How many screening interviews in a day is too many? Forum

[XxSpyKEx]

10 interviews can be a bit much, but definitely don't cancel any. If things are still like they were when I did OCI a couple years ago, you really couldn't expect more than 1-2 callbacks out of all your screening interviews (absent insanely good stats + good bidding strategy), so those few interviews you cancel could be the ones that you might have gotten callbacks at (if nothing else, you'll always wonder whether this would have been the case if you do end up striking out).

I had 10 interviews on my first day of OCI when I did it, and I thought it was pretty hectic trying to memorize all that crap about each of the firms and interviewers. I ended up just printing off some notes about each firm and looking at it before going into the interview as a quick refresher. The thing that really blows about OCI is that all the firms want to come on the same 1-2 day period, where you end up with 10 interviews on the first day, 6 on the second day, and then maybe 1-2 interviews on the next two days. It would be nice if they balanced out the schedules better.

I am also interested in the answer to this question.

Somebody else will be waiting to interview with your interviewer, and they will interrupt. But if not, then yes, say you need to keep to your schedule and wrap up the interview.

what's the most tactful way of doing this in your (or anyone else's) experience?

say if the interviewer is talking about his experience and it doesn't look like he's ending anytime soon, do you just interrupt and say, "I'm sorry. I hate to cut your off, but I really need to get going" ?

It doesn't really happen. They might go a few minutes long, but the interviewer will conduct more interviews in a day than you will. They are not going to suddenly forget that they have 15 more to get through that day, and talk to you for an hour while someone else waits in the hall.

What's rough is towards the end of the day some of the interviewers will be 15, sometimes nearly 20 mins, behind schedule (on 20 min time blocks!). If you have interviews heads-up, this really becomes an issue because you'll end up not being let into your interview until you have 2-5 mins left before your next interview.