When to "hang it up" in an interview

You have likely heard the saying "hanging up your boots" in retirement.  Or possibly hanging up your shoes for a sports' analogy.  I had that come to mind twice yesterday - once when I heard Peyton Manning was announcing his retirement and again when my son concluded his youth basketball season.  The second one was a little bit more humorous as my son literally thought I was asking him to hang up his basketball shoes in the closet.  I don't think he appreciated the metaphor for what it was, at least not at first.

There is some contrast between what Peyton is doing and what my son is experiencing.  Peyton is likely to never play another snap of professional football.  Heck, he may never even take another snap in a charity flag football game.  Whereas my son is simply taking a break between seasons.  He already has camps planned for the summer and is eagerly anticipating next season already, less than 24 hours removed from this season.  How can this apply to an interview process?  In many ways.

Oftentimes I hear from a candidate who is exasperated with an interview process.  Perhaps it is taking too long between interviews.  Or even an initial response from submission of a resume that looked certain to quickly turn into an interview.  Maybe they were told that everyone loves them, but three or four days have passed from the last meeting and no additional feedback is forthcoming.  Or everyone in a meeting claims to "love" your background, yet they want you to go through a battery of personality profiles, online testing, and independent psychological review to be sure.  Even recently I had someone who thought they were close to receiving an offer when some more questions came up that even turned into a request for more meetings/interviews.

So how do you know when it is time to "hang it up" and walk away from an interview?

1)  NEVER.  To quote the great Jim Valvano, "Never give up.  Don't ever give up."  Is this a little extreme?  Absolutely.  But it is predicated on a few factors, so hear me out.  First of all, we have to make the conclusion that you are interested in the job you are interviewing for.  Because if you're not, the first minute you agreed to an interview was when the waste of time began for all parties.  Secondly, how a company interviews is NOT always how they are going to conduct business.  So just because an interview process may be lengthy and laborious, it does not mean the company is a bad place to be.  It is very difficult to have a perfect process because there are many moving parts.  This doesn't mean I am advocating putting up with crazy requests or shutting things down if it goes in a bad direction.  Just don't let little hiccups make you question the job until you've made it through an additional step or two.

2)  When you find out the salary range is entirely unacceptable.  This one may be more of a gray area then we have time to explore in a blog, but it is an objective factor in a subjective process.  If you need to make $75,000 to consider a move and the role you are interviewing for cannot go above $50,000, that is a gap.  If you handle this correctly, you still may be in the running for other opportunities down the road with the same employer.  Honesty and transparency communicated in a professional manner can help with this.  Employers will appreciate that more than you can imagine.

3)  When the job description or role changes in such a manner that you know you could never accept an offer should it come.  One example I can think of is if you were told at the outset that working remotely from home could be possible.  Then you find out you need to move your family three states away instead.  Unless you are willing and able to consider that, it is likely time to walk away.  The game has changed enough that it is time to move on.

4)  If you are asked an inappropriate or even illegal question.  Your gut is always your best guide on these, and it should not happen very often.  But I have absolutely had candidates follow up with me feeling a little uneasy about something.  It should never be a difficult decision - if you have had it happen to you, it was probably easy to walk away at the end of that interview.

If you notice, the general theme here is that there shouldn't be a long list of reasons why you should leave an interview process too early.  I know from direct experience that it happens all the time, and I wish candidates would have a little more patience and faith in the process.  Far more often good would come of it than not.