Employment Blog

Hey, that’s MY hard drive!
Photo credit: doortoriver via flickr

Trade Secret Protection Efforts Land Company in Losing Lawsuit

Earlier this month, after a seven-week trial, a California jury awarded $17.5 million to a former employee in his lawsuit against his former employer for breaking into a laptop owned by the employee.

The former employee is Dallen Trealoff, who founded an RV-related company with his wife in 2003. In 2002, Trealoff’s former employer, Forest River, Inc., removed the hard drive from Trealoff’s personal computer, alleging that Trealoff was preparing to make off with company trade secrets in order to found his company.

Trealoff had used his spare time to develop a software program that kept track of Forest River’s sales and production information.

In removing the hard drive, the company was pursuing protection of that information, which it considered trade secrets.

However, the computer also contained Trealoff’s personal financial information.

So how does a company end up losing valuable information, its public reputation, AND more than $15 million in punitive damages? By not taking proper precautions for trade secret protection, that’s how.

How Did The Employer Blow Its Trade Secret Protection? Let Me Count the Ways…

1. Trealoff’s employer allowed him to work with confidential company information on his personal computer. Laptops are not that expensive. If Trealoff had been issued a company-owned one, it would have been returned when he left.While he could certainly have taken information from it before returning it, there would have been a high likelihood that such activity could have been discovered through forensic examination of the laptop. Such examination would have given rise to no claims by Trealoff because the company would have been free to examine its own property.Any claims that Trealoff was entitled to privacy in personal information on the laptop could have been defeated by a simple policy providing that no such privacy right existed and that the company reserved the right to monitor and examine all employee use of its computers.

   If the policy had also required company business to be done on company computers only, and prohibited use of company computers for personal business, this would have further avoided the key contention in the lawsuit that the company invaded the privacy of Trealoff’s personal financial information.

2. Trealoff’s employer didn’t require him to sign a protective agreement.Granted, California employment law doesn’t recognize noncompete agreements. However, California employers can use nondisclosure agreements to protect their trade secrets, customer lists, customers, and employees from being taken when an employee leaves.If Trealoff’s employer had required him to sign such an agreement, it may have been able to avoid both costly litigation and a potential public perception that it steals from its employees, rather than the other way around.However, under trade secret law, an employer still has certain trade secret protection rights, even without such an agreement.
3. Trealoff’s employer didn’t file suit first.By doing so, the company could have made any legitimate trade secret law claims the central issues of the case, rather than having them relegated to counterclaim status.In addition, filing suit first would have allowed the company to gain access to Trealoff’s hard drive legally — through the discovery process.Perhaps the company felt it lacked sufficient evidence of trade secret misappropriation upon which to base a lawsuit, and seeking such evidence for this purpose may be why it took the hard drive. But the suspicions that led it to take the hard drive may have been sufficient to justify filing a trade secret action.
4. Trealoff’s employer may have failed to take sufficient security and confidentiality precautions to establish that the information qualified for trade secret status.One of the requirements for information to qualify for trade secret protection is that reasonable efforts have been taken to maintain secrecy. Lack of a noncompete agreement, confidentiality agreement, or computer policy, and allowing the use of a personal computer for company business may have all been factors supporting the conclusion that the company failed to take such precautionary efforts.
5. Trealoff’s employer may have failed to take appropriate steps to protect its rights in the software he created in his spare time.The news article’s reference to the fact this software was created in Trealoff’s spare time suggests perhaps the lawsuit included a dispute about ownership of the software.Employers are well advised to clarify by written agreement the ownership of inventions and other intellectual property created by employees.

By failing to institute sufficient safeguards, Trealoff’s employer lost its trade secrets, customer information, and an awful lot of money — money that will, no doubt, be put to good use in Dallen Trealoff’s business, which is already thriving, reporting sales of $56 million in the third full year of operation.

Trade Secret Protection Tips for Protecting Your Company’s Hard-Earned Success

In today’s layoff-heavy employment environment, it is more important than ever that you protect trade secrets and customer lists from tomorrow’s potentially very angry former employees.

In addition, a national corporate culture that has shown little loyalty to employees for two decades now has provided more seemingly legitimate reasons than ever before to current and former employees to consider the results of their work their own rather than their employer’s.

It is also important to note that California is not the only state that is likely to err on the side of protecting workers’ ability to earn a livelihood during these tough times rather than enforcing overly-restrictive agreements.

On the other hand, courts in most states will enforce what they consider reasonable restrictions.

Therefore, it is incumbent on companies to target their non-compete and other protective policies very carefully lest they be deemed as excessively restrictive of workers’ right to pursue employment.

Resources

Check out the following resources from our Bookstore as references to help you protect your company’s information from the most common threats — internal ones:

• Trade Secrets: Law and Practice, by David Quinto, Stuart Singer
• Video Leadership Seminars: Structuring Non-Compete Agreements, with Richard D. Glovsky of Prince Lobel Glovsky & Tye LLP
• Intellectual Property: Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights and Trade Secrets (Entrepreneur Magazine’s Legal Guide), by Catherine J. Holland, Vito A. Canuso III, Diane M. Reed, Sabing H. Lee, Andrew I. Kimmel, Wendy K. Peterson
• Trade Secrets: A Practitioner’s Guide (Practising Law Institute Intellectual Property Law Library), by Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Why Do Interviewers Ask About My Weaknesses?

No interviewer expects “brutally honest answers like,’I’m below-average intelligence and difficult to work with,’” says a hiring expert quoted by the Washington Post.

So why do they ask? “The intent of this question is to throw you off course,” says EmploymentDigest.net. Many positions require workers to think on their feet, and interviewers want to know if they can do that.

There’s another, less confrontational reason, according to the Washington Post.

“…interviewers say that even skewed answers can help reveal whether applicants possess key qualities such as self-awareness, humility, sincerity, zest, and skill in managing shortcomings and mistakes.”

Of course, not every hiring manager wants to talk about candidates’ weaknesses. In November 2008, paylocity’s Tim Stall wrote in Net Developer’s Journal that,

“If the interview cannot determine your weaknesses from normal interview questions, are they really weaknesses? It is part of the recruiter’s job to determine your weaknesses, and by directly asking you, they’re essentially asking you to do their job for them.”

But since there’s no way of knowing beforehand whether our interviewer likes or loathes the question, job seekers must be ready with an answer.

Tough Interview Question Results in Conflicting Advice

Writing from Dublin, Ireland in 2006, Fortify Services founder Rowan Manahan sums up how it can feel to be confronted with one of the toughest interview questions: “What is your greatest weakness?”:

[I]t’s no wonder people dread job interviews. There you are in your best interview suit, with your shiniest shoes on, doing your best to sound credible, professional and enthusiastic and all the interviewer wants to do is lift up stones and see what crawls out.”

It’s hard enough that the “What is your (greatest) weakness?” question definitely puts you on the spot. Worse is that at least two prominent sources have offered somewhat conflicting advice on how to answer an interviewer who has lifted up that stone to see “what crawls out.”

Vault.com, for example, says in an undated article on the topic that, “Some HR managers suggested the old approach of naming a fault that’s not a fault”:

“I am impatient, and I like to get things done and done quickly and get frustrated when politics and red tape slow down projects,” was how a recruiting and staffing manager for a Florida-based trucking company answered.

(Or there’s always the classic line: “I’m a workaholic and perfectionist.”)

However, this February 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal wastes no time dispelling that advice:

Worldwide Panel LLC, a small market-research firm, is getting flooded with resumes for four vacancies in sales and information technology.

However, officials expect to reject numerous applicants after asking them: “What is your greatest weakness?” Candidates often respond “with something that is not a weakness,” say[s] Christopher Morrow, senior vice president of the Calabasas, Calif., concern. “It is a deal breaker.”

Three Tips for Answering, “What Is Your (Greatest) Weakness?”

What’s a job-seeker to do? The following three tips will help you not only answer this tough job interview question, but also to take stock of the things you might want to work on in your next job.

1. Be Prepared Part 1: Take a good look at yourself. This is where the old axiom, “Know Thyself” comes in.
   

   “Look at those things you prevaricate on. Items you consistently shy away from doing,” says Manahan. “Those parts of your job that you just don’t enjoy, feel inadequate performing, or know in your heart of hearts that others do better. What about something that you would love to get training in to make that sense of inadequacy go away? Build a list of these Achilles’ heels.Think about things that used to be a problem for you in the past, but that you have gained a measure of confidence in now. Look at how you gained that confidence or redressed the problem. These insights will form the nucleus of your answer.”

2. Be Prepared Part 2: Research the company “Learn as much as you can about the employer you are interviewing with,” says EmploymentDigest. Tools like LinkedIn may well be able to connect you with information about the person with whom you’ll be interviewing, and you can use other online tools to pick up important tips about the company’s culture. At the very least, “If you know who you’re dealing with, you will be less likely to become uneasy during the interview process.” At best, this information can give you clues as to the best ways to frame your answer.
3. “How I overcame/addressed/am addressing this weakness”: tell your story. The Blawg has already covered the effectiveness of answering, “Tell me about yourself” with a story. A story answer that truthfully addresses not only one of your weaknesses — but how you’ve been addressing or have overcome it — is a perfect fit for this question as well. For example, if you had difficulty with a particular task in your last job but sought out training and/or worked at that task until you improved your performance, your interviewer will be impressed with your initiative — and it’s a decided bonus if that particular skill or knowledge is necessary for the job you’re interviewing for. One executive interviewed by the Washington Post said that she, “has impressed hiring managers by revealing that her inclination to quickly complete projects can cause errors, so she double-checks and proofreads all her work.”

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Why Do Interviewers Ask About My Weaknesses?

No interviewer expects “brutally honest answers like,’I’m below-average intelligence and difficult to work with,’” says a hiring expert quoted by the Washington Post.

So why do they ask? “The intent of this question is to throw you off course,” says EmploymentDigest.net. Many positions require workers to think on our feet, and interviewers want to know if we can do that.

There’s another, less confrontational reason, according to the Washington Post.

“…interviewers say that even skewed answers can help reveal whether applicants possess key qualities such as self-awareness, humility, sincerity, zest, and skill in managing shortcomings and mistakes.”

Of course, not every hiring manager wants to talk about candidates’ weaknesses. In November 2008, paylocity’s Tim Stall wrote in Net Developer’s Journal that,

“If the interview cannot determine your weaknesses from normal interview questions, are they really weaknesses? It is part of the recruiter’s job to determine your weaknesses, and by directly asking you, they’re essentially asking you to do their job for them.”

But since there’s no way of knowing beforehand whether our interviewer likes or loathes the question, it’s on job-seekers to be ready with an answer.

Tough Interview Question Results in Conflicting Advice

Writing from Dublin, Ireland in 2006, Fortify Services founder Rowan Manahan sums up how it can feel to be confronted with one of the toughest interview questions: “What is your greatest weakness?”:

“…it’s no wonder people dread job interviews. There you are in your best interview suit, with your shiniest shoes on, doing your best to sound credible, professional and enthusiastic and all the interviewer wants to do is lift up stones and see what crawls out.”

It’s hard enough that the “What is your (greatest) weakness?” question definitely puts you on the spot. Worse is that at least two prominent sources have offered somewhat conflicting advice on how to answer an interviewer who has lifted up that stone to see “what crawls out.”

Vault.com, for example, says in an undated article on the topic that, “Some HR managers suggested the old approach of naming a fault that’s not a fault.”:

“‘I am impatient, and I like to get things done and done quickly and get frustrated when politics and red tape slow down projects,’” was how a recruiting and staffing manager for a Florida-based trucking company answered.”

However, this February 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal wastes no time dispelling that advice:

“Worldwide Panel LLC, a small market-research firm, is getting flooded with résumés for four vacancies in sales and information technology.

However, officials expect to reject numerous applicants after asking them: ‘What is your greatest weakness?’ Candidates often respond ‘with something that is not a weakness,’ say[s] Christopher Morrow, senior vice president of the Calabasas, Calif., concern. ‘It is a deal breaker.’”

Three Tips for Answering, “What Is Your (Greatest) Weakness?”

What’s a job-seeker to do? The following three tips will help you not only answer this tough question, but also to take stock of the things you might want to work on in your next job:

1. Be Prepared Part 1: Take a good look at yourself. This is where the old axiom, “Know Thyself” comes in.
   

   “Look at those things you prevaricate on. Items you consistently shy away from doing,” says Manahan. “Those parts of your job that you just don’t enjoy, feel inadequate performing, or know in your heart of hearts that others do better. What about something that you would love to get training in to make that sense of inadequacy go away? Build a list of these Achilles’ heels.Think about things that used to be a problem for you in the past, but that you have gained a measure of confidence in now. Look at how you gained that confidence or redressed the problem. These insights will form the nucleus of your answer.”

2. Be Prepared Part 2: Research the company “Learn as much as you can about the employer you are interviewing with,” says EmploymentDigest. Tools like LinkedIn may well be able to connect you with information about the person with whom you’ll be interviewing, and you can use other online tools to pick up important tips about the company’s culture. At the very least, “If you know who you’re dealing with, you will be less likely to become uneasy during the interview process.” At best, this information can give you clues as to the best ways to frame your answer.
3. “How I overcame/addressed/am addressing this weakness”: tell your story. The Blawg has already covered the effectiveness of answering, “Tell me about yourself” with a story. A story answer that truthfully addresses not only one of your weaknesses — but how you’ve been addressing or have overcome it — is a perfect fit for this question as well. For example, if you had difficulty with a particular task in your last job but sought out training and/or worked at that task until you improved your performance, your interviewer will be impressed with your initiative — and it’s a decided bonus if that particular skill or knowledge is necessary for the job you’re interviewing for. One executive interviewed by the Washington Post said that she, “has impressed hiring managers by revealing that her inclination to quickly complete projects can cause errors, so she double-checks and proofreads all her work.”

Photo courtesy slushpup via flickr.

photo credit SOCIALisBETTER via flickr

So Many Resumes, So Little Time

In the late 1990’s, I helped my boss screen candidates for a new position. It was my job to review the resumes and separate them into two piles: “Interview” and “Send Immediate, Polite Rejection Letter.”

With only a few ads in the paper, we received roughly sixty resumes, about seven of which I placed in the “Interview” pile.

If I were performing the same task today, it’s likely I would have three hundred or more resumes to review, thanks to the prevalence of online job boards and the high volume of job seekers.

According to a Forbes article about how to find a job online in this crowded market:

At the Internet job board Jobfox.com, recruiters are getting between 300 and 500 applications on average for each position they advertise. That’s up five times in the last six months. It’s a similar scene at TheLadders.com, where the recruiters say they now receive twice as many applications for each open position as this time last year.

How to Get Your Resume to the Top of the Stack

After reading the Forbes article, I decided to see what other advice is available to help job hunters stand out when using online job boards.

Here are the top five tips to help your resume stand out

1. Apply early. Very early.Think about it. When I was reviewing resumes in the late 90’s, there was at least a three-day delay between placing our help-wanted ad and receiving the first responses. After that, responses came in at the rate of perhaps five or six a day for a week or two. After that period, we still received the occasional resume — but by then we’d already decided whom we wanted to hire.

   Today, hiring managers and recruiters can receive dozens or even hundreds of resumes by email or online within minutes of posting an open position. And just as I had other job responsibilities in addition to screening resumes, hiring managers and recruiters have other tasks as well.

   This means that the first thing you need to do to get your resume noticed is to apply early — run your job search terms every morning and apply right away — so your resume will be on top of that decision-maker’s online pile!

2. Customize your resume and cover letter for each job.Many companies now process resumes electronically, scanning all the resumes they’ve received into a database and running key word searches for the particular skills, knowledge, and experience they desire.

   If you want to get past this computer screening and have an actual human being read your resume, you need to make your best effort to include the keywords the employer will be searching for.

   In a Newsweek interview about online job search tips, job search expert Pat Kendall advises: “What I recommend is that a person find two or three of the best postings that match their ideal job. They should then pull the keywords used in those postings and weave them into their own resume.”

   Remember, though, that the important point is to weave the keywords into your resume. A resume full of great keywords awkwardly dropped into poorly written and disorganized content may get pulled up in an employer’s search, but risks being discarded by the first person who reads it.

3. Limit the positions you apply for.This advice may sound counterintuitive in today’s economy. However, a person giving your resume a whole 15 seconds of their time (down from roughly 30 seconds when I was hand opening snail-mailed resumes) cares only about whether your specific skills and experience matches the job for which you’re applying.

   By focusing your efforts on the smaller number of positions for which you are best suited, rather than taking a shotgun approach, you will avoid much wasted time.

   Of course, you may want to change industries or job titles, or perhaps you’ve concluded this is a necessity in the current job market. If so, it’s particularly important to tailor your resume and cover letter to highlight your transferable skills and to use keywords specific to the job and industry you’re pursuing.

4. Formatting countsYou must take the time to insure that the resume you send will look as perfect in the hiring manager’s hands — or on their computer monitor — as in your hands and on your monitor.

   For an in-depth explanation of the do’s and don’ts of formatting your resume for print, online job sites, and email, see this article on The Riley Guide.

5. Follow instructions, and follow up.If the job posting requires that you send your resume in the body of an email and not as an attachment, do so. Likewise, be sure to follow all of the directions in the job posting. Failure to do so may mean your resume won’t even be seen — and even if it is, will most likely be rejected out of hand.

   Also, remember that job boards don’t hire people. People hire people. If the job posting says “No phone calls” (or even if it doesn’t), you can still do a bit of private sleuthing via LinkedIn, the company Web site, and even your friends and family to get direct contact information for either the hiring manager or someone in the company who is close to that person. Online and offline, networking is still the best way to stand out in today’s overcrowded job-seeking crowd.

The Bottom Line: It’s Not the Decision-Maker’s Job to Search You Out. It’s Your Job to Appeal to the Decision-Maker

When I was opening and scanning snail-mailed resumes, I had one objective: get the process over with as quickly as possible while still finding the best person for the job my company was offering. Even with my other responsibilities, though, I did take the time to open each and every resume-containing envelope that came my way. After all, I’d collected them from the mail, so I had at least a mild interest in seeing whether the resume inside qualified for the “Interview” or “Immediate Polite Rejection Letter” pile on my desk.

Today’s recruiters, hiring managers, and their staff have as little vested interest in any particular resume as they do in any of the hundreds of pieces of electronic communication they see every day. With today’s technology and today’s recession, the people who handle resumes are more overwhelmed than ever. If you want to be one of the people who gets called for an interview, it’s your job to make the hiring staff’s job easy.

Following the above tips will save you time and make the lives of recruiters and hiring managers easier — which will help you get the job.

This guest post is by Katharine Hansen, PhD, author of the newly-released book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

What’s the most effective way to respond to the most frequently asked job-interview question of all, the “tell me about yourself” question?

Consider telling a story.

Behavioral Interview Questions

Many career experts advise candidates to respond to behavioral-interview questions with stories. This very popular type of interview question is based on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. A typical behavioral question is “Tell me about a time when you [used a certain skill or dealt with a specific problem].”

“Your examples are best told through a story format,” writes Carole Martin in Boost Your Interview IQ “The more interesting and relevant the story is, the more the interviewer will want to hear further examples.”

Non-Behavioral Interview Questions Like “Tell Me About Yourself”

Many experts and job-seekers, though, don’t realize that the same storytelling approach works well for interview questions that are not behavior-based -– questions like “Tell me about yourself.”

A perfectly valid choice, as many experts advise, is to respond to “tell me about yourself” with an answer specifically tailored to the requirements of the targeted job. But another excellent choice is to draw your interviewer in and create a connection with him or her by responding in a story format.

Why Does Storytelling Work in a Job Interview?

Storytelling works because stories:

• Establish your identity and reveal your personality; they satisfy the basic human need to be known.
• Help you know yourself and build confidence.
• Make you memorable.
• Establish trust.
• Establish an emotional connection between storyteller and listener and inspire the listener’s investment in the storyteller’s success.
• Help you stand out.
• Illustrate skills, accomplishments, values, characteristics, qualifications, expertise, strengths, and more with vivid pictures.
• Explain key life/career decisions, choices, and changes.
• Help you portray you as a strong communicator.

As part of my research for the book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, I conducted focus groups in which participants evaluated a set of story-based interview responses compared with responses that did not contain stories. Participants commented:

• The story responses presented more information.
• The story responses incorporated the job-seeker’s personal style into handling business.
• Job-seekers who gave the story responses communicated/sold themselves in a very positive light.
• The storytelling respondents were more memorable, since “I would have had more time to get to know them through their answers and the time I spent with them.”
• The story responses were quite the opposite of those without stories in that the storytelling job-seekers expressed themselves in a “colorful” manner, incorporating into the stories terms that employers like to hear during an interview -– such as “reliable,” “trustworthy,” “loyal,” “team player,” and “creative.”
• The storytelling responses allowed the interviewer to see how the job-seekers took on a task and handled it.
• The non-story responses, although concise, did not impress upon the interviewer how the job-seekers could benefit the organization, nor did they provide a sense of the candidate’s personal style and ways of handling day-to-day situations.

The one caution these participants had about the story-based responses was to make them as concise as possible and not too wordy. Participants wanted details –- but not too many.

My focus groups were’t alone in liking responses in the form of stories. Career authors Shelly Goldman and Wendy Enelow suggest that “Tell me about yourself” is a great interview question because it “gives the candidate total control of the interview process” and is “a wonderful vehicle to build rapport.”

Sample “Tell Me about Yourself” Answers

These sample “Tell me about yourself” responses show how incorporating story elements can build rapport:

A story that moves effortlessly from a confession of personal challenges to a declaration of personal characteristics that helped in overcoming them and are characteristics any employer loves to see:

I was born and raised in India by a very loving and caring family. I moved to the United States five years ago and started high school a month later. Everything was new to me; the whole experience was shocking because of the cultural difference. The school, students, and the language were unfamiliar to me, and there were times when I really felt down and discouraged. In the first semester I had a tough time coming to terms with the whole new experience in school.

But I did not give up; I asked for help when I needed it and worked hard. My experience has taught me to be resourceful and persistent.

Here’s another example, in which the interviewee discloses his small-town roots in a way that evokes empathy and paints a picture, making him seem much more modest when he closes with a distinct note of pride in his athletic and academic achievements.

Much of who I am today was shaped by the fact that I come from a very big family in a small town. The number of Ellises in my town is more than 80, so I grew up constantly being compared to those who came before me. When I started playing football in high school, I heard constantly how good my cousins Brad and Lance were at football, and that helped me try just a little harder. In the classroom, it was my cousin Angie who set the standard for me to follow.

Even within the last few years, as I have begun planting the seeds of a future public-service career, most introductions are quickly followed by “Are you one of THE Ellises?” Growing up in the shadow of my family wasn’t bad, though. I had constant support in everything I ever tried, and because I am one of “THE Ellises,” some doors have opened up for me that may not have opened otherwise. And because I constantly had to try to match the achievements of my forerunners, I worked hard and gained many rewards for my efforts.

My family was on hand when I won a prestigious award for outstanding high-school athlete for my achievements in football, track and field, weightlifting, and wrestling. When the door to my chosen college slammed in my face following the first of several knee surgeries, and my hometown university offered me a full academic scholarship, I jumped at the chance to shine in my own back yard. When I become the first Ellis to ever earn a college degree, I think you could hear the noise from miles away.

Next time you’re wondering how to answer the interview question “Tell me about yourself,” try a story.

This article is adapted from a chapter of Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, one of seven books authored/co-authored by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.

Hansen is creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers, as well as an educator who provides content for Quintessential Careers, edits QuintZine, an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling in the job search at A Storied Career.

This guest post via Recruiting Blogswap is from JobGoRound.com, providing career advice on resume writing, job searching, interviewing, and more.

There are certain rules for scheduling job interviews that should be followed for the best results.

Best Days of the Week for Scheduling a Job Interview

You should always schedule your job interviews between Tuesday and Thursday.

If you schedule an interview on Friday, you’ll get someone at the end of the work week when all that is on their mind is the upcoming weekend.

If you schedule an interview on Monday, you’ll get someone at the beginning of the work week, who perhaps will not be happy that their weekend just flew by so fast.

In either case you will not get the full and positive attention you want from your prospective employer.

Best Times of Day for Scheduling a Job Interview

As far as time of day goes, you should always schedule your job interviews for one of two time spans.

The first time span is between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Assuming the business with which you are interviewing operates 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., arriving any earlier than 10 a.m. may get you an interviewer who has not had their morning coffee kick in and may be just a bit cranky.

Always give your prospective boss or other interviewer a little time to settle into the work day.

If you schedule your interview after 11 a.m., you risk a hungry interviewer who will rush you out the door as the noon lunch hour looms. You want to make sure that you have at least a half-hour to plead your case as to why they should hire you.

The second time span is between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Again, assuming the company’s work hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., you can bet lunch is from noon to 1 p.m. Get there any earlier than 2 p.m. and you risk interviewing with a full-bellied boss who hasn’t yet settled back into the work day after lunch. Give your prospective employer just a bit of time to get back into the work groove after lunch is over.

You also should avoid interviewing past 4 p.m. if the work day ends at 5 p.m.

Nothing will get you through an interview faster than scheduling it at the end of the work day. No one likes to stay at work late if they don’t have to, and an interview scheduled later than 4 p.m. puts you at risk of being hurried through the interview.

Again, you want to make sure you have at least a half-hour of undivided attention to get the most out of your interview.

The Best Day and Time for Scheduling a Job Interview Is When It Best Suits the Employer

The only other rule for interviewing is that if the company gives you a day and time, then that is the perfect time for your interview.

Avoid changing an interview that has been set for you by a prospective employer. If they want to meet with you at 4:49 p.m. on Friday, then that’s when you go.

But since many companies will leave it up to you as to when you want to interview, following the above interview scheduling tricks will be to your advantage.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.