For first round, phone interview or In-person?

I have a phone interview with a boutique IB. Recruiter had mentioned that it's always preferable to meet in person, however, as I have personal obligations on the interview day, said I could only make a phone interview work.

Now I'm wondering if I should try and back out of my other commitment and make it out there to meet for this interview? This will be the first time I will be speaking about the position / interviewing, so that was why I initially thought a phone interview is ok (I don't know a great deal about ib interviews, but the odds of receiving an offer after speaking and meeting with a firm the very first time must be near 0). It would also take me over 5 hours to drive to this firm, and was another reason I opted for a phone interview.

Should I just go ahead with the phone interview, or figure out how to meet with them in person instead?

TIA!

3 Comments
 
ProspectiveMonkeyPhone Interview is fine albeit not ideal.

Should have shown you would be willing to drop everything to go meet with them without hesitation. Now, if you go back on it and say you can be present for an in-office interview it may look like you're a wishy-washy person who can't make decisions. Just my opinion though.

Yeah I definitely see what you're saying. That's essentially what I was thinking as well, but the tipping point for me was that this was going to be the first interview, in which case I thought it would be ok to go with the standard phone interview. However in hindsight, once I started thinking about it, believed that I should drop my other commitment and make it work, despite it being first round and quite a bit of a drive.

Not sure I can go back on it at this point though.

 

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