Welcome Professionals…

…This week I was surprised by a very unusual case of bad timing.

At the premise of my client, we were expecting a candidate for a presentation, that was the follow-up meeting to a first job interview.

The exact time schedule had been shared and confirmed well in advance. The plan was to arrive at 4.15 pm and get an introduction to a task, work on the task from 4.30 pm for 30 minutes, and then present the results at 5.00 pm.

The candidate showed up at 1.30 pm – more than two and half hours early. The staff at the reception was a bit overwhelmed. They finally placed the candidate into an office at the end of the floor, hoping he would not run into other candidates for the same job that were expected for an earlier slot.

You may say: rather too early than too late. But this is actually not true. As a professional we want to be on time. Neither too early nor too late. Being too early is just another way of not being on time. It sets business partners under pressure who might feel an obligation of changing their schedule because they do not want to make their guests wait. It can have other stressful implications like in the case above.

Entering the office 5 to 10 minutes in advance is fine. For everything beyond that – go grab a coffee outside.

Now it’s time for me to shut up,

Malte

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