How to handle job interviews while working full time without PTO
Scheduling interviews around a demanding job without sick time forces people to rely on fake excuses for brief absences or multi-hour onsite visits. The pressure of maintaining these cover stories each week alongside normal work demands causes severe anxiety and guilt.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Making up excuses for absenceDid this help you?
- 2Putting 'appointment' on the work calendarDid this help you?
- 3Waiting for a written offer letter before giving noticeDid this help you?
- 4Taking personal or vacation time off (whole days)Did this help you?
- 5Using dentist or doctor appointment excusesDid this help you?
- 6Calling in sickDid this help you?
- 7Requesting early morning or late afternoon interview time slotsDid this help you?
- 8Batching/stacking multiple interviews onto the same dayDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I’m getting extremely stressed with managing my time with my current company and interviewing with these two.”source ↗
“I have no PTO or sick time to use so I’m kinda just making up excuses for my absence. I feel horrible and stressed.”source ↗
“It’s the lying that is driving me crazy haha. I know I have to do whatever I have to do. But damn it just feels so wrong 😭”source ↗
“I have started moving to final rounds with a few companies and unfortunately they want me to come onsite. My current job is very demanding with random calls and messages. I was thinking of letting my team know I have an appointment for one onsite but it would start to look a bit weird to have one each week. Any thoughts on how to navigate this?”source ↗
Where this came up
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