Second-Interview Seriousness?

Dear Liz,

I am a weary job-seeker and I've been on more interviews than I care to remember
in my current job search. Last week, I had what seemed like a very promising
first interview for a Records Coordinator position in a bank. I have done this
type of work before. Last night, I got an email message from them inviting me
back for a second interview. I am sick of wasting time on jobs that don't pan
out and I'd like to ask them for them proof of seriousness before driving
another 40 miles for the second interview. How can I do that?

Thanks,

Todd


--------- LIZ REPLIES:--------------------------------------

Dear Todd,

You can establish that the salary will meet your needs, before schlepping back
to the bank again. You can call the person who sent you the second-interview
request, and say "Hi Jane, thanks for your email message. I'm excited at the
prospect of meeting more of your colleagues, but I'd hate for any of us to waste
our time, so let's make sure we're in synch on the compensation scheme before we
schedule that." Jane is not likely to tell you the salary range for the
position. She'll ask you to 'go first,' so you'll need to have a target salary
or range in mind.

You can use www.Payscale.com to zero in on a range for this Records Coordinator
job. You might say "I'm focusing on jobs in the mid-forties." If Jane doesn't
fall off her chair in a dead faint or slam the phone down on the cradle you're
probably in good shape. Apart from checking out the salary, there's not too much
we can do to establish a prospective employer's seriousness about us before
committing to a second (or third, or fourth) interview - the invitation for the
second interview is, of course, a statement of the employer's seriousness all by
itself. :-)

If you get Jane live on the phone you can ask her "What's the timeframe for
filling this position?" and "What does the selection process look like,
following the second interviews?"

At the end of the day, the only real leverage a job-seeker has is the existence
of other offers. If you got to the bank for that second interview and said
(either based on fact or a jolt of moxie you got somehow - let's say, by sipping
a Jamba Juice on your way to the interview) "I have some irons in the fire that
could take me off the job market by this weekend, so I want to mention that if
there's a serious interest in having me join the bank, we should act quickly"
the bank folks would be likely to pay attention to that. (Or call your bluff, of
course.)

Best -- Liz