    – voretaq7
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 4:24
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    @voretaq7 - I would have to agree, without the article and the entire context of said suggestion, just going to random interviews is bad advice. You not only waste the time of everyone involved, you also place your current job at work, if say the CEO for company you intereviewed is best friends with somebody you work with. There really isn't a reason for going to an interview in the eyes of your current employeer.
    – Donald
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 13:24
  • @voretaq7 well I do agree with you, I just thought about from the perspective of person seeking for a better job, especially if his job was not a contract for a certain period like most cases in our country, but it is a waste of time for the manager,
    – mfadel
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 16:16
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    @FaddelHomsi If you take the interview seriously it's a waste of time for you too. Between researching the company, crafting a good cover letter, and customizing my resume to highlight skills they're looking for I probably spend a good 2 hours preparing for an interview (and that's a minimum number - When I interviewed with Google I probably spent 2 full days preparing myself). I may take interviews more seriously than others though :-)
    – voretaq7
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 16:28
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    @voretaq7 if I am looking for a better job, and no contract with the current employer and he is not paying well, how could that be a waste of time? I understand that it takes time to make a good cover letter (but it seems it is not needed always here), of course when I prepare myself for a great opportunity I will take the best preparation, it takes time, but if it is a better opportunity, it is worth, isn't it??
    – mfadel
    Commented Apr 28, 2012 at 6:06

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