How can I get an idea of the work hours when applying for a job?

One key piece of information that I'd like to have before joining a company is what the culture is in terms of expected work hours. I am worried though that asking this question may make them perceive me negatively? Is there a way to ask about it without making people think that you aren't prepared to work hard?

Unless you are told otherwise you should expect 8AM to 5PM-6PM including a lunch break. It also depends on the industry. If work for say a bank or in retail, you might also work Sat, if you work for a business where there is less foot traffic you wouldn't. Full-time is considered 40 hours a week.

"is a typical day 9 to 5 or is it 9 to 9?" you are not their slave. you are making a life change. you need to know what to expect.

@Ramhound: Definitely not! It depends a lot on the region you live in. As for my personal experience, I never had a job asking me to work from 8h. It was more of a 10 to 20 with a lunch-and-nap break. Don't expect, ask!

Think of it this way. if you ask about overtime and they view that as a negative, then it is probably because they expect a lot of overtime and have high attrition because of it. You wouldn't want to be in that situation anyway. No harm no foul.

Tone can be important in asking this question as I've seen numerous kinds of working hours at most places. Asking what are regular working hours, how many hours a week are you expecting me to work, and is there any flexibility on that are standard things in the US and Canada, IME. Some places may have a 7.5 hour workday, some may have 8 and others may just give you flexibility as long as stuff gets done. This is a totally reasonable question to my mind. Some places will have an idea of "Core hours" that you have to be there while others may be less strict on things.

11 Answers 11

If they're not prepared to tell you the working hours and whether you're expected to work overtime then perhaps this isn't the firm for you.

Just as there are many ways to ask that sound negative, there are many ways to ask positively. However, while it is much more difficult, it is important that you ask. The last thing a company wants is to go through all the expense of hiring someone only for them to leave 3 months later because they didn't like the hours.

One way to bring it up would be to discuss flexibility in the working hours. This could be varying start and finish times by a few minutes because of your commute for example. If you have a regular commitment (church, volunteering, study, etc.) you could bring that up as you might need to leave by a certain time one day.

You can be straightforward without being negative:

I'd like to be clear about the working hours.

Don't forget with an interview it's as much about you checking the company as them checking you.

I agree with @ChrisF, asking is the way to go. If they are evasive then that's a bad sign. They may lie and paint a rosy picture but that's not in their interest to do so.

"how to ask without sounding anti-work" is thinking about this wrong. Let's assume that if the company wanted you to work 9 to 9 six days a week, you would decline to work for them. Finding this out before they make an offer is saving them time. The only companies that will see you asking the question as a negative are the ones you wouldn't work for anyway.

You can ask how many hours a week people typically work. Somehow to me this sounds more like "I want to pull my weight" than "I want to meet the bare minimum." In an admittedly short career so far, I've only had one employer dodge that question. They said they "didn't track" hours so they didn't know. In practice, this meant "you'll never be sure that it's OK to go home." Their vacation policy was similar.

I don't think there is any need to dither with this question in any way. Knowing the working hours is elemental information of any job, and personally I think any kind of wrapping the question simply reflects your insecurity. There is no way an employer could justifiably be offended by you asking "what are the working hours in this?".

Agree. Esepcially if they've given you no reason to think they have mandatory overtime, 3 or 4 sentences on why you don't like overtime so much before you even ask is out of place. You don't need justification to ask, and you don't need to explain why you don't like overtime before you find out if there is any. Just ask.

Of course you have every right to ask. But they have every right to make assumptions based on the way you ask. No?

@pdr: "What are the working hours?" -- If you make any assumption based on this question, I'm willing to bet they are false and based on bias regarding the interviewee. And if you're already biased, there is no way the interviewee could ask the question "right".

@DevSolar: I don't think it's entirely unfair if, of two otherwise similar candidates, one says "What are the working hours?" and the other says "Talk to me about overtime expectations, both day-to-day and when things go bad," that the former doesn't consider those two situations to be different. Just for an example.

@pdr: Well, perhaps the interviewee is testing whether you are aware of there being a difference? As others said, such an interview is a two-sided thing.

Personally, I've never had a bad reaction to something along the lines of

Obviously this isn't always a 9-to-5 job and there are times when you have to push to get things released, but I also don't want to work somewhere that regularly burns people out, so I'm wondering. a) How often does the average person end up working overtime? And b) What processes do you have here to make sure that problems don't repeat themselves too often?

But Péter makes the key point. Think about what you really feel and find a way to express it in question form. If you think it should be a 9-5 job, ask bluntly if there's an overtime culture. If there is then you need to know, and they need to know, that you won't be happy there.

Alternatively, if you're happy to work 10-12 hours a day but you feel that companies should reward that sacrifice (common enough in some industries), say that you're looking for a high-pressure job with big rewards. Again, if they're not that company, you don't want to work there and they don't want you working there.

In short, and this applies to most interview situations, don't worry about putting them off you by being yourself. Worry about pretending to be something you're not and accidentally getting hired into a job you don't want or, worse, missing out on one where you'd be a perfect fit.