Office Etiquette: When to Tell Your Employer About Your Vacation Plans

Dear Classy Career Girl, 

I have been reading your blog daily lately and I find so many useful things that I can incorporate in my daily life. Thank you so much for that. Now I have a question. I have a vacation scheduled three months from now and if I get hired, how should I negotiate my vacation with the new company? Should I inform the new company during the interview process or wait and see if I am hired?  I want to be ethical to my future new employer but I definitely don’t want to have to cancel my vacation! 

-Responsible applicant (with a passport)

Dear Responsible applicant,
When I was first hired at my current company, I was in the exact same position!  I was getting married in three months and I wanted to take three weeks off for my wedding and honeymoon.  I recommend that you don’t say a word about your vacation plans during the interview.  The interview is only the time to put your best foot forward.  When you bring up an issue like this during the interview, they may question how important this job is to you and how often you are going to be going on vacations in the future.

Once you get offered the job and are negotiating salary, that is when you are in the bargaining spot!  They have already done a lot of work to review resumes and interview candidates and they chose you as the best fit!  This is the perfect time to let them know about your future vacation plans.  In my case, I was so worried about it but they really didn’t care at all.  They said that they would work it out and not to worry about it.  I can almost guarantee that you will receive a similar response.  Good luck on your interview!!
-Classy Career Girl

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(photo by keithpr)