Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got a kind of a fun question here which is, "Should I still inform a potential employer
of my vacation plans even if I know they will negatively impact my ability to get the positions?"
I've actually been in this position before so I could give some direct advice.
This is from Sean and he says, "I've been in negotiations with a potential employer
for a fulltime senior role at an office location.
I feel I would be a great fit for the position, but without knowing of the opportunity prior,
I booked two trips, for the second month of the role.
I feel quite certain that the employer would dismiss my application if he knew of my prior
travel arrangements, but I think the employer would allow remote work if I'm a good fit.
When, if it at all, should I tell the employer about my travel plans?"
I'll read the additional info he has here.
He says, "I've been working in the field for 8 years, but recently got back from travelling
over 15 countries.
So I haven't actually worked since last year, and feeling quite rusty.
I love travelling perhaps more than coding, and I am carefully considering abandoning
coding for blogging and writing instead."
The reason why I read that additional info is because I think it makes—it's relevant
in this case the fact that he loves travel so much sort of tells him where he should
put his risk and what he should do in this situation.
I'll give you my story.
Back when I first got married—was getting married I had lost my job.
This was like September 11th like the 9/11 stuff.
I was looking for a new job and I really needed a new job and I interviewed for this contract
position and my wedding was scheduled.
It was scheduled for like a week after I started this new job, that I would get this new job,
but I needed to get the job.
What I did was I did not tell the employer when I was interviewing that I had a wedding
in a week, my wedding, that I would need to take off for a week essentially to get married.
I got the job and I did a really good job the first 5 days, Monday through Friday and
on Friday afternoon, I knocked on the boss' office and I was like, "Hey."
I made sure that he was super impressed with the work I was doing, I was working late hours.
I was doing a real good job and I said, "Hey, could I take off—I know I just started here,
but could I just take off for a week, next week, it's kind of important."
He was like, "That's kind of odd.
I mean you just started the job.
Why do you need to take off?
What could you possibly need to take off for?"
I was like, "Well, to get married.
He was like, "Are you serious?"
We had a good old time and he laughed about it and he says, "yeah, of course, you can
take out.
Don't worry about it.
It's not a big deal."
It could have gotten sour.
It could have gotten really bad but it went well.
I think in most cases—now, I debated a long time—we actually had this discussion.
He said, "Well, why didn't you tell me that you're going to—that you had this wedding
plan, that you're getting married?"
I told him, I said, "Well, I was afraid that I wouldn't get the job if you knew I was going
to have to go and leave in a week."
He said, "Oh, that makes sense."
We laughed about it, but I still got the feeling that I was probably right in what I did in
the fact that had I told him I probably wouldn’t have gotten the job.
Now, you could say, "Is that the right thing to do or not?"
I don't know.
It worked out fine.
I knew I was a good fit for the job.
What does 1 week matter?
It wasn't like they had some kind of crunch.
Did it really matter if I took the week 3 months on the road or after the first week
that I started the job?
It's just kind of a weird thing to take a week after you started the job.
That's my story.
Now, in your case, what would I do?
I would probably do a very similar thing.
There's no need to reveal that information upfront, I don't think.
Now, if you know that they're working on a specific project that you're being hired for
that has a deadline that they're bringing you on specifically to do that's totally different.
I'm not telling you to lie and to be deceitful in any way, but you don't need to volunteer
information that could only hurt you and not help you.
There's no need to say that.
When you get to the negotiation process, when they're ready to sign the paperwork then you
could say, "Hey, one thing I just want to make sure that you're aware of, I just want
to make sure that you know upfront that I've got some vacation planned and you can get
that cleared."
Or you could be willing to—the other thing that I could say that you kind of got to be
willing to do if you're going to do this is that when it comes time and you do have to
ask your boss for that time off, you have to be willing to possibly cancel your trip
or to quit the job.
If you're willing to do that then not volunteering the information upfront I think is perfectly
valid but you've got to be willing to do that.
If your boss says, "No, no, no, you can't do that.
You can't take this time off."
Then you've got to be willing to make that choice.
I would say that in most cases it's not going to be a problem.
Like I said, I think, from my own experience it wasn't a big deal.
It was still something I wouldn't have volunteered upfront just because why do that, why hurt
yourself?
At the very least, get the job, get everything decided.
Don't let that being an influencing factor in you getting this job.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Shake the hands.
Get the contract in place.
If you want to, right before you sign the final thing, like I said, say, "Oh, by the
way, I'm sure this won't be a problem, but I just wanted to let you know, is that okay?"
Or if you want to bring that up into the negotiations at the negotiation phase that's totally cool.
Just don't do it at the interview.
That's stupid.
That doesn't make any sense.
Why volunteer the information there at the interview?
That's not going to help you.
Anyway, that's my advice on it.
If you've got some other advice or you've been in a similar situation leave a comment
below.
I'm curious to hear how many of you have done this.
It was kind of fun.
It was kind of interesting when I did it.
It worked out for me.
Maybe you've got a bad story where it didn't work out for you.
Let me know.
I'm curious to hear.
Anyway, if you like this video, go ahead and click that Subscribe button below and I will
talk to you next time.
Take care.