Being an assistant to someone who has lots of appointments, it's super annoying for people to be too early. I sit in a cubicle - I have no extra chairs, plus you'd have to actually sit there in my cubicle with me. That would definitely not work. The best solution would be to hang out out of sight until maybe 15 minutes, then stop by to let me know you are here already, and then ask if there's a coffee shop nearby (or restroom, etc). Whether you actually drink coffee or use the restroom is irrelevant - it's just a way for you to stay out of my (and my boss's) hair until it's time for your meeting.

(/sarcasm)

I arrive at least one hour early for anything - a flight, an interview, a date - that really matters, but I do have backup plans so that I don't really appear to be that early.

@floraposte: And as the potential employer, you should not feel imposed. If you agreed on a time to start the interview, and the applicant shows up a bit early, do not feel imposed to begin the interview until that established time. If the applicant can not understand that you are a busy person, working on a daily schedule and seems to get annoyed because you are making him wait, you do not want him working for you anyway.

However, if you are going to be late for the interview because a "fire" needing your immediate attention just cropped up and you need a few minutes to hand things off to your staff, then let the applicant know either in person that you are running behind either in person, or through the receptionist.

Hey, where did that woman in the picture get my sign?

By the way, anyone hiring out there? I am indeed awesome and I need a job!

@IfThenElvis:

Coffee also makes people - including me - jittery. Not good when interviewing.

@ludwigk: I showed up for an interview to be a legislative assistant (for the state legislature) stupidly late. We're talking an hour. The legislator had told me the route to take, and I stupidly believed her. I think I doubled the amount of time she said it would take, and it took even longer than that. By the grace of God, and the fact that she, too, had been stuck in unhold Atlanta traffic for a ridiculous amount of time, she hired me. The fact that it was unpaid probably helped, too.

It may seem like the interviewer is being overly sensitive here, but unfortunately, when you're looking for a job, it's the applicant that is at the mercy of the interviewer.

In our office, the waiting area is a pair of chairs between the desks of two assistants. It's not a lobby by any stretch of the imagination, which is okay, because we're not the kind of company that needs a lobby. But when we're interviewing for a new opening, and people are sitting in between the two assistants for 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch? AWKWARD.

Seriously, piss off. We gave you that appt. time because that when we could see you.

It's not that interviewers are looking for a reason to be pissed off. It's that interviewers see a LOT of people, and believe it or not, something as simple as arrival time does tell you a lot about a potential hire.

@NYGal81: Part of it is about perception. Some people simply find it distracting that there is someone waiting, even they have been assured that it's okay.

You're definitely not being a jerk if you let them know that you're there early (especially if you took public transpo and there's nowhere else to wait, or it's raining and you have nowhere to sit), but assure them you're willing to wait. But if there's no reason other than you just arriving early, and letting them know you're there, it's just better to stay away until 15 minutes before your interview.

Now that I'm leaving my job to return to school full time, my company has been interviewing the hell out of the available job market, which is of course good for them. It's like waving a golden ticket in front of ravenous school children.

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it. Fortunately, I'm (semi)gainfully employed, so this has never happened for a job interview. Mostly just other various and sundry appointments. I'll keep this in mind, though, when my next turn on the interview trail comes up.

I asked in another thread if it makes me a jerky, entitled person if I get to an appointment early, but then let the front desk know that I *know* I'm early, and I'm happy to wait for my appointed time. I, too, leave a lot of time to get places (accounting for traffic, weather, other delays, etc). I feel like it's much more respectful of someone's time to be early and patiently "wait your turn" than to be late and throw off other people's days.

My perspective might also be heavily shaped by occupation. I'm a therapist, and I always let clients know that I won't start a session early, no matter how early they get there, because I don't want to set an expectation that I can do that routinely. I also won't give extra time at the end (unless there's a crisis) if people come late. So I never expect people to take me early for appointments, and I also never expect them to give me extra time if I *am* late.

I'd say 5 to 10 minutes early is cool. But too early can be annoying as an interviewer. If someone shows up too early I have to stop what I'm doing to go escort them in. Because there is normally at least 2 other people interviewing this person after me I can't start early or it will affect their schedule as well. I'm forced to either make them wait or start early and stretch the interview. This really sucks if the candidate is terrible.

This is something I do when I'm unusually early, and there's some reason I don't want to wait in my car or outside. I realize it can be read both as very earnest (i.e. sorry for being so early, not trying to get in sooner), or very presumptuous (i.e. assuming that they would try to get you in sooner just because you're early).

I never mean it to be presumptuous, and I always happen to have a book or something else to occupy my time so that I never look like I'm sitting there, bored, staring into space. Are people still perceiving me to be jerky or entitled?

There, I saved you the trouble of having to look up the answer to your question. It's his job to write about this stuff.

On second thought, if you that tactic to land a firefighting job I want credit!

Thirdly - CS grenades during a polygraph would work too, eh?

Job interviews are a lot like fishing: you have to do certain things right in order to stand a chance, yet you could spend all day out there and not catch a thing.

But in your case the boss sounds like an asshat.

I'll add the caveat that I've been in retail mgmt for a decade, where interviewers typically have little training and direction beyond a few pieces of paper telling them what to look for. As for other industries, YMMV...

From a cultural perspective, most people don't feel comfortable making someone wait for them...

See, that's where they lose me. You're not making someone wait if they show up early. They're just early. If anything they're making themselves wait.

Getting mad at someone for being early seems like you're just looking for an excuse to be pissed off.

While in the military, it was ingrained in us to be 15 minutes early for everything. We called it "courtesy time". I still do that for interviews and meetings. Being that I currently work for the DoD as a civilian, the rule still holds true.
If you have extra time, goto the restroom and double check your appearance in the mirror. You don't want to go walking into the interview with eye boogers or dried toothpaste on your lip.

@HogwartsAlum: Same with people who come in early for business meetings.

At my company, I'm the receptionist plus a million other things, so I do actually have stuff to do other than answering the phone. I don't really want to talk to someone about a specific account when another vendor is waiting in the lobby.

@mistifi: Ha, me too. This sort of thing is exactly why I got into the habit of carrying a book or the NY Times around with me. In fact, when I replaced my purse recently a main factor was whether or not I could fit at least a mass market paperback in there.

Arrive an hour early, by all means. But take a coffee break or whatever and don't enter the building until you're 20 minutes early.

Believe it or not, it's what you say and how you respond to questions that makes the difference.

Unless the place has flex hours having someone arrive at the office early means they'll be settled down on time.

If it's an hourly job you have to get there early to be clocked in on time.

I have to totally agree with this. I just had to hire for a junior level position and so many applicants were as early as 30-40 minutes! It's super annoying and yes, disruptive, especially in a really busy workplace. I honestly *would* rather someone be 5 minutes late because of a wonky train or something. Even better would be 5 or maybe 10 minutes early at the most. Stall!

@MissPeacock: I'd say 15 might be pushing it, but I suppose it depends exactly what sort of company you're being interviewed for.

I find 5 mins early is generally a good bet. Depending on how many interviews they're doing, you might still have to wait around for anywhere up to half an hour while the guy ahead of you finishes due to backlog.

1) Be 15 minutes early.

2) Never arrive less than 30 minutes after the start of the person whom you are seeing's day begins, unless they have specifically request you to do so.

15 minutes, to me, is the maximum amount of early both parties feel comfortable addressing. I also never want to be there at the same time the appointment upon whom I'm calling. They should have time to answer e-mail/phone messages and get sufficiently caffeinated before they have to deal with me.

When someone shows up exactly on time, I love it.

I have often times shown up a bit early (10-15 minutes You are taking public transportation and it is freezing outside so you don't have a car to sit in and there are no obvious coffee shops in the immediate area...my career often requires my employers to be out in the middle of nowhere), but I will usually tell the receptionist that I am early, and I would like to wait in the lobby area for a while. If she insists on calling the interviewer, I request that she tell the interviewer that I know I am early, and if he needs time to wrap up what he is working on I understand and I am fine waiting...no pressure on him.

@mimbypims: My parents ask me all the time whether I need to practice my route in advance of getting to my first day at work. I look at them like they're crazy because my time is much more valuable than to sit in traffic for 30 minutes when I already know where I'm going. In fact, my first job, they didn't even give me a choice. They were all, "let's have family time, have lunch, blah blah" and on the way, they drove me to my new office and told me how to get there, despite the fact that I already told them I knew how.

Now that I live farther away, I don't have to worry about such helicopter parenting!

I actually made a funny PowerPoint about applying and interviewing and emailed it to my then-boss (she was the accounting and HR person). She thought it was hilarious. I would attach it if I knew how!

@mistifi: I am like this as well. I've taken to driving to the interview location a day early for practice so I can make all my stupid driving mistakes ahead of time. On interview day, I still tend to arrive pretty early, but I wouldn't go into the office until about 5 min before the actual start time.

That made me giggle. I am a bad person.

@FrankieAvalonin'_GitEmSteveDave: I would hire you if you could design a zip line system inside the office so internal memos can simply be weighted and sent along the line.

@mistifi: That's a little extreme! I've been known to be in the area about an hour before (at the most) but that was kind of a fluke. I thought it would take longer than it did. Another time, I was driving to Maryland for an interview and I had so much time before the interview that I got a quick manicure.

I always leave early, just in case. But I tend to have a good idea of where I'm going, and I rarely get lost. I just always give myself time because I always think I might get lost. But it hasn't happened so far.

When you show up extremely early, it makes everyone nervous because either they have to rearrange their schedule to fit you in earlier, or they have to ignore you for the next hour and let you sit in the lobby. But your presence alone hinders the administrative assistant or secretary from doing what he/she needs to get done because they have to babysit.

I've always gotten to my interview spot early, very very early in some cases when I wasn't sure where I was going or how long it would take with traffic. I just found a coffeeshop and set my alarm to 15 minutes before the interview time (giving myself time to walk back there and smooth out my clothes and check myself in the mirror).

Don't show up late at all, but don't show up extremely early, either. You may be there at the request of your potential employer, but they decide whether to hire you. 10 minutes is a good buffer time. It gives the employer time to finish what they're doing or find a good stopping point, it gives them time to clean their desk or what not, and it gives you time to go over your talking points and prepare yourself again.

It's also a bargaining point as I explain that not only can they take the money to repair the window out of my future paychecks, I can advise them on how to avoid people crashing through their windows. The most preferable method is brick pattern window clings. It makes the person thing they can't crash through the window, in addition to cost savings by blocking out a percentage of the light to lower cooling costs!

If I don't get the call from the front desk by 5 minutes before the interview is to start, I start to worry.

Show up for an interview late and the candidate will have to absolutely knock my socks off to get the job from me.

The "neighborhood interview" is a good plan...

This fear is mostly due to my complete lack of direction. I get lost so easily that I've basically reprogrammed myself to leave super early, "just in case". I get lost getting to offices when I'm already within buildings. I park in the wrong parking lots.... It happens frequently enough that I'm not too terribly interested in reforming my ways so that I get there "on time".

Wait...you can't write your resume in crayon?! So THAT'S what I've been doing wrong!

@GyroMight:

Depends - an hour early seems worse than 5 minutes late. The five minutes you can blame on traffic. The hour they can blame on you being a tool.

Have your act together, look appropriate and resolve yourself to the fact that jobs are going to be harder to get right now.