Search committees that will be conducting interviews at the AHA annual meeting in New Orleans should plan to schedule conference interviews more than 21 days before the first day of the meeting. That means that all interviews should be scheduled by mid-December.

At its June meeting, the AHA Council amended the Guidelines for the Hiring Process to specify that “Ideally, applicants should be notified of a conference interview more than 21 days in advance to allow them to take advantage of less expensive air fares and preregistration rates.”

When interviews are scheduled at the last minute, candidates are saddled with unnecessary extra costs. Airfares can double within 21 days of travel. Candidates may have to pay full price for a hotel room in an expensive city since the cutoff for reserving a room at the AHA’s deeply discounted rates is in mid-December. They also have to pay the higher onsite meeting registration fee.

While it is understandable that the press of the semester and the volume of applications can make it difficult for search committees to identify finalists in mid-December, it is worth extra effort to protect the most economically vulnerable members of the profession. Search committees should do their best to structure their search and review process to allow sufficient time for scheduling conference interviews.

For advice on running an effective search, see the Professional Division’s practical suggestions for running a job search and treating job candidates on the AHA web site.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.